CHAPTER 3
The Marine Corps is an air-ground team so, along with the deployment of its infantry battalions into Vietnam, the call came for aircraft to follow. Marine helicopter squadrons had rotated in and out of the country in support of the ARVN and the Vietnamese Marines since 1962. Lieutenant Colonel Archie Clapp’s Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 362 (HMM-362) landed at Soc Trang on April 15, 1962, and operated out of a former Japanese airfield in the Mekong Delta. A succession of squadrons provided the Marines with invaluable information about operating in Vietnam. The operational designation of this effort was “Shufly.” By early 1965 the helicopter commitment had grown to two squadrons. Now that the Marines had their own infantry in Vietnam, fixed-wing attack and fighter aircraft were added for close air support.
It became obvious that a second airfield for fixed-wing aircraft would be needed. The field in Danang was overcrowded with both Marine and Air Force squadrons, South Vietnamese aviation units, and logistics traffic. It had a single 10,000-foot runway that just a few years earlier had served as a provincial airport for that part of the country. Now it was tasked with being a major air base in a war zone.
In the words of a Marine aviator, Maj Al Bloom, Danang was “dangerous as hell.” Several spectacular and tragically fatal accidents occurred there. Then there was “One-Shot Charlie,” a Viet Cong who lived near the end of the runway and who cranked off a round at every aircraft that passed over his end of the field. The Americans never found him.
Thanks to the foresight of Marine LtGen Victor Krulak, the commander of Fleet Marine Force, Pacific (FMFPac), a site was already under study for the installation of a Short Airfield for Tactical Support (SATS).2 It was about fifty miles south of Danang on a sandy coastal plain near the South China Sea. After reviewing the contingency plans for a rapid American buildup in South Vietnam, Krulak recommended this particular location to his boss, Commander-in-Chief, U.S. Pacific Fleet (CinCPac), Adm U. S. Grant Sharp. Admiral Sharp agreed and fired it up the line to Washington. On March 12, 1965, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara approved the installation. General Krulak decided the new base was to be called Chulai.
“Chulai” is not a Vietnamese name. When Krulak was a young officer in China in the years prior to World War II, he learned the Chinese characters that approximated the Chinese pronunciation of his name. The Vietnamese pronounced these same characters “Chulai.” They mean “little man” which, given Krulak’s 5 feet, 5 inch height, seemed appropriate.3 Despite his small size, Krulak was a famous Marine, and a hero. His classmates at the Naval Academy had dubbed him “Brute” because of his diminutive stature. A story was that to make sure he made the minimum height requirement for Annapolis he had had someone whack him on the head with a board to raise a knot the day of his entrance physical. Brute Krulak went on to win the Navy Cross Medal in World War II, become the youngest major general in the Marine Corps, and served as special advisor for counter-insurgency warfare to Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He possessed a quick mind and boundless energy.
The Marines, looking back at their extensive experience in fighting in primitive countries, had long thought about the advantages of being able to quickly construct and operate from 2,000-foot-long airfields that could handle two or three aircraft squadrons. As originally envisioned, these bases would be constructed on the site of undeveloped or abandoned airfields.
As naval aviators, Marine pilots are qualified to operate from the confines of an aircraft carrier deck. The problem now was to move the operation ashore. In addition to an airstrip there would have to be taxiways; hardstand; fueling, maintenance and rearmament facilities; and air traffic control. Moreover, since they would be operating from very short fields, they needed something like the catapults used on ships to launch aircraft, and arresting gear to recover them. The Marine Corps Development Center at Quantico, Virginia, pushed for an entire expeditionary airfield that could be assembled and operational in seventy-two to ninety-six hours. Various projects were underway to fulfill these requirements.
In 1960 the Marines conducted a major exercise to test their theories at Ping Tung, Taiwan. There they constructed and operated from a SATS airfield in an expeditionary environment. While the operation was deemed a success, there were many kinks to be ironed out, and the Taiwan exercise was, after all, conducted in a peaceful environment.
