37. Vietnam War: Helicopters and History

[00:00:00] Robin Bartlett: He was very nervous about having to talk to the battalion commander, but he had the phone and I said, "Count to 15 and if you're not dead, and if you don't hear any bullets going overhead, tell him LZ is green".

[00:00:14] Steve: You may recognise that voice, it's Robin Bartlett, Vietnam veteran that we spoke to back in episode 24, where he talked about many of his experiences during his 12 months in the Vietnam War in 1968. One segment we didn't cover in any detail was Robin's experiences in helicopters. Well, he was in the 101st Airborne Division, so... but anyway, rather than listen to me, here's Robin himself back in that episode explaining how it all started.

[00:01:30] Robin Bartlett:  And finally at about two o'clock in the morning, I was awakened and they said, you're going to the 101st, you're going to the First Cavalry Division. Get ready to go at six o'clock in the morning. So that was my introduction. And the division had a great reputation in that because they had so many helicopters, more helicopters in that division than any other unit in Vietnam, so you flew everywhere. And that meant you carried more water, more ammunition, and less weight on your back. That was the good news. The bad news was that it also meant you made these tremendous number of helicopter combat assaults called a "Charlie Alpha" - combat assault. Those were traumatic moments. Combat assaults were always traumatic moments.

Combat Assaults

[00:02:16] Steve: So, I wanted to follow up with Robin, To understand a little more about combat assaults. I started by asking about the helicopters themselves.

[00:02:33] Robin Bartlett: They were Hueys, carried eight men; crew chief, two door gunners, pilot and co-pilot.

[00:02:39] Steve: And they were noisy?

[00:02:41] Robin Bartlett: Oh yeah. You couldn't hear yourself. You had to scream, just to be heard. The doors were wide open so men would sit in the doors themselves. Frankly, the only good thing about a helicopter assault is it was the only time you cooled off. You got up in the air and you cooled off for a 20 minute ride, and then you were back in the soup.

U.S. Navy, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

[00:02:59] Steve: Now, let's assume your platoon is leading an assault. Where would you be riding?

The Landing Zone

[00:03:05] Robin Bartlett: I would ride on the first helicopter when it was my platoon's turn to lead the combat assault and... they rotated that responsibility among the platoons.

[00:03:16] Steve: And when it was your turn, presumably it was your job to ensure as safe a landing as possible.

[00:03:22] Robin Bartlett: Correct. I always made sure if I was leading the assault that I had a reinforced unit. I would have two machine gunners. I would have my M79 grenade launch man, my radio operator, my squad leader. So I had leadership and I had as much fire power as I could get on that first helicopter.

 And... sometimes the pilots would give you information and tell you where you were, and you wanted to... do a quick fire, a wet fire of your weapons. So everybody shot a few rounds out the doors to make sure your... weapons were functioning properly. And the pilot and co-pilot would tell you when you could do that about five minutes before landing.

[00:04:04] Steve: And then you're approaching the LZ, the Landing Zone. What's next?

[00:04:09] Robin Bartlett: They would prep the LZ on every combat assault. And what that meant was five minute artillery preparation on and around the landing zone so that if there were any enemy present they received intense, artillery bombardment. When the artillery barrage was over they would fire a white phosphorous round and that was the signal to the Cobra helicopters to go in and shoot some rockets on the perimeter.

[00:04:37] Steve: Oh, tell me about the Cobra helicopters.

[00:04:40] Robin Bartlett: These were formidable helicopter gunships. Two-man helicopter gunships that could fire rockets, 76 rockets, and a mini gun that could shoot 3000 rounds a minute. The Cobras stayed on station after we landed to support us in the event there was any enemy activity upon landing.

U.S. Army, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

[00:05:01] Steve: And would that completely clear out the enemy prior to you landing?

[00:05:05] Robin Bartlett: I don't know how the enemy was often able to survive that bombardment and the Cobra helicopters, but they did. They liked to shoot down not the first helicopter, but the second helicopter.

[00:05:18] Steve: Why did they target the second helicopter?

[00:05:21] Robin Bartlett: Well, by not shooting the first helicopter, it encouraged the soldiers landing to say that the LZ was green, so that the second helicopter and subsequent helicopters would start to come in. If they could take down the second helicopter, they got more body count. If the LZ was red, if the LZ was hot, they would divert the rest of the helicopters to an alternate landing zone as close as possible. But the men on the ground, if they survived the crash and survived the second chopper being shot down, they would have to fight it out on their own. So you would have essentially two helicopters, about 16 men on the ground plus the pilots and the crew chief, depending upon who survived. It was pretty horrendous to have a hot LZ.

