“That’s the radio,” Putnam deduced. “See if you can get some music. It’ll ease the tension and help your nosebleed.”
Cursing, I switched off the radio and pushed the button next to it. There was a hissing sound as oxygen rushed through into the compartment. I took several deep breaths and began to feel better. “Have you given any thought to where we’re going?” I asked Putnam.
“Naturally. We have to get out of Commie-land. We have to head for the nearest safe place, a spot where we can be sure of a friendly reception, preferably some place where there’s some American control. Considering the fact that pretty soon now we’ll be out of the Tibetan mountains and over Red China, that doesn’t leave us too many choices. Actually, I can only think of one. And so that’s where we’re heading.”
“What’s where we’re heading?” I asked.
“Saigon. It’s safe. It’s friendly. And there’s lots of Americans there.”
I had to admit it made sense. With most of South Vietnam, how an American might be greeted was a flip of a coin between passive fear and active resistance. But as of January 30th, 1968, there was no doubt in anybody’s mind that Saigon was securely in the American camp. What better destination?
I settled back in the copilot’s seat and dozed. It saved me from having to watch Putnam playing Russian roulette with the mountains. After a while it got a little less bumpy and I slipped into a sound sleep. Putnam’s elbow in my ribs waked me.
“We’re over North Vietnam,” he informed me.
I realized that I’d been asleep for a very long time. “How can you be sure?” Looking out the window, all I could see was the blackness of night.
“By reading the compass.” His tone said that I was an idiot. “I used to be a Boy Scout,” he added sarcastically.
“What’s that?” There was a series of sudden popping sounds like a bunch of firecrackers going off very close to the plane. Flashes of light trailed towards the nose of the ship.
“Flak,” Putnam told me. “The North Vietnamese anti-aircraft is shooting at us.”
“But Why? We’re flying a Chinese plane.”
“We’re too high up for them to distinguish the markings. They just shoot at anything that flies. With the frequency of our bombings, you can’t really blame them. I’ll pick up some altitude and that’ll keep us out of range.” He pulled back on the wheel and the plane rose sharply. After it leveled off, he turned to me again. “Now we’d better talk about our main problem,” he told me.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean I could take off in this plane, and I can fly it, but I don’t know how to land it.”
”This is a helluva time to think of that. You have to land it!”
“You don’t understand. I panic at the very idea. If I try to land, I’ll only freeze at the controls and we’ll both be killed. Everybody has a particular kind of situation with which they can’t cope. This is mine. I can’t control the way I feel. You’l1 just have to land the plane, Steve.”
“Me! You’re out of your maniacal mind! I don’t know the first thing about flying a plane, let alone handling one!”
“As soon as we’re over South Vietnam, we’ll break radio silence and call Saigon. They’ll talk you in. It won’t be hard.”
It was no use arguing. Putnam’s terror was firm. It was going to be up to me to land the plane. A while later he said we were out of Commie territory and I started fiddling with the radio.
The first voice I picked up was in Vietnamese. I switched over to broadcast a plea for help in English. When I switched back, the voice that picked me up was also spouting Vietnamese. I transmitted my plea for help a second time. This time a voice answered in English.
“Replying to distress signal, replying to distress signal, identify yourself, iden——AARRGGHH!” The line went dead.
“What the hell was that?” I wondered aloud.
“It sounded like the station transmitting was attacked,”
Putnam guessed. “Maybe the Vietcong. Don’t worry about it though. I didn’t want to land in the countryside. It’s too much of a seesaw situation there. Wait until we get over Saigon.”
I waited. About an hour later, Putnam indicated that I should try the radio again. The first American voice I heard was in a frenzy. “Don’t land!” the voice shouted. “Saigon under attack24 ! Repeat, do not land!”
“Tell him we have to land,” Putnam said. “We’re almost out of gas. I’m going to drop down to a. thousand feet to save fuel and then you’ll have to take over the controls, Steve.”
“What will you be doing?” I asked.
“Cowering,” Putnam assured me. “I won’t be able to help myself.”
“That’s not very reassuring,” I told him. As the plane dropped, I relayed Putnam’s message over the radio. Instead of an answer, all I got was static. I kept trying, but static was the best I could raise. “What the hell is it?” I wondered aloud.
“The Vietcong must be jamming all the frequencies,” Putnam deduced. “You’l1 just have to land the plane without help, Steve.”
“Don’t be ridi-—what the hell is that!”
All hell had suddenly broken loose. Ack-ack shells were exploding all around us. Searchlights were pinpointing the plane and the bursts were zeroing in on us. Frantically, Putnam tried to regain altitude.
“They’re shooting at us,” I remarked.
“Yes.” Putnam didn’t argue the point.
“What happened to that friendly reception you were so sure about?” I asked him.
“You could hardly expect South Vietnamese or American antiaircraft gunners to be friendly towards a plane with Chinese insignia.”
“You should have thought of that before you told me how friendly and safe Saigon would be.”
“Something seems to be going on there,” he granted. “I mean besides the fact that they’re shooting at a Chinese plane. I can’t understand why you can’t raise contact with our boys and establish who we are.”
“Search me.”
Putnam glanced at the control panel. “We’re out of gas,” he observed. “You’ll have to land us, Steve.”
“Without instructions? Don’t be ridiculous!”
“Then we’ll have to bail out.”
“All right.” I didn’t like the idea, but I couldn’t think of an alternative.
“I’m going to circle over the Embassy,” Putnam decided. “We’ll bail out over it as close as we can. Whatever else is going on in Saigon, you can be sure of one thing: the American Embassy is secure. We’ll be safe there.”
So we bailed out over the American Embassy in Saigon. A moment after my ’chute opened, I spotted the white of Putnam’s parachute floating above me. The plane was arcing downwards towards the rice paddies on the outskirts of Saigon.
The wall around the Embassy took shape beneath me. I pulled on the guidelines of the ’chute, trying to steer myself so I’d drop inside the Embassy compound. Above me, Putnam was attempting the same maneuver.
I was too successful in using the roof of the Embassy building as a target. My ’chute sagged on an eave and I found myself dangling there. A moment later the same fate befell Putnam. He dangled a few feet away from me. As we tried to extricate ourselves from the ’chutes, I became aware of loud explosions all around the Embassy. “What the hell is going on?” I exclaimed.
“It’s Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year,” Putnam explained. “That’s a big celebration day in Saigon. They’re probably shooting off a lot of fireworks.”
There was a tremendous explosion. A portion of the ornate concrete wall around the Embassy grounds blew apart and filled the air with rubble. The impact was so great that it shook both Putnam and me loose from the eave of the roof and we went crashing, with our torn ‘chutes, to the ground below. Fortunately the side of the building was lined with bushes which broke our fall.