Fearless fighters to regroup

By William Cole
Advertiser Military Writer

During the Vietnam War, it took a particular type of pilot to be a Forward Air Controller — "a special breed of cat," as Mike Cavanaugh puts it.

Hen Min Hiu, a Punahou grad, broke his back when his Cessna 0-1E Bird Dog was shot down over South Vietnam, ending his career as a Forward Air Controller. The FACs are having a reunion next month in Waikiki. Photo courtesy Hen Min Hiu

FACs flew lightly armed or unarmed aircraft such as the Cessna O-1 Bird Dog, small planes that were workhorses during the war. They might fly several hours at a stretch, three times a day, low and slow over the jungle canopies of South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos, marking enemy positions with phosphorous rockets.

Often they flew solo. Missions regularly turned into hair-raising rides.

"This is no-kidding combat — being shot at the whole time," said Cavanaugh, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel who flew three tours as a FAC. "The fighters would drop down and make one pass to drop their bombs, and they would be in harm's way for a matter of seconds. We were so low and slow that we were vulnerable the whole time."

In September 1969, Cavanaugh, who lives in Salt Lake, refueled at a runway in Laos — under North Vietnamese control at the time. With bullets zinging overhead, he was lucky to get out alive.

Hen Min Hiu, a Punahou grad and another FAC, broke his back when his 0-1E Bird Dog took small-arms fire in July 1969 and crashed hard in South Vietnam.

Of 3,000 FACs who flew for more than a decade in Southeast Asia, more than 220 were killed in action, members say. Many more were wounded.

Next month, FACs will celebrate the brotherhood of those who lived and those who died. The Forward Air Controllers Association, formed a few years ago primarily of "slow FAC," or prop plane fliers, is holding a reunion April 10-14 at the Renaissance Ilikai Waikiki Hotel.

Some 240 FACs from around the world are expected to attend.

Gen. William Begert, commander of Pacific Air Forces and keynote speaker, took part in the 1972 rescue of an EB-66 pilot whose call sign was Bat-21, later turned into a movie by the same name.

Hiu flew some 300 missions over the jungle before his crash. FACs flew small planes, often solo and unarmed, for several hours at a stretch. Photo courtesy Hen Min Hiu

The spotter planes, which came into use during the Korean War, were necessary to breach the gap between high-tech jets and a low-tech enemy.

"You've got Mach 1 fighter jets and bad guys crawling around in the bushes," Cavanaugh said. "Jets couldn't pick that up."

FAC propeller aircraft included the single-engine Cessna O-1, twin-engine Cessna O-2 and twin-engine Rockwell OV-10.

"Fast FAC" jets such as the Phantom were used over North Vietnam.

William Ernst of Mililani flew an OV-10 in South Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in 1972. The secret mission of the Rustics, who aided anti-communist forces in Cambodia, wasn't declassified until four years ago.

Cavanaugh flew with a secret group called the Ravens in Laos in 1969, a CIA operation whose members wore blue jeans and disdained bureaucracy.

Ravens had to have experience coming in, and Cavanaugh spent his first tour as a FAC in the Mekong Delta in Long Xuyen.

"I had to learn how to speak Vietnamese, and I was part of the Vietnamese community," he recalled. "I wasn't on some Air Force base eating cheeseburgers. I was out there in the weeds."

The only Air Force presence was his little Cessna O-1, which he jokingly called the ultimate weapon. "Take-off, taxi and cruise speed were all the same," he said.

The plane carried eight marking rockets, but some pilots would rig their aircraft to carry bombs, or put grenades in mason jars and throw them at the enemy.

As a Raven, Cavanaugh came harrowingly close to death when he and a Laotian "back-seater" ran into bad weather on a mission on Sept. 11, 1969.

Low on fuel, Cavanaugh had to land during a gunbattle at a strip taken over by the North Vietnamese near the northern part of Laos' Plain of Jars.

He remembered the CIA had hidden fuel nearby. He rolled a barrel to the aircraft and climbed on top to refuel as bullets whizzed by.

"It was insane to think I could get in and out of there. I thought I was dead," he said.

The O-1's windshield was shot out, but with covering fire from two A-1 Skyraiders, Cavanaugh was able to get the small craft airborne and escape without injury.

Hiu was not so lucky.

After some 300 missions as a FAC, Hiu was shot down in his O-1E Bird Dog in July 1969 by small-arms fire west of Tuy Hoa in South Vietnam flying at about 350 feet.

He crashed and broke his back. The Kapahulu man spent two years in rehabilitation at Tripler Army Medical Center.

"Everyone who was a FAC over there had to be in denial — there was just no escaping the fact you might not come back," Hiu said.

For him, being a FAC was a ticket to fly rather than get stuck in a B-52 bomber or back seat of an F-4 Phantom.

"They said, 'This is the little airplane you can fly, and you will have to go to Vietnam — immediately," he recalled. "I said, 'By the way, what are the odds?' and they said, 'Well, 50 percent get shot down.'

"It was an exaggeration, but the point being made was we had a very high loss rate."

Hiu, 62, is chairman of the upcoming reunion.

"There are all kinds of things that bond people," he said. "Being a FAC, you can't imagine the stress that guys went through day to day."

Even 30 years later, "you still remember," he said.

Reach William Cole at wcole@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-5459.