[00:06:07] Steve: So, assuming that you weren't shot on the way down, it's then time to get off?

[00:06:14] Robin Bartlett: The troops wanted to get off those helicopters as fast as possible. They would ride the skids and sometimes jump from 5 to 10 feet off the ground just to get out and get to cover.

[00:06:24] Steve: How long did it take for the helicopters to come in, offload, and get off the ground again? What kind of time frame are we talking about?

[00:06:33] Robin Bartlett: 10 to 15 seconds, ' cause men would jump. We had two men in each doorway. So four men would jump within 5 feet, sometimes more. That often resulted in injury. They had heavy packs on their backs and that pack would cause them to fall forward unless they were smart. They learned very quickly... to wait until the skids... came very close to the ground. But they wanted off the helicopter. We cleared that helicopter within 10 seconds.

Extract from Vietnam War: Helicopters and History: 10 seconds to clear the helicopter

[00:07:01] Steve:  Wow! And in your book you mentioned one such landing which didn't quite go to plan?

[00:07:08] Robin Bartlett:  Well, that's when we were leading the assault and the... battalion commander was flying overhead in his command and control helicopter and he wanted to know if we were encountering any enemy activity. My RTO had fastened his seat belt. I mean, we never fastened seat belts, but for some reason he fastened his seatbelt.

And... he was very nervous about having to talk to the battalion commander, but he had the phone and I said, "Count to 15 and if you're not dead, and if you don't hear any bullets going overhead, tell him LZ is green". Well, he was so nervous that when we jumped out, he actually fell over, hurt his knee, and I went over to him because he was in a lot of pain and I said, "Did you call the commander?" He said, "I... don't remember what I'm supposed to say". So... I picked up the phone and said, "LZ is green" and... told the battalion commander. And the... response guards, "Who are those men on the centre of the LZ? Get 'em out of there", which was my RTO and me. So I hauled him off to the perimeter and the medic came over and patched up his knee and... he limped for a couple of days, but he... learned a very important lesson.  I did too.

[00:08:24] Steve: The learning curve in the jungle was steep, with scholars driven by the urge to stay alive. Terrifying events were commonplace and Robin was about to experience another one; 'autorotate'.

Autorotate

[00:08:42] Robin Bartlett: It was unusual for us to be in friendly territory. Most of the time my unit operated in I-Corps near the Laotian border, which is three-canopy jungle. But occasionally we were out near the town of Quang Tri, never got into Quang Tri, but around the area. And that area is... sandy soil, tumbleweed. It's out by the Gulf of Tonkin, it's like the beach. And then alternatively, we would be closer to the Laotian border trying to iderdict... enemy forces coming across from the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

And... that was a completely different war. So it was almost like fighting two different types of terrain. But on this one occasion, they brought us in to be a blocking force around a village, and the village was being searched by ARVN soldiers and they went through looking for weapons and contraband.

[00:09:37] Steve: And just to be clear, I-Corps was the most northerly of the tactical zones and ARVN, A-R-V-N, was the Army of the Republic of Vietnam, fighting alongside the U. S.

[00:09:49] Robin Bartlett: Correct. And we spent the entire day basically just being a blocking force. Finally at the end of the day, we were told to... go to our LZ pickup point and as we loaded into the helicopters, we received sniper fire. A couple of rounds hit the helicopter. You could hear the rounds hit the helicopter. We got up to about 1300, 1500 feet and we were flying along and suddenly there was no engine  because these rounds had hit the transmission and the transmission fluid left the engine and all of a sudden the engine seized and stopped. And it was a very, very scary moment because you were in an elevator and the elevator was falling. We started coming down very, very quickly. Not straight down, but on an angle from about 1300 feet. And the beeping on the dashboard of the helicopter and men started praying, we didn't know what was going on. And the pilot kept saying, "I got it. I got it. Autorotate. Autorotate, don't worry". And I'm going, "What the **** is autorotate?" Nobody had ever told me about autorotating. I had no idea what that was. I was getting ready to die and to crash. And... I was sitting inside the helicopter holding on for dear life not knowing what was going to happen.

[00:11:20] Steve: I shouldn't be laughing because this is deadly serious but some of us may know what autorotate is. But actually, even knowing doesn't make it feel any less terrifying. So, tell us about autorotate and your autorotating experience.