One of the essential needs at Chulai was for runway and taxiway material that would withstand impact and static loads of aircraft, and jet exhaust temperature. After much experimentation, the AM-2 aluminum plank was selected. Two by twelve feet in size and 140 pounds in weight, each plank was capable of being interlocked in place.
The arresting gear for carrier use was modified. It was a dry friction, energy-absorbing device with a wire pendant that stretched across the runway. Marine fixed-wing aircraft, like those of their Navy brethren, were equipped with tailhooks that the pilot dropped when landing in order to snag the arresting gear. The aircraft recovery gear developed for Chulai worked, and it later became standard in the Marine Corps.
A problem with launching still needed to be overcome. A land-based catapult was under development but was not available in March 1965, when the decision was made to build the airfield at Chulai. The Marines decided to temporarily overcome the problem with the use of jet assisted take-off (JATO) bottles. These were essentially rockets, temporarily attached to the aircraft for launch and then jettisoned upon takeoff. The Marines modified their small A4 Skyhawk attack aircraft to use them.
The amphibious bulk fuel system, developed for vehicular traffic, was modified with the proper fuel-dispensing devices to service aircraft.
A problem the Quantico planners did not envision was the terrain on which this airstrip would be built. There was no abandoned airfield there, or even soil. The entire area was covered with soft sand. But Chulai was by the sea, near a body of water, tucked in behind a peninsula that could be developed into an LST (Landing Ship, Tank) port. A port that could handle up to six LSTs was quickly developed, and it supported nearly all the considerable logistics requirements for the field and the aircraft. Direct supply or reinforcement from the sea was a major advantage. The site could also be defended without too much difficulty, and there was a relatively small Vietnamese population to be relocated.
On May 7, 1965, the 2d Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4), came ashore to secure and guard the site. Colonel James McClanahan’s 4th Marines command post landed to coordinate the operation and Cdr J. M. Bannister’s 10th Seabees (Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 10) followed the Marines onto the beach to build the first SATS under combat conditions.
The 2d Battalion, 4th Marines, was part of the 1st Marine Brigade, based in Hawaii, and came to Vietnam, along with its parent unit after briefly pausing at Okinawa. Lieutenant Colonel Joseph R. “Bull” Fisher commanded the battalion, and most of his Marines had been together for more than two years. They trained hard and well, and understood each other’s strengths and weaknesses. In many cases they knew each other’s families.
Like all Marines units, 2/4 was a force in readiness and could be called at any time to deploy to a combat area. But the guns of the Korean War had been silent for twelve years and most of the men expected to serve their tours with 2/4 in peace until rotation home or expiration of active service caught up with them. In the spring of 1965, however, signs began to accumulate that conditions were changing. Their anticipated participation in Operation Silver Lance in California was cancelled. The Marines were asked to make out wills, take care of pay allotments for their families, and stow personal effects. They were subjected to on-again, off-again, hurry-up-and-wait drills, until one day they packed up and boarded ship. Ostensibly they were sailing for Okinawa. In their guts, the Marines knew better. Vietnam became, very intently, the object of their thoughts and discussions. They did spend a few weeks on Okinawa, where they test-fired weapons, got their vaccinations up to date, and stored the last of their civilian clothes. They formed around-the-clock work parties to load ships with ammunition—live ammunition this time, not the blanks they were accustomed to using. They also trained hard and kept themselves in good physical condition to meet the rigors of combat, should they be called. Some of the officers and staff non-commissioned officers (SNCOs) went to Vietnam on temporary assignments and came back with daunting tales about the heat, the enemy, and the people. The Marines enjoyed some good liberty on Okinawa, but Lieutenant Colonel Fisher had daily 0500 formations where the hard-party guys could often be seen heaving up their last meals into the bushes at the fringes of the early morning physical workouts.
