A Not So Merry Christmas

I was assigned to the 23 TASS and arrived at NKP in October 1967. After flying for about six weeks on day missions I got my night checkout on December 8th. I started flying night missions over the trail with a FAN in the right seat of the O-2 operating the starlight scope. Nights were really scary because you could see every round fired at you. During the approximately one hour flying time from NKP to the trail you had ample opportunity to reflect on your own mortality as you could see all the ground fire being directed at the guys you were to relieve. In actuality nights were safer if you could keep from hitting the trees or rocks. Nights sure looked scary, however.

On Christmas Eve night 1967 my FAN and I were working the trail between Tchpone and the "Chokes" when we got a call from "Moonbeam" to go down and check out Channel 77, the TACAN at Muong Phine. "Moonbeam" had lost radio as well as tacan contact with the site. Muong Phine is about 20 miles SW of Tchpone on Route 9. We headed southwest, in the general direction of the site, and had no trouble finding it. The entire site was ablaze. We could not make contact with anyone on any frequency, VHF, UHF or FM. We began to make low passes over the field to see if any one would fire at us and give away their positions. No luck. There is a 2500 ft. mountain and a 1700 ft mountain to the E and SE of the field so we were pretty puckered about them also. During the passes we could see many bodies strewn about and all the buildings were on fire. What appeared to be the TACAN station was blown over on its side. There was continuous gunfire observed in what was probably the last of the firefight by the Royal Lao defenders. We were unable to put in any air strikes as we could not tell the good guys from the Gomers. It was extremely frustrating to sit there and not be able to do anything. The next morning Air America sent in two helos to recover the bodies of the airmen that had been manning the TACAN. There were reports that they had been brutally mutilated and set on fire. We can only hope that they were already dead when that happened. On the way out one of the helos was shot down but luckily with no casualties.

Christmas night we were back on the trail and misfortune continued. Terry Koonce a T-28 driver was shot down and killed. We claimed one truck and one gun destroyed but that was a very unequal pay back for our losses. Somehow since then Christmas has not been my favorite holiday as Christmas 1967 crowds my memory.