[00:11:38] Robin Bartlett: What the pilot could do, what we didn't realize at the time, it's a little bit like putting your car into gear as you're going downhill, is... they pull pitch at the last moment and they make a controlled crash. And we did! Some of the men bounced right out of the helicopter, but it wasn't so bad a crash that we did... that we survived. And there was no fire. And of course the crew chief said, "Get out, get out, get out". And everybody immediately left the helicopter and... took up positions around the helicopter. We... were fortunate to be able to crash in an open area. It spread the skids, which is supposed to happen. They're kind of like shock absorbers. And... some other helicopters that were following us, followed us down. And... our pilot talked to the other pilots on my radio with my radio operator there. And we were all very, very shook up. And of course the other helicopters were low on fuel, they had to go on. So we were left alone for about 20, 30 minutes until they brought in a quick reaction force and also some empty helicopters to take us out. Took us back to base camp. We got off the helicopter and ... said, "Okay, let's get something to eat". And pulled perimeter security back to the normal. We took it as a routine thing.. It wasn't routine, but that's the way we accepted it.

[00:13:02] Steve: Extraordinary. And I love the quote in your book when the pilot said, " They don't tell you about autorotate intentionally, because sometimes it doesn't work"!.

[00:13:13] Robin Bartlett: That's right. Sometimes it doesn't work!

Back to Base Camp

[00:13:18] Steve: Now, one of the perks - if that's possible in this situation - of being a platoon leader in the Vietnam War was that after seven months there was a good chance you may be removed from the front line to take up one of the staff positions at Central Base for your last five months of duty. Although this didn't mean you were totally safe, chances of survival would suddenly look up significantly. And usually the switch didn't come with much notice.

[00:13:54] Robin Bartlett: it was a crazy moment. I was leading my platoon in the field. I'd spent seven months there. My company commander called me on the radio and he said, "Get ready, you're going back to the rear. You finished your tour. Helicopter is inbound to pick you up". It was a... light observation helicopter. They called it a Loach. My replacement got out the right door. I got in the left door and I had about five minutes to say goodbye to my platoon leader and platoon sergeant. I, gave him my map. I gave him twine I carried. I gave him my rope. I gave him a few things that... that I carried. And I was on this helicopter and I was gone.

[00:14:36] Steve: Back at base, having originally expected to be installed as an adjutant to the unit, that's not quite the way it worked out. Robin was approached by the current adjutant, who said, he said,

[00:14:49] Robin Bartlett: "I  got these orders here that says you are to a go to division headquarters and to the 14th MHD for an interview. "And I said, "What's the 14th MHD?" He said, "I don't know." So I got on a helicopter and I flew to the division forward which was at Camp Evans up in I-Corps. And I started asking around, "Where's the 14th MHD?" Nobody knew. And finally I got a soldier. He said, "Well, I think it's down that road about a mile". So I walked down the trail, walked down this road, there's 12,000 people on this base camp. It's huge. And I came to a tent with a sign out front - 14th Military History Detachment.  Our motto, "You fight it, we write it."  And I was interviewed by a captain and he had gone through every officer's personnel file in the entire division looking for junior officers that had journalism or literature background. There were only three. And he had interviewed two others. They had rejected the job. I looked around this office, this tent. They had fans, they had a refrigerator with cold beer and coke. They had a television set. They had cots to sleep on and they had a shower. He offered me the  job and I said, "I'll take it".

Robin Bartlett, Platoon Leader, Vietnam

The 14th Military History Department

[00:16:21] Steve: So you'd found your post, what was working for the Military History Department all about?

[00:16:25] Robin Bartlett: So our job was to write a quarterly Lesson Learned Report. All the battalions had to fill out this formatted Lesson Learned Report and send it in... of their contacts and... their engagements and any lessons learned and field expediencies that they had created during the quarter. That was our primary role.

We attended the division briefing every night. And if there had been a major engagement, then the Division G3, that's the Division Operations Officer, who was a colonel, would say to us to go out and interview the combatants and figure out what had happened 'cause sometimes these engagements went on for two or three days, and you have dead and wounded and didn't have a clear picture of what happened. So we would get on a helicopter, fly out, interview company commander, whoever was left. Sometimes we'd even go to the battalion aid station and interview wounded soldiers.