THE LANDINGS
Fisher’s battalion finally got top secret orders for going into Vietnam and once more boarded ship. Its mission was to protect the newly designated airfield location at Chulai. The Marines were briefed on their destination and assignment en route. On the night before landing, nerves were on edge and everyone was restless. Bull Fisher, a Marine’s Marine who had seen many campaigns, knew what to do. He ordered his officers and SNCOs to circulate among the men throughout the night and make sure everyone was okay. As dawn broke, the Marines gathered on deck, formed into their boat teams, and went down the nets. The landing craft circled until all were in the water and loaded, and then they lined up by pre-arranged plan and headed for the beach. When the ramps dropped, 2/4 rushed ashore with weapons locked and loaded, ready to fight. The enemy declined the invitation, however, and the landing was peaceful.
The Marines quickly moved inland and went all the way to secure National Route 1, the two-lane highway that runs the entire length of Vietnam, from north to south. Having secured that objective, they were wondering what to do next when they heard the roar of vehicles descending on them down the highway from the north. They immediately shifted weapons in that direction, uncertain of what and who was coming to greet them. Suddenly, American-made 2 - ton trucks came into view and stopped outside of their lines. The South Vietnamese drivers dropped the tailgates and helped dozens of pretty young Vietnamese women to the ground. The women hurried over to the Marines and draped garlands of flowers around their necks to welcome them to Vietnam. Despite the heat and sand, the Marines thought they were off to a good start in Vietnam.
The 2/4 command post (CP) was established on Hill 43, near the northwest corner of the airfield, and there the battalion staff planned airfield security. The Marines wasted no time establishing outposts, and they began patrolling that very day.
A week later, on May 12, the 3d Battalion, 3d Marines, (3/3), came ashore to bolster the defense force. Commanded by LtCol Colonel William D. Hall, 3/3 had transplaced to Okinawa the previous January. (Transplacement was a pre-Vietnam War system of replacing infantry battalions and aircraft squadrons a unit at a time. A new unit would form and train in the United States for some months and then depart for the Far East to replace another unit, which, having finished its thirteen-month tour, would rotate back to the U.S.) Hall’s 3/3 was one of the last units to transplace to Asia under the old system. Like the Marines of 2/4, most of these men had been in the unit for two years or longer, and they worked hard and well together. 2/4 relinquished the southern airstrip security sector to 3/3, which also began a series of defensive activities.
The landing force commander at Chulai was BriGen Marion E. Carl, one of the Corps’ top aviators—the Marine Corps’ first air ace, a hero of the Battle of Midway and the Guadalcanal Campaign, and a two-time recipient of the Navy Cross Medal. General Carl had shot down eighteen Japanese aircraft in World War II.
General Carl began loading his 1st Marine Brigade in Hawaii on March 10, 1965, for transport to the Western Pacific. Fortuitously, shipping had arrived to carry the brigade to California to participate in Operation Silver Lance in February. When the brigade’s orders were changed, the ships were on hand to haul the Marines west rather than east. General Krulak had not marked off exactly where the Chulai airfield should go, so his seasoned aviator, General Carl, determined its precise location.
The combination of sand, salt air, and heat greatly hampered everything the Marines and Seabees did. Unloading the ships and moving materials across the terrain was a formidable task. Equipment broke down at rates far higher than normal, and the American troops were worn down as well. Tracked vehicles had to be used to move rubber-tired ones.
Private First Class Glen Johnson, an engineer, had learned to drive a jeep in sand on Operation Steel Pike in Spain the year before. His successful but scary technique was to put the jeep in low-range, four-wheel drive, shift to second gear, and put his foot all the way to the floor. And they went. They were able to fly across the tops of sand dunes in the days prior to the Seabees getting roads in.
Not far inland from the beach the sand gave way to a red soil called laterite. The plan was to use that on the airstrip, as a sub-base between the aluminum matting and the sand. But before that could be done it was necessary to build a road from where the laterite was located to where it was to be placed. Under these conditions no one expected the airfield to be finished in three or four days. The irrepressible General Krulak bet Army MajGen Richard G. Stilwell, the MACV chief of staff, a case of Scotch that a squadron would be operating there within thirty days.
