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Tales of the 6994th Scty Sqdn
By: Bob Wilhelm, wilhelm@dailynews.net
I began my association with the C-47 in 1972 when I volunteered for duty
with the 6994th Scty Sqdn.
It was headquartered in Saigon, Republic of Viet Nam
but I was assigned to Det. 2 which was located a few miles
up-country in DaNang.
We flew EC-47s or, as we called them, "Electric Goons."
They were loaded with all kinds of radio gear and our main job
was to use direction finding equipment to locate enemy radio transmissions.
The officers (pilot, co-pilot, and navigator) were
assigned to the 361st Tactical Electronics Warfare Squadron (TEWS)
and the enlisted radio operators were with the 6994th.
There would be anywhere from two to five enlisted personnel on board.
Our missions might last anywhere from 5 to 7 hours.
Not long after I had earned my wings, I was on a mission scheduled to
fly an area south of DaNang. We took off and flew down the coast.
About 30 minutes or so after take off, the pilot reported that he had a
fire warning light on the left engine. He asked for a visual inspection
but those of us in the back end could see no smoke. There was a faint
whisp of something that one crew member thought he could see, but he
couldn't tell if it was smoke or exhaust. The pilot did not want to
pull the extinguisher if there was no fire because it made a real mess
in the engine and the maintenance men wouldn't be too happy if they had
to tear apart and clean out a perfectly good engine. The light kept
going on and off and the pilot decided it was probably just a faulty
indicator. But to play it safe he decided we had better return to base
(RTB).
This gave us all a chance to review our emergency procedures which was a
benefit to me being the new guy on board. We normally did not fly with
our parachutes on because we tended to move around the cabin
periodically during a mission and that equipment was cumbersome and
uncomfortable if you had to get up and walk around much. Besides, in
the goon there could be three basic scenarios if we got hit.
1.) The damage would be minimal and we could RTB safely.
2.) The damage would be severe enough that we would have to exit the aircraft
but the pilot would have sufficient control and therefore enough time
(it would only take a few minutes) to allow everyone to get suited up and out.
3.) The damage would be catastrophic and even if we were suited up we
wouldn't be able to get out.
On the way back we kept track of the engine and everything was going fine
and the pilot and co-pilot decided that, since the co-pilot needed
some flight time, he would contact DaNang Approach Control and have us
vectored in, just for practice.
Everything was going fine and we were descending as we approached DaNang.
We were at about 1,000 feet when someone noticed a South Vietnamese A-37 attack jet
below us and off to our left. He notified the pilot who watched as it flew in front of us
and unloaded its ordnance right across our flight path, apparently oblivious to our presence!
Before Approach Control could be notified, another A-37 made its attack run.
We were directly over the bombs when they hit and even over the roar of the engines
and with intercom headsets on, we could hear the explosions
and the aircraft was rocked with the concussions.
By now DaNang Approach was notified but the danger was behind us.
Never-the-less, the controller had a bunch of angry airmen on his hands.
The pilot passed on our sentiments to the controller
and warned him that they would meet later after we had landed.
"I wouldn't have wanted to be in his shoes!"
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