Page 13 - DFCS News Magazine Winter 2015

Volume 15, Issue 3 - Winter
No Flares & DFC by LtCol Ronald Green, USAF Ret.
The Dis nguished Flying Cross (DFC) is ra- ther a coveted medal among all Pilots. When awarded this, I wondered if it was for my ying 3 nights and 4 days without going to bed or if it was for being the rst to deliver ordnance o a jet ghter at night with no are ship, as it had aborted or a combina on of both. When I nally got the Cita on, I read that it was for em- ploying much ordnance on many missions and delivering ordnance a er the are ship had run out of ares. I think their wording saved me from being court-marshaled.
I was to be awarded the DFC from May 29 to June 2, 1965, when the North Vietnamese tried to cut the northern area of SVN o just below DaNang and overrun DaNang. As we a empted to get the maximum number of day missions o and y the necessary night missions, I, as one of the few quali ed for night missions, volunteered and ew day and night for 4 days and the 3 en- compassed nights. At that me, only formally quali ed night weapons release Pilots could y night combat missions, and I was needed each night for Alert and to ll the day schedules they needed me there to. So, being a macho Fighter Pilot and not wan ng to be overrun by the NVN, I volunteered to y day and night. At least we had a chair that worked out good for naps.
On one of the day missions our ground troops were defending DaNang from several platoons of the enemy. This had developed into where the enemy was organized into a hard line just a few miles from DaNang and were arranged into an a ack from a tree line with a trench dug in behind it for their mortars and heavy machine guns. I was leading a 4-ship ight, and it was so close that we could easily see the air eld of DaNang from our base leg on our weapons deliv- eries.
We dropped ordnance from our wing sta ons and then rolled in to strafe down the trench for maximum e ec veness. On the rst strafe pass, 4 called o with a hit and returned to base. I said, “Roger that, and we'll keep you in sight ll
on nal; and if you bail out, we'll come and cap you”. He rogered and went to channel 2 for landing.
We con nued our mission and on the next pass, 2 called o with a hit and returned to land. Again I told him roger the hit and same instruc ons as for four. He rogered this, and we con nued on.
On the next pass, 3 called o with a hit and returned to base. I rogered this and said I'd stay high and dry ll he was on nal. A er he was on nal, I con nued to strafe for 2 more passes and, in this case, it was ll my 20 MM was expended. I never took a hit and when the ground troops took that area, they said they didn't encounter any signi cant opposi on.
I did get the third a ernoon o a er ying in the morning but, as I was going to bed, I decided to go out and tan by our bunker, as my tan was su ering. While si ng there reading, a snipers bullet whizzed by my ear. At this point I was done trying to sleep so I went down to the squadron. Adrenaline replaces the need for sleep for many days!
The only way they let me y 4 days and 3 nights in a row was when they said you can’t y 3 days and nights in a row because of crew rest. I volunteered to y without logging the missions. So, I ew one day (day 3 and night 3) and that night mission without logging a minute in the 781. They didn’t happen to think that if I crashed, they would s ll be responsible for le ng me y. Checked my personal log book and I also didn’t log my night ights on day 1 & 2.
On the second night I was #2 con gured with rocket pods outboard. As both red on the rst pickle, our trick was to set one of the outboard load switches to empty. Then when we pickled only one rocket pod would re. Then on downwind we would turn that se- lector switch to rockets so we could re the second pod on the next pass. This gave us more target cover- age.
Well, on my rst pass about 3 rockets hung up in the pod and start a slow burn, so as I looked out at my right wing, I saw a bunch of sparks streaming back from that rocket pod. I thought that if they really caught on re they would cause my airplane to blow up so, I said to myself, that I would set that switch to
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