From Forward Air Controller stories.   

Date: Sat, 10 Jul 2004 23:10:37 EDT
   From: jimyoung@aol.com
Subject: Patton III ( Non-FAC?)

   Have been a little busy and hadn't read the sad news of Patton III's 
passing until today.
   It was a  Stars and Stripes story on Patton's command operating along 
QL-19 and through the MangYang Pass ("Ambush Alley", as I recall the article)  
that got me to go out to see how these guys lived.   Instead of waiting for 
flights from Qui Nhon to An Khe, Pleiku, Kontum, and Dak To, as we normally did,  I 
took advantage of being on a solo trip and hitchhiked all the way from An Khe 
to Dak To, with the An Khe to Pleiku traversed in a lone deuce and a half.  
We did pull a trailer up to the engineer camp just beyond LZ Action where we 
RON'd before proceeding, alone, w/o the trailer the next morning.  When I 
pointed out something in the road behind us, we went back to find a foot locker that 
had fallen out of the trailer and that some of the personal letters and other 
documents had blown into the shrubbery beside the road.   The seven of us 
spread out to form a stealthy perimeter while every item was recovered.  I was 
beginning to wonder how these guys did this day in and day out.

   I wanted to see the French cemetery where about a third of the French 
Group Mobile 100 were buried, among other things.  Before we got to it, we passed 
the remains  of a convoy that had been almost completely destroyed, I thought, 
a day or two previously.  In my mind, this was an 80 truck convoy in which 
only one truck made it through.  They assured me it was an unusually fierce 
ambush, with hand-to-hand fighting amongst the trucks, but that they had only lost 
three guys.  They said most of the ambushes were more of training exercises 
for rookie NVA/VC on their way south and were easily broken up.  We past the 
ambush site and barreled full blast down the other side of the pass, never 
seeming to use any brakes.  I thought it was because of the risk of another ambush, 
held off only because of the fear of drawing fire.  When we finally got to 
flat  land I asked the driver why the Captain had them take the deuce into 
Pleiku.  "Have to get the brakes fixed, there are none", he replied.   H also told 
me the safest time to travel the road alone was right after a big ambush, the 
NVA/VC hightailed it out of the area as quickly as they could and wouldn't get 
friskie again for another two weeks or so. 

 I don't know how much FAC support they asked for but I was really impressed 
with the fighting spirit and resourcefulness of all those who operated along 
the route.

Jim Young

[Thi

From: "Don Brown" <nahkbin@cox.net> Subject: RE: Air & Space Mag (Ravens)

Thanks for that Jim. Two of my favorite characters are discussed; TR Young and Heinie Aderholt.

Heinie was Wing King at NKP during my combat tour and I worked again for him during my two year tour at JUSMAGTHAI eight years later. What a man!

TR was a good Bud. One day, while TDY to Khe Sanh, our planned target disappeared and TR talked me into an interesting "Trolling for Guns" operation, where I would fly loose trail on him as we buzzed the streets in a "large", enemy held hamlet (it had intersecting streets). The concept was that the gunners would shoot at him and I would be able to see the action and locate the guns (Boy do I feel stupid!) Of course I immediately heard the popcorn popper, and saw the gunner as he was shooting at TR and flow thru ventilating MY A/C.

Never trust an AFA grad.