LIFE IN THE SANDBOX
The Marines found plenty to do while the Seabees were building the field. Their first task was to get acclimated. The sand was too hot to walk on in bare feet during the day, and it did not permit the preparation of fighting holes the way soil did. And it got into everything. Weapons, radios, vehicles, tools, drinking water, clothing, food, everything the Marines had seemed to be covered with a layer of sand. At least there was plenty of it for sandbags, so the Marines constructed above-ground bunkers with sandbag walls. For the roofs, as protection against mortar attack, they “liberated” pieces of the runway matting from the Seabees and piled sandbags on them. Living under these conditions was difficult but not so bad for seasoned young Marines with a lot of experience living in the field. They ate C-rations out of cans, bathed in the South China Sea, slept on the ground, patrolled and stood watches, and stood watches and patrolled. The Marines of this era were still armed with the M14 rifle which had just replaced the venerable M1 in 1962.
Both battalions established outposts that were constantly manned on prominent terrain features around the base. 2/4 named theirs after fish, the Catfishes and the Perches. 3/3 called theirs other things. One was called Hickory, because the sergeant initially in charge was from Kentucky. These small strongholds, rarely manned by more than a squad, soon became the objects of probes and sniper rounds from the enemy.
Inevitably, combat casualties occurred. Some Marines were hit while on patrol, some were the victims of booby traps, and a few were casualties of their own stupidity. One afternoon two senior staff NCOs from the air group passed outbound through one of 3/3’s outposts. The Marine in charge of the checkpoint was junior in rank to these two men, and they refused to heed his warning not to go into a neighboring village. They disappeared down a road and were never seen again. The Marines heard later that the Viet Cong captured them, marched them about a mile from the base, and shot and buried them. Their bodies were never found.4
Relations with the villagers were characterized by caution on both sides. The enemy told the Vietnamese bad things about the Americans, and the elders remembered bad things about the French. As the Marines spent more time in the area, the mutual mistrust and suspicion declined. The Marines, with decades of experience in the pacification business in Latin America, put a lot of thought and effort into their programs. They sent medical doctors and corpsmen to the villages to hold sick call. These men treated minor ailments and inoculated hundreds of Vietnamese, many for the first time in their lives, against such diseases as typhus, cholera, and yellow fever. The Marines built and furnished schools and medical clinics, they repaired churches, they helped built windmills to pump water, and they assisted with other agricultural projects. Some of the money and material for these projects came directly from the U.S. government, but much of it came from churches and civic organizations in the United States. Not all projects were successful. A schoolhouse built by Sgt Pat Finton and other engineers was burned to the ground one night. The enemy bribed a small boy to do the deed.
The war forced decisions on young men of a kind they never thought they would have to make. One night a Marine unit led by GySgt Gene Breeze set up an ambush along the beach to intercept VC who might try to infiltrate from that direction. When dawn broke the Marines spotted three armed and uniformed enemy headed right for them. As the VC approached to within fifty meters, an old man and young girl suddenly appeared and headed across the beach at an angle between the VC and the concealed Marines. The VC spotted the Marines, grabbed the civilians, and forced them to march ahead of them right toward the American position. The pre-arranged signal to trip the ambush was for Gunny Breeze to fire his shotgun. He hesitated a moment because of the civilians but realized a fire fight was unavoidable no matter what he did. Aiming carefully over the young girl’s head, at one of the VC, he pulled the trigger. His weapon misfired and he had to shout at one of the other Marines to set off the ambush. When the dust had settled there were no VC bodies to be found, just blood. The little girl was hurt, creased in the forehead by a bullet and wounded seriously in the leg. She was immediately evacuated to a hospital, where she fully recovered.
