Air Commando!: 1950-1975 - Twenty-five years at the Tip ... - AFSOC

lit up the drop zone like a night Super Bowl game with its powerful illuminator. Immediately
after dropping its cargo, the C-7 called for the AC-119 to kill the lights, and the Caribou
escaped into the darkness. It worked sixty-eight times in three weeks without a single
Caribou being hit. 132
Immediately following the Oak Pek/Dak Seang battles the Stingers and Shadows
supported U.S. and South Vietnamese forces crossing into Cambodia in 1970. They also
flew armed reconnaissance and interdiction operations in Laos, frequently using fighter
escort to suppress ground fire. But Gunship luck
wouldn't hold forever. In April a single-engine failure
on take-off killed six crewmen, and two months later
a runaway propeller caused the crew to abandon the
aircraft over the South China SeaY
Against these losses, superb airmanship from a
Stinger crew operating over Ban Ban Laos in May,
1970, brought back a Gunship despite extensive
combat damage. On fire and with one-third of its
right wing missing, the cumbersome Flying Boxcar
held together for a hair-raising return flight to Udom,
Thailand. The Air Force Chief of Staff later presented
the crew with the 1970 Mackay Trophy "for the most
meritorious flight of the year." The crew could be
forgiven for considering the Trophy "for the scariest
flight of their lives!"
By 1972 the war was clearly wrapping up for the
Shadow/Stinger squadrons. The AC-130s were
coming on line in growing numbers and the 17th
SOS was converting from a combat to a training
squadron as they turned their aircraft over the
Vietnamese Air Force. The indisputable combat
success of the AC-119s in Indochina, is a story of
persistence and faith almost as much as one of valor.
Continual program delays, modification cost
overruns, and bureaucratic opposition to the AC-119
program from Washington to Saigon threatened their
deployment at every step.
With the advantage of hindsight however, it can be
argued that the truest testimony of the AC-119s worth is
not measured on engine performance charts, but rather in the hundreds of burned out North
Vietnamese trucks scattered across Southeast Asia, and the thousands of allied lives saved by the
Shadow and Stinger crews who were always there when needed most.
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The crew was recovered safely. But much to everyone's alarm, the abandoned AC-119 continued
flying for some time .. . straight towards China! It eventually disappeared from radar over
international waters.
Climbing through a darkening sky a
"Stinger" from the 18th SOS clearly
displays the twin jet engines that separate
the "K" model from the "G" model. The
addition of a J-85 jet engine under each
wing on the "K" model AC-119 provided a
substantial improvement in payload and
single-engine performance for its
aircrews. (USAF photo)
The isolated Green Beret camp at Plei Me
was typical of the small forts from which
Army Special Forces took the war to the
Viet Cong . . . and to which the Viet Cong
returned the favor with massed infantry
and mortar assaults. In response to these
attacks, Shadow and Stinger gunships
called to assist the camps poured
hundreds of thousands of rounds of
machine gun and cannon fire along the
camp perimeter to drive off the enemy.
(USAJFKSWC photo)
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