TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

was interesting. And we continued on up the trail and
me telling John to make note of this sighting for the
Intel debriefing. As we continued north toward an area
known as Tchepon, where there was a crossing ford on
the river by the same name, we could see patches of
roadway through the trees to the ground below, a dirt
road carved in the jungle. Pretty soon we could see we
were getting close to Tchepon so we increased speed
and descended to about 100 to 150 feet above the
terrain and kept weaving back and forth in irregular
cycles. I could see the river crossing up ahead about a
mile and not wanting to cross directly over the
crossing I deviated to the east slightly still keeping up
the weave and crossed the road which was in a fairly
open valley now southeast of the crossing. At the
moment we crossed the road I could see a long line of
trucks, some on this side of the river, some on the
northwest side across the river. I counted 7, one of
which was in the middle of the river. At that same
moment I saw a flash out the right corner of my eye
and as I turned my head I saw a stream of anti-aircraft
rounds coming at me, but would pass behind me to my
left. Just to be sure I went full power and banked hard
right taking me away from the source of the gunfire. At
that point I decided we needed to see if we could get
some air power over here and hit those targets of
opportunity. We contacted Hillsboro Airborne Control
for air to work our situation but it was not meant to be
that day. So we prepared to make an individual attack
to harass and interdict.
With 2 pods of Zuni rockets to use and the late
afternoon sun at about the 10 o’clock point in the sky I
maneuvered the aircraft around to the northwest of
Second Platoon
the gun system and approached the target area at
treetop height until I perceived I was about a mile
southwest of the gun position then popped up into
about a 30 degree climb keeping an eye to the
northeast looking for the gun. As I reached about 5000
feet I did a hard left roll over the top and at that time
we saw the camouflage cover come off the gun and all
we had to do was roll hard left into a 20 degree dive
pointed at the gun pit. Master arm ON I continued
rolling left to put the nose of the aircraft on the gun,
and rocket stations set to ON. I was passing down
through 5000 feet with the aiming reticle on the gun
and the gunner started spewing rounds…all of them
passing below the nose of the aircraft.
Passing 3000 feet above target I squeezed the trigger
on the front of the control stick 4 times- 1 apple 2
apple 3 apple 4 apple – with each squeeze came 2 Zunis
out of their pods screaming towards the gun pit. As the
last two rockets left the launcher I started a pullup
towards level flight, broke right, then left and as the
nose was almost coming level I broke hard right again
and could see as the gun in the camouflaged pit below
the first impacts going right into the gun pit itself and
the gunners trying to scramble out of there before the
rockets destroyed them. I continued in a right hand
turn to the southeast leveling off at treetop height and
planned to keep it that way for the next several
minutes to insure we were clear of other weapons
positions. Checking in with John in the back he said it
looked good and couldn’t see anything on the outside
of the aircraft that looked damaged. I asked if he had
the coordinates and answered back “affirmative”.
Down to just about 2400 pounds fuel I said we are
2‐65