An M79 grenade launcher was stolen in the 3/3 sector. For the next few days the Marines searched for it by patrolling the neighboring villages in the company of the village chiefs and, in some cases, troops from the Popular Forces troops, a Vietnamese militia. They discovered that the young lad who had stolen the M79 had sold it to the enemy. To the horror of the Marines the village chief immediately pulled out his pistol and executed the boy on the spot.
At the An Tan Bridge, in the 2/4 sector, Marines killed two VC who tried to infiltrate at night. They removed a map from one of the bodies and found that it was complete to the point of having on it some changes in the defensive positions made that very same day. It turned out that the son of a nearby village chief was a spy for the enemy and had drawn the map.
It was apparent that the Vietnamese people were sharply divided, but it was impossible to tell which side most were on. Those who favored the Americans were incredibly cruel to those who helped the communists, and vice versa. Some played each side against the other. It was a confusing and demoralizing situation. The war was fragmented.
Decisions that in other conflicts would have been made at much higher levels were dropped into the hands of the small-unit leaders, the junior officers, sergeants, and corporals. There were no front lines, and there was no rear. One Marine recalled that the men he admired most were those he called the “old-salt corporals.” These young men, many of whom were still in their teens, could lead squad-size patrols several hundreds, if not thousands of meters from main positions. They could read maps, use compasses, call in artillery and air, evacuate their wounded and dead, communicate, and fight.
Rules of engagement sorely hampered the Marines in the early days. They began by not even being allowed to have a magazine in their weapons. They could not initiate a fight, only return fire at someone who fired at them first. When the rules were relaxed a bit, they were permitted to shoot at someone who was clearly an enemy soldier. This was very difficult in a situation in which the enemy was not uniformed and was often a farmer by day and a guerrilla by night.
The Marines’ own perimeter constituted their tactical area of responsibility (TAOR), and they were not to fire outside of their own lines without permission from the South Vietnamese. Permission to fire small arms or use supporting arms was difficult to obtain. While Marines waited for the Vietnamese chain of command to give approval the enemy often slipped away.
The era of jungle boots and jungle uniforms lay in the future. All-leather boots, designed for other climates, rotted here. Likewise, the uniforms were entirely too heavy and too hot for Vietnam. Water was a constant problem. The usual two canteens per man were not enough, and since the water was often very, very warm and frequently treated with chemical tablets to sanitize it, it was unpleasant to drink. Small-unit leaders constantly had to force the men to hydrate themselves despite the poor quality of the water. Heat casualties were common in the beginning, but as the Marines became acclimated and familiar with their environment this became less of a problem.
The Marines had to learn to use helicopters in this sandy, hot, humid setting. Although they had practiced their helicopter doctrine for years, this was the first big test. Newsman Harry Reasoner later said this about helicopters: “The thing is, helicopters are different than planes. An airplane by its nature wants to fly and if it is not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls, working in opposition to each other; and if there is any disturbance in the delicate balance, the helicopter stops flying immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter. This is why being a helicopter pilot is so different from being an airplane pilot; and why, in generality, airplane pilots are open, clear eyed, extroverts and helicopter pilots are brooders, introspective anticipators of trouble. They know that if anything bad has not happened, it is about to.”5
The helicopter these Marines flew was the H-34. It was 67 feet, 7 inches long from the front of the main rotor disc to the end of the tail rotor, and it stood 14 feet, 3 inches tall. The crew was four in number—pilot, co-pilot, crew chief, and gunner. The bird weighed about 10,000 pounds and mounted two M60 machine guns, one in the cargo hatch on the starboard side and the other in a smaller window on the port side. The crew chief and gunner operated these weapons.
