The Cutter Incident
During one period in the summer of 1966 we were sent as single ship on missions to Pac One and Two at night to locate Targets of Opportunity and strike them. One night as I was returning from one of those missions, I noted a half moon rising above the South China Sea making a brilliant swath of light on the water. It occurred to me that a boat would really stand out in that brilliant path. I let down to about 2000 feet and proceed south just off the beach. We spotted lots of fishing sampans with a light to attract fish and did not bother them. Sure enough, before long a large cargo junk appeared. I had sails but was likely also under power and was headed south at a brisk pace. I had seen and strafed many of these cargo junks in the day time. They were usually 40-50 feet long and very broad and made of teak. They very hard to sink with guns only and the best you could usually do was to set them on fire. I had complained to the armament folks in Saigon several times about our inability to get API (armor piercing incendiary) to mix with the HEI (high explosive incendiary). The HEI would blow off surface pieces and start fires but would not penetrate to the vitals of the boat and hit machinery and fuel tanks. The same went for strafing trucks. Some of our aircraft were armed with 8 50Cal guns and they only had API and I liked them better for trucks and junks. They fired at the same rate as the 20MM, 100 rounds per second and carried twice as much ammo, 2400 versus 1160.
The shining path of the moon was only about 30 degrees left of my heading along the beach so I just made a quick turn to put the junk on my nose, turned on the guns, adjusted the gun sight to 3.5 depression, and gave her a 4 second burst of 20MM. The HEI rounds made blue-white flashes on the junk and started some small fires. I came back around and got her in the shining path again and gave her another 4 seconds. This time she was burning visibly and I did not have to put her in the shining path for the third pass. After I had fired out I hung around a while and watched her burn and she eventually had some large secondary explosions and then blew up. I found out later that a higher strafe angle worked better as it allowed me to fire down at an angle into the deck openings and start fires and explosions in the hold.
I did not report this in my intel debrief as I was sure it was not allowed by the ROE. I swore my navigator to secrecy and we continued to strafe the junks. The scheduling officer could not figure out why I was requesting specific mission times. It was because of the moon rise times.
Unknown to me, another pilot in the squadron, Bob, had discovered the same thing I had and was having as much fun as I. However, this fun came to a sad end. One night Bob carried his fun too far south and found a large vessel that obviously was not a junk. It was a steel ship that looked like a war ship of some kind. Bob did not fire on it at first and tried to contact it on UHF Guard (243.0 MHZ). Most ships only have VHF and HF so he got no answer. He flew over the ship and flashed his lights. The response from a friendly was to be a green light. He got none. The ship started high speed maneuvers so he figured it was a NVN gun boat and started strafing it. When he ran out of ammo he called for help and a flight of F-4s showed up. They did not have guns but did have bombs. They dropped bombs all over the South China Sea and did not hit anything.
Bob had to report the incident during intel debriefing as did the F-4 pilots. The reports went to 7th AF Headquarters in Saigon. Later that morning, the Coast Guard Cutter “Point Welcome” showed up at a friendly port south of the DMZ all shot up. The skipper, LTJG David Brostrom, and crewman EN2 Jerry Phillips, was dead. Two other crewmen, a Vietnamese liaison officer, and a freelance journalist from Australia were wounded. Chief Richard Patterson took command of the ship during the attack and was awarded the Bronze Star with “V” device. His citation read:
"The first attack caused a blazing gasoline fire on the fantail of the cutter that threatened to engulf the entire after section of the vessel. Chief Patterson, displaying the finest qualities of bravery and leadership, took charge of the situation and using a fire hose, forced the flaming liquid over the side, thus extinguishing the fire. Even as he was accomplishing this task, he saw the second aircraft attack rip through the pilot house killing the cutter's commanding officer and seriously wounding the executive officer and the helmsman. Unhesitatingly, and with complete disregard for his personal safety, Chief Patterson climbed to the bridge and took command. He ordered the crew to carry the wounded to the comparative safety of the below decks area. Alone on the bridge, he then maneuvered the cutter at high speed to avoid subsequent attacks. When it became apparent that he could not successfully evade the attacking aircraft, he ran the cutter close ashore, and directed the crew to abandon ship. Under his composed leadership, the wounded were wrapped in life jackets and paired with the able bodied before going over the side. Chief Patterson kept his crew calm and organized while they were in the water and until they were picked up by rescue craft."
A T-39 was dispatched to Danang and Ubon to pick up the pilots involved and deliver them to stand in front of General Momyer to explain their actions. After he heard all their stories, he reportedly said “What kind of a goddam Air Force have I got that can’t even sink a tiny little boat?’ And that was the last of it. It was also the last of our fun in the moonlight. I never did report my “fun” and the incident did not evidently harm Bob’s career as I heard he got an assignment as a White House Fellow.
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