Warbird Information Exchange

Why was stopping traffic on the trail so problematic? Well. when your target is a "track" in the forest, a stand of trees suspected as being a truck park or rocks in a river being used as a ford, they're kinda hard to destroy.











C2j

Ya know Randy, you might have something there, but consider what some people will think in a few hundred years when they come back and see all those holes. There will be all sorts of speculation how ancient aliens must have made those circles. Or maybe the earth was bombarded by meteorites. The trenches and artillery shell craters from WWI purty much have gone away in a 100 years but mainly I suspect because the land was reclaimed for farming. No such luck in most of the jungles of Laos. The jungle may reclaim, but from what I know of geology, those craters will be there for a long long time. They may get filled in eventually and buried. But wouldn't it be fun to see how they are interpreted but those archeologists in the future who no doubt will not have reached that chapter in their history books when they were attending high school?? Seems like they barely get to WWI now. No chance to get to 1968 even in Stardate 5568. Oh wait, I know, it was a giant soil aeration project built by the Mayans as directed by the Ancient Astronauts. That would be a great episode for America Unearthed only it would be in Laos. What do you think?? JR

Any chance of getting some type of coordinates on the locations of these photos? A few years ago I might have recognized some of them but I'm afraid the years have taken their toll.
Frank Nelson
Nimrod Oct 1967/68

C2J... great photos! Thanks for posting those. The Nimrod A-26's were not so much trying to destroy the roads as much as they were trying to catch the actual truck traffic. If the roads got blasted, the NVA just fixed them or made work around trails. Hard to mess up a dirt road or trail for long if it can just be filled in the next day with more dirt. The NVA got sneaky at times. They put out hulks on the road to lure aircraft in close and while on the strafing or bombing run, hose them down with all sorts of hidden AA guns. Tactics and counter tactics were always changing. Fake villages were built to park trucks in because the rules of engagement prohibited attacking a village for fear of collateral damage to natives. Same thing with the silly rule about not attacking any trucks more than 100 meters off the trail. The drivers figured it out quickly enough. Then the Nimrods had trouble measuring 100 meters at night and waxed the trucks anyway. They were the most successful unit for the trucks destroyed for the sorties flown. Oh, and the ROE, as mentioned before, made it so they could only count trucks burned, not blown to bits. Then, of course, because a certain 7th AF General didn't want prop driven airplanes in his jet Air Force, he made certain that other jet units got credit for the missions instead of the 609th citing their classified status. Washington doesn't seem to have gotten any brighter since then?? Can't run a war from DC regardless of how many times the politicians try. What does it say about them when they keep trying the same old thing and getting the same results??? If a war is to be fought, turn the professionals loose and win as quickly as possible with total commitment. Stepping off my soapbox now. JR

Frank,

No coordinates listed on the pictures, sorry. Their provenance is: mailed from NKP to family by my oldest brother who was a FAC/nav on C-123K's with the Candlesticks. 1969 timeframe.

C2j

Here is another shot from George M's collection which shows another rare event.... a daylight mission in an A-26. The majority were at night so shooting photos was difficult to say the least. I did see some 8 mm movie action of a machine gun run that was filmed by Nolan S., but it only shows up because of the tracers and the resulting explosions on the ground when the target started to burn. George's pic shows a water crossing along the trail. Again, nothing fancy, no steel or wooden bridges. The NVA just piled rocks and material up until the trucks or bicycles could cross although they often tried to disguise it by leaving it underwater. Don't you know there were a lot of busy truck mechanics trying to keep these things running under very austere conditions. Finding the repair depots was almost as good as finding a convoy. Ditto POL dumps. Note the gunsight in the upper right of the picture. Our man Larry, has found the connection and the bulb that goes in our sight so we can make it active on Kay. The guys ran the hydraulics for the bomb bay doors yesterday. Everything is now synched up between the front and aft actuators. The wild pigs are just lucky we aren't having a BBQ yet!!! But we did have a very fine potluck Holiday luncheon with all of the VFM hangar folks yesterday. A great time was had by all and the food was excellent! Will try to post some pics later. Cheers, JR

Cubs2jets... with your permission I would like to copy the pics of the trail you posted and send them to Jimmy Butler (Col, USAF, Ret). He is the author of "A Certain Brotherhood" (and others) and was a FAC in the early days flying O-1s & O-2s. He still has maps of the region and may be able to identify the specific places for the photos. I haven't done this yet, so let me know if it is OK to copy your pics.

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Bob
Memories of Naked Fanny
More Memories of Naked Fanny (Nov 2013)
609th Nimrod, Bomb loader, Gun Plumber, '68 - '69

Certainly OK by me. Not like they belong to anyone beyond the taxpayers! I do have a number more, but these were the most interesting!