Depending on heat and humidity the H-34 could carry about seven combat-loaded Marines or about ten Vietnamese. The dirt, salt, and sand of the operating areas played hell with the maintenance schedules for the H-34s. Engines that had been programmed for a thousand operational hours were now failing at six hundred hours or less. At least one gave up its mechanical ghost at about three hundred and sixty hours. Tail-rotor and main-rotor blades failed at an alarming rate. In order to prolong their lives one squadron put ordnance tape over the leading rotor edges to reduce wear. Adding to the maintenance woes was the fact that the squadrons were flying twice the number of planned hours per week. The efforts of the ground crews to keep the birds in the air bordered on the heroic.
The problems with helicopters reflected a larger logistics issue the Marine Corps had. The Corps was a light-infantry force designed to be an expeditionary force that was to seize and hold beachheads long enough for heavier American or allied forces to get ashore and fight the long-haul battles. The Marines who went ashore in Vietnam found themselves used as a permanent ground force, and their units were to stay for the duration of the war. The Marine Corps was confronted with enormous and unprecedented difficulties in establishing and maintaining the necessary logistics base for its long-term operations.
Helicopter-borne maneuvers were to dominate American operational thinking throughout the entire war. A couple of days before Starlite a pilot from HMM-361, Capt Howard Henry, flew some Marines into an ARVN outpost. They took some fire from the ground; the crew chief, SSgt Coy Overstreet, thought that it sounded like the clatter of an old Browning Automatic Rifle. He looked for the enemy and spotted him among some bushes. While Captain Henry flew the helo in circles, Overstreet and the VC soldier got into an automatic weapons duel. The Marine finally drove the man out into the open without his weapon, headed for a bomb crater. “What the hell,” Henry told his crew, “let’s go capture him,” and he put the bird down next to the crater. Another crewmember, Staff Sergeant Maynard, covered the man with his machine gun while Overstreet ran over, bodily picked the VC up, threw him over his shoulder, ran back to the chopper, and tossed him inside. The crew immediately delivered him to intelligence for questioning.
On another occasion Maj Al Bloom flew a night medevac to pick up casualties after a fire fight. The Marines on the ground had no flashlights, so Bloom had one of them light matches. He extinguished the aircraft lights and put his bird into a tight downward spiral in order to reduce the chances that the enemy on the ground would see the foot-long blue exhaust plume. Guided solely by the matches Bloom landed in a flooded paddy and loaded the casualties. As he did, mortar rounds landed all around him, but they did not detonate because of the water in the paddy. He finally lifted off with a prayer of thanks and was gaining altitude when the Marines on the ground called once more to say they had another casualty. As Bloom descended for a second time the mission was cancelled. The casualty had died.
Just a few days before Starlite, on August 12-13, twenty four Marine Air Group 16 (MAG-16) helicopters participated in the first night helicopter assault in Vietnam. (MAG-16 was the intermediate command for helicopters, the aviation equivalent of a regimental headquarters. Its CO reported to the 1st MAW commanding general, who in turn reported to General Walt.]
The aircraft landed with the aid of parachute flares, debarked the infantry and returned to Danang without incident. Fourteen birds from LtCol Lloyd Childers’s HMM-361, six from HMM-261, and four from Marine Observation Squadron 2 (VMO-2) participated. They lifted 245 Marines into the operation area.
The helicopters were organized into two initial flights of ten each with the four VMO-2 UH-1 Huey gunships flying cover. The two waves took off at 2347 and 2350, respectively; upon landing their Marines the helicopters returned to Danang and picked up the third and fourth waves.
The operation was in the Ca De Song (Elephant) Valley, near Danang. It was not a night for the superstitious to be aloft. The landings took place at midnight on Friday the 13th under a full moon. Ninety-six crewman, including officers, flew the mission, which is believed to be the first night helicopter assault in history. They flew into Elephant Valley because of a report that fifty Viet Cong would be coming in there at night.
The infantrymen were from Hotel Company, 2/3, augmented by a platoon from Foxtrot Company. The landing zones were prepped with artillery, which was also supposed to muffle the sounds of the incoming choppers.
After the artillery, four Hueys went over the objective area as bait, to see if they could draw fire. No one reacted.
