You're welcome, Gordon. It was comforting knowing the Navy was out
there on our route to and from Pack 1. On a later strike, in April 72,
a SeaKing picked up one of my crews just north of the DMZ. We had
struck a SA2 site NE of Bat lake and #3 in the first flight got a 37
hit just crossing the beach. They lost an engine, were on fire, made
it out over the water, ejected successfully and were in their rafts as
we came back out after hitting the site. (We did kill the radar van,
the primary target) I went up to 15K and to max endurance as their
leader was in a low CAP right over them. I sent my guys off to either
find a tanker or get a quick turnaround while RESCAP was paged. Their
leader went bingo so I descended slowly while waiting for a pickup.
The two guys in their rafts - Charlie Hall and Lee Bohner - were
chatting back and forth on their survival radios - sounded cool, like
they were floating around off Miami Beach! About then a real big
camouflaged helicopter came in from the north. I was on a high downwnd
taking a real good look at him while resetting the sight to 38 mils
for strafe (F4E - with a gun!) But it turned out to be a CH53 USN type
in sand and green splotch camo - had never seen one like that before,
and at first I had thought it was one of the big USSR ones. Just then
a USN Seaking (white and orange!) showed up - he'd been on a mail run
around the ships out there and heard the beeper and then saw the smoke
from the F4. They picked up my crew and dropped them off in our area
at Danang about 15 minutes after we got back. Found out later Charlie
was shelling them with 122mm guns during the pickup! Great service -
too bad the Seaking crew couldn't stay the night, though.
Walt BJ