C2j

I think the "inverted Y" in the first pic in the series posted by Cubs2jets is the intersection of routes 911 and 912 coming in from North Vietnam. I had planned to ride through this area this spring before my trip had to be aborted so when I saw this pic it rang a bell. With the help of some old wartime maps and Google Earth I'm pretty sure this is it. (I'm not certain, and I'll be sending the pics to Jimmie Butler to see if he can confirm.) If you use Google Earth to look at this, rotate the pic around to get north pointing up.

The intersection of routes 911 and 912 was just north of "The Chokes"... north of interdiction point "Alpha". Route 911 came in from Mu Gia pass and Route 912 came in from the Ban Karai Pass. After entering Laos Route 912 passed by "Harley's Valley" and then ran through the Ban Loboy Ford. The Ban Loboy Ford is said to be the most bombed spot on earth. (Harley's Valley got it's name from the pilot, Capt Lee Harley, of an O-1 FAC and his "Butterfly FAC" back-seater, A1C Andre Gulliet, were shot down and lost there.) The road going south from the intersection went to Tchepone... the largest North Vietnamese trans-shipment center in Laos.

I'm sure that every Nimrod pilot knows about Mu Gia, Ban Karai, the Loboy Ford, Harley's Valley and Tchepone. The AAA was intense. Perhaps Frank might want to make a few comments about the "adventure" of flying around those places.

If you want to use Google Earth to find where I think this spot is here are the coordinates:

17° 3'11.14"N
105°57'17.06"E

If you use Google Earth to look at this, rotate the pic around to get north pointing up.

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Bob
Memories of Naked Fanny
More Memories of Naked Fanny (Nov 2013)
609th Nimrod, Bomb loader, Gun Plumber, '68 - '69

Here is a pic that I know is showing the intersection of routes 911 & 912 (upper left corner of this pic.) You can look at the earlier pic and see if you think these are the same points. Note that in this pic, a bypass road has been built (upper left corner of pic) so that the trucks have a way around.

The area in the bottom middle is interdiction point Alpha. The reason it was bombed so heavily is because it was an open area where trucks had to "run the gauntlet". Depending on the time-frame, the rules of engagement didn't allow us to just bomb a place where there were "suspected" trucks... they had to be spotted. The area at the intersection had lots of jungle coverage where trucks were difficult to spot... the heavily bombed area was open and it was easier. (I hesitate to use the word "easier".... there was never anything easy about any of it.)

(USAF Photo via Jimmie Butler)

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Bob
Memories of Naked Fanny
More Memories of Naked Fanny (Nov 2013)
609th Nimrod, Bomb loader, Gun Plumber, '68 - '69

Bob, no doubt about all the guns protecting those areas. You expected to get shot at if you were attacking trucks in those areas. I can remember many times when 7 or 8 positions would be firing, during a pass. As time went on even just flying over these places would result in a response from the gunners. I guess their supply system improved to the point that they had plenty of ammo. If one is interested in a detailed account of operations on the trail I would suggest reading "The Blood Road" by John Prados.
Frank Nelson
Nimrod, Oct 67/68

Frank, do you recall some of the types or calibers of guns ya'll were facing? What were some of the gunner's tactics besides just blasting away? I've heard some other pilots describe how the gunners would wait for an aircraft to pass and then open fire so they would be caught be surprise from behind. Could you describe maybe a little bit of how those rounds looked coming up in the night? Thanks, and good to hear from you! Regards, JR

37mm over Laos


Photo credit: Bill Tkacs CMSGT USAF

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Bob

JR, I'm not sure I can provide a whole lot more than what you have already been told. During my tour the 37MM gun was most prevalent. The photo, Bob posted,
shows the rounds coming up in a typical fashion. The 37MM used a 5 round clip. When they got close they would illuminate the interior of the cockpit. On several occasions I remember hearing them go by. I was told that since the shells were moving over mach 1 they each caused a little sonic boom. The other guns we encountered were the 23MM and the ZPU. both of these were multi barreled. The 23MM often had two barrels, same with the ZPU. Both of these had a much higher firing rate than the 37MM. If the ZPU was tracking you it was possible to follow an arc of tracers as the crew swung the gun. As far as tactics by the gunners some gun crews were clearly better than others. Firing at an aircraft right after it's attack would make sense since you're lower and speed bleeds off as you start to climb. That being said, several reviews of sorties, where aircraft were hit, did not show any particular pattern.
Frank
Nimrod, Oct 67/68

Frank, thanks for those memories. It reminded me of a story that Tim B told me about a gunner who opened up on him. Tim was headed back to NKP just before sunrise. Tim turned around & dove on the gun emplacement trading .50 cal for 37 mm. On the first pass he said the right seater was screaming to break left. Tim didn't see the rounds going by since he was focused on the target, but later the right seater said they were going between the prop & canopy on his side. On the second pass, the 37 mm globs were coming between the prop & canopy on the left side where Tim got an eyeful. He decided against a third pass. I think maybe it was due to not wanting to take out that gunner because they might have replaced him with one who was a better shot! JR