Scavenger Hunt - Memoirs of CPT Ron Radcliffe
by Ron Radcliffe - LOH Crew Jackie White & Ronald Terry, - Date unknown (Late 1971?),
Transcribed by Darrell Scott a friend - July 2021
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One day, we were flying a mission called “first light”. I was flying C&C which means command and control and I was sitting in the rear of the Huey Slick, trying to stay awake. I was the mission commander and I did not like it so I went to sleep. The scout pilot was a guy named Jackie White and he was operating not far from our home base which was a place called Lai Khe. We called a Light Observation Helicopter (LOH) a Loach. White had a Loach with a minigun on it. A minigun can shoot as fast as 6000 rounds per minute. You can set the rate of fire. He’s flying around down there and we’re at 1500-1800 feet, or something. A Cobra is buzzing around.
It was uneventful until White said, “I think I’ve got some movement down here.” I woke up then because that means there may be bad guys. He said, “I definitely have movement down here. What’s my fire clearance?” I said, “Your fire clearance is recon by fire.” That means you can shoot anything down there. I added, “Let me check with operations.” Which I did and they verified it was recon by fire. Which means it’s the infamous free fire zone. Which is never what people think it was. I was awake now and paying attention. White says, “I’ve got a lot of people down here.” I said, “Your fire clearance is recon by fire. You can shoot them.” He says, “Wait a minute, wait a minute, something’s not right.” We wait a minute or two while he’s flying around. White says, “There’s a lot of people down here, but I can’t shoot them.” I said, “Why can’t you shoot them?” He said, “They don’t look right.” I said, “Take another look at them.” I reiterated his fire clearance. He says, “Yeah, I think they are women and children. I’m not going to shoot them” I said, “OK.” He said, “But there is a lot of them.” I said, “See if you can herd them into one group.”
So he herded them into a little group by flying and pointing. Of course they did it because he was armed, heavily armed. In the aircraft with me were a South Vietnamese major, an interpreter, and an American major. They were the local fire clearance authorities for that zone, area of operations. I told them what we had. They wanted us to shoot them. I said, “We don’t want to shoot them, we think they are women and children.” They said, “See what’s happening.” White herded them over and told me, “They are women and children and they have a couple of bicycles.” I said, “Let me talk to the people in the aircraft with me.” To them, I said, “He has a bunch of women and children. I think we should go down there and capture them. You guys up for it?” They looked at each other and said, “Yeah.” I said to the crew of the Huey, “Are you guys up for it?” They said, “Yeah, let’s go.” I said, “White can cover us and the Cobra can cover all of us.” Who was in the Cobra? So the Huey crew dived out of altitude and landed in this field of grass about two feet high. We leaped out of the aircraft with our rifles. There were a bunch of women and children there. There could have been bad guys there, and we could have been ambushed, but White didn’t see them, so we took the chance. I guess there were about twelve of them, and they are small people so we put all of them in the Huey. The Loach was buzzing around us and the COBRA was buzzing around all of us. Then we took off.
The Vietnamese major and interpreter are telling them to keep their heads down and their eyes closed. So they are all sitting in the squatting position which the Vietnamese can do for hours. It would kill my knees. We are at about 1500 feet and this one little kid opens his right eye and peaks out the door. The interpreter yells, “Close your eyes.” He closes his eyes and puts his head down. Then he opens his eye again and is peeking out the door. These people have never been on a helicopter and are freaked out but amazed at the same time. The interpreter catches them again and looks at me. I said, “Let’s let them look out. They have never been in a helicopter. This is a stunning event for them.” The interpreter says, “Yeah, you guys can look.” So they all looked and were amazed.
We flew them over to Lai Khe. We landed and took them all out. The interpreter and headquarters people talked to them for a few minutes and realized they were out there trying to get some junk off an old wrecked helicopter. They would make plates, pots and pans out of the metal. The Vietnamese headquarters people told them, “Never do that again.” They gave them big bags of stuff: food, pots and pans and whatever else they could find these people needed. Then put them on a truck and sent them home. It was a nice ending to what could have been a really bad day. White could have just gunned them all down with his minigun. I was happy things turned out as it did.