A minute from touchdown, as the choppers were rotoring through a 2,700-foot mountain pass, an Air Force plane dropped a pattern of parachute flares to illuminate the zone. Even with this illumination, some helicopter pilots had their crew chiefs lean out of doors and to make five-foot estimates as to the distance to the ground. The Marines were landed perfectly.
In terms of killing the enemy, the operation was not a success. It only netted one VC KIA. Thirty suspects were detained, and a VC rocket launcher and grenades were captured.
CHULAI OPERATIONS BEGIN
The strip and some taxiway were marginally ready by Memorial Day to receive fixed-wing aircraft, but the designated airplanes were grounded in the Philippines by bad weather. After a few days’ delay, they finally arrived at Chulai. Shortly after 0800 on June 1, Col John Noble, the commander of MAG-12, landed the first of four A4 Skyhawks on the new field. Two more flights quickly followed.
The aviators got down to business without delay. On the same day they landed, a combat mission took off from the new airfield led by LtCol Robert W. Baker, the commanding officer of Marine Attack Squadron 225 (VMA-225).
VMA-225 had an unusual history and was, at this time, one of the best-trained attack squadrons in the Marine Corps. In addition to their normal qualifications the crews were trained for “special weapons” delivery, that is, they could deliver nuclear bombs. In order to reach this high level of expertise, the squadron personnel were stabilized far longer than normal and had worked together for more than two years. This long relationship meant that the unit functioned unusually well as a team and enjoyed very high morale. They won the Commandant of the Marine Corps’ Efficiency Trophy in 1963.6
In the beginning the squadrons could only fly about one mission per airplane per day because of the extremely primitive conditions at Chulai. The nature of the subsoil caused the arresting gear to require frequent resetting. The sand and red dust played hell with the aircraft and all associated equipment. It was extremely difficult to get the guns to feed properly. It was not unusual to go out on a strafing mission, begin a run on a target, and have one gun not fire at all while the other gun fired one round before it jammed.7
Ordnance was difficult to obtain. Very often the bombs available were what the pilots called “one-look bombs,” the old high-drag bombs that looked like leftovers from World War II. They had bulbous shapes and square fins.8 The A4 was a considerably higher speed aircraft than the bombers of World War II, and it didn’t carry such bombs well. The bomb racks weren’t configured to hold them, so it was extremely difficult for the ordnance people to load them on the airplane. They had to beat the square fins flat with sledgehammers, which gave the bombs unpredictable ballistics. Very often the pilots did not know where the bombs were going to fall or if they would detonate when they hit the ground. The general load of ordnance the A4 should have carried could be a combination of a full load of 20mm ammunition for the two wing-mounted cannon and eighteen 250-pound low-drag bombs; or combinations of Bull Pup missiles; napalm; low-drag bombs; multiple rocket packs of eighteen 2.75-inch rockets each, which could be rippled off, salvoed, or fired singly; and 5-inch Zuni rockets that came in packs of four. The rockets were particularly hard to come by in the early days.9
Although air operations were underway, General Krulak paid off his bet with General Stilwell, because an entire squadron was not operating in the designated time, only half of one. Nonetheless, three A4 squadrons were operational at Chulai by the end of July.
The airfield construction at Chulai was endless. Laterite was not doing the job, so after 8,000 feet of runway was constructed the field was redone, one half at a time, until the right sub-base combination was found. Before it was over, a new method evolved. It included packing the sand down, fixing it with a light layer of asphalt, and then using a thin plastic membrane to keep the rain from settling into the soil.
A catapult was installed in April 1966, eliminating the need for the JATO bottles. The following year, also, a concrete strip was begun just to the west of the SATS strip, and eventually two Marine air groups operated from the base. But those are other stories. The Chulai airstrip is, as of 2003, the longest in the country. The Vietnamese are building a commercial harbor and an oil refinery nearby and hope to turn the Chulai area into a major economic zone.