By now we were again aware of a problem that we had pretty well forgotten in the press of events. That beeper was still on and it was screeching at full power, blocking transmissions and generally making things more difficult. Until you have experienced the screech of that thing, you can’t imagine how bothersome it can be, like the scraping of someone’s fingernails up and down a blackboard. We still didn’t know who had it on and there was no chance of going through another process of elimination now. We were stack with it, but we didn’t yet know just how significant it would be in the sequence of the afternoon’s events.
As the chutes floated down, the drama continued. “The coordinates now are—Mayday, Mayday, Mayday.”
“Two, you still with me? Still have them?”
“Carbine, let’s go rescue frequency.”
The rescue people have coordinators who are tasked with controlling the entire show when you get into a spot like this. They have radios and radars at their disposal, some airborne in large transport aircraft and some on the ground. They had a call sign for radio transmissions like everyone else, and Royal one might represent an airborne rescue controller while Royal five could represent a ground station to the south. Through these resources they coordinate and control any rescue operation, directing the fighters, the choppers who accomplish any pickup of downed crewmen, and the prop-driven AIE’s who pinpoint the downed crew’s location, attempt to keep the enemy away from him, and fly a protective escort for the choppers while they are making a pickup. While the AIE’s are known in general as Spads, they too have a radio call sign, and Nomad one might be the leader of a pair of Spads working a specific rescue while his wingman might be identified as Nomad two.
The distances involved are critical. You often have a tough time getting the rescue people on the radio, and until you do, nothing gets started. Charged with the responsibility of contacting them and getting the show on the road, Carbine lead started acting.
“Hello Royal, hello Royal—Carbine one.” The only answer was the interminable beeper screeching in defiance.
Two more calls mocked by the beeper and Royal replied weakly, “Carbine—Royal.”
“Roger, Royal. Carbine three was hit and has ejected. Both chutes were sighted. They have not touched down yet. Right now they are at two thousand feet. Are you ready for coodi-nates? They are going down slowly and it looks like they might be able to hit on the west side of a ridge and we are in the area now.”
Then came a most welcome voice booming through on the radio. “This is Carbine three on the ground, can you hear me?” Leo was down and talking to the troops he knew were bent on getting him out of there. The answer to his urgent call was the screech of the lost beeper. Since he had turned his own beeper off as he hit the ground, his first thought was that his backseat Partner had failed to turn his beeper off. “Bear, your beeper’s still on. Your beeper’s still on.”
There has always been a strange relationship between single-engine fighter pilots and those who ride with them in the back of two-place aircraft on specialized missions. Very seldom do the .front seat men admit that the guy in back is doing quite a job and that the mission would never be successful without him. They carry all sorts of impolite names and are the brant of many jokes.
The Phantom guys started calling their backseaters “Gibs,” standing for guy in the backseat. Everyone has to be different so our backseaters became known and referred to as trained bears. Leo’s call to his bear reverberated with the strongest sense of comradeship and the reply came back, “My beeper’s off and the Bear is OK.”
I was over the spot now and watched as they gathered in their multicolored chutes and pulled them back into the trees. They had hit the ground quite close together, near a narrow dirt road that ran the length of a valley between two ridges. There were rice paddies on one side and the trees covering a small ridge crept right down to the road on the other side. The road made a U-turn to go around a small peak in the ridge line and they had landed on opposite legs of the U, with the hill in between them, and thus could not see each other. I called, “Roger, Roger, we got you in sight, Leo. Roger, Carbine three, we do hear you intermittently and we do see both chutes.”
“Carbine, they are on the ground and hi contact and we see the chutes.”
“Hello Royal, hello Royal—Carbine here—” and the beeper squealed on to tell us that it did not belong to Leo or the Bear.
“OK, Royal, they hit on a hill just northeast of the position I gave you. Second ridge over.”
I had swung past their position out into the area I had just told myself and all others not to enter. “Flak. Don’t get out here, baby.”
Leo knew who was who and guessed rightly that I would be close by with the lead flight. “Waco—this is Carbine,” came up from the paddies of the enemy on the scratchy, hard-to-understand emergency radio, with that lousy beeper on top of it all. “Waco—this is Carbine three. We are OK and are going to move up the ridge so—”
“Roger, Roger, I understand you are OK and are moving up the ridge—”
“Hello, Royal—this is Nomad.” This was the first indication that the Rescap was in progress as the first of the Spads checked in.
“Hello, Royal—Carbine here. Where in hell is everybody? OK, Waco, this is Carbine one.”
“Go ahead Carbine—Waco.”
“Rog, I think I better leave the area. I think that stuck beeper is goofing up the works and I think it is in my flight.”
“Rog, I just talked to Leo and they are OK and are edging up the ridge.”
As Carbine flight acknowledged and started moving for the tankers, the next revolting chapter began to unfold. “Carbine flight check in. Carbine four, you on? Carbine four, this is one.”
“Carbine—Tomahawk here. How’s the flak?”
“There was some shooting on the next ridge over, just east of where they got hit.”
“Carbine four, come up channel one one.”
“Carbine—this is Waco. You make good contact with Royal?”
“I’ll call them again and relay to you outbound. Hello, Royal—Carbine. Carbine two, give them a call.” Sometimes one radio in a flight will do the job, for no apparent reason, while another will not. Two was able to get Royal up on frequency and they brought the rescue commander up to speed and gave him some updated coordinates.
“Roger, Carbine, and how long can you stay in the area?”
“We are departing the area now as I think one of my flight has a beeper stuck and we are clearing out so we don’t interfere with the rescue.”
“Roger. Is there anyone else in the area who could maintain a tallyho on them?” This indicated trouble to come. It was apparent that the rescue coordinator did not appreciate the fact that there were many machines already on the scene in a well-controlled Cap effort. Carbine explained it again but the message apparently never was well understood. Those controlling the effort are understandably reluctant to commit rescue craft to a hostile area until adequate forces are available to protect them, but here we had more than enough planes in position, had already wasted valuable time, and were to waste more before the afternoon was over.
“Rog, the whole force is in there and Waco is the commander and he has taken charge of the whole thing. If you can give me any estimates, I can pass them on to him.”
“OK, it will be about forty minutes before we can get anything in there, and if you can get Waco to come up on this frequency I would appreciate it.”