I'd take a... sergeant with me. We'd take photographs, draw maps, try to reconstruct the battle, and we would come back and write up the report and... sometimes our report would be the very first time that a clear picture of what had happened was pieced together.

The challenges of writing history

[00:17:40] Steve: That's fascinating. I've never considered how battles were recorded after the event and there it is in a nutshell. And apart from immersing yourself in what I guess could have been quite a gruesome and sombre environment, what were the main challenges of the job?  

[00:17:57] Robin Bartlett: It was not uncommon for the Battalion Commander and the Battalion S3, to refuse to talk to us, especially if it had been a... negative engagement on our part, if we had lost a lot of soldiers. I did have one occasion where I went out, I was able to talk to the Company Commander. His company had been decimated, about 80 men killed and wounded out of 120. So his company was no longer an effective fighting force. They had to replace the company. It was a traumatic story that he told me and I had to write up. And... when I delivered the report to the Division G3, he read it over, threw it back at me and said, " This is ridiculous. You've told the story from the Company Commander's point of view". I said, "Well, the Battalion Commander and the Battalion S3 wouldn't talk to me. They refused to talk to me. They said "If the Division G3 wants to talk to us he can call us and I'll talk to him directly". He said, "There's no body count". I said, "Well, as I reported, we know that we killed substantial numbers of enemy because there were all kinds of blood trails, but they had taken all their wounded and dead with them". So he made me rewrite the report, placing the blame fully on the Company Commander who put his troops at risk -according to him. And he said, "Add a body count of 465 enemy killed". We had 80 friendlies killed and wounded and he wanted, you know, 5 times the body count on... their side. Just manufactured.

[00:19:33] Steve: Yeah, the propaganda of war.

[00:19:37] Robin Bartlett: Oh my, yeah We had called the battle The Battle of the Angel's Wing because the territory looked like an angel's wing. It was right next to the Laotian border. He said, "Change the name. Call it The Parrots Beak. That's not an angel's wing. We want a tough title for this battle, OK". So I... dutifully did what I was told to do. Wasn't very happy about it, but I did it.

[00:20:02] Steve: Now, of course the nature of the job meant that there was an amount of downtime. Robin passed that time in a number of ways, one of which was to write an essay he called 'The Trail'. It's a moving account of those daily patrols through the near-impenetrable jungle in stifling heat and under a constant threat of ambush that we looked at in episode 24. I've put a link on the website's show notes if you'd like to take a listen, alongside a reference to his accompanying book, Vietnam Combat, Firefights and Writing History, which I wholeheartedly recommend.

Short timer

[00:20:39] Steve: Now, at this point you're getting really close to going home. You're a short timer, i. e. someone with less than 30 days left in country. I guess those were jittery times. Did you take any additional precautions during that period?

[00:21:01] Robin Bartlett: Yeah. We got some ammo boxes and filled them with dirt and stacked them on either end of the beds that we slept in and put railroad ties over the tops, so it created kind of a cocoon over our beds because we were mortared and rocketed on a regular basis. And we had had a couple of occasions when these rockets had hit the roofs and rained shrapnel down on the soldiers sleeping in these Quonset huts. And this protected us. The commanding general of the 1st Cav was so impressed by these units that he had his soldiers come and take a look at how we constructed them and he made them make these same types of protective devices over all the officers beds to be protected.  

[00:21:54] Steve: But Robin went one stage further.

[00:21:57] Robin Bartlett: We had built a bunker right next to our Quonset hut office, and we cut a hole through the side of the Quonset hut. If you were rocketed or mortared, you could hit the ground and crawl through the hole into the bunker. And I slept in that bunker for the last two weeks... before going home.  

Reflections on writing history

[00:22:20] Steve: Well, thankfully you did make it home and when you think of your time, not as a frontline soldier in Vietnam, but as a writer of history, how have you reflected on that over time?

[00:22:33] Robin Bartlett: Well, you know, I'm certainly not a world leader. I don't have a perspective on a world point of view. But what bothered me the most was toward the end of the height of the war, body count became the metric by which commanders were evaluated and were decorated. And body count became the way we determined that we were winning.

 And soldiers, they didn't want to be last one to die, " die for a tie" as they... frequently would call it. But we knew we couldn't win it. It was untenable. It was unwinnable and it... should have concluded much, much earlier, in my opinion.

And every report was, this is how many men we had wounded and killed, and this is how many men we killed. And some of those metrics, some of those statistics were fabricated. I also found that even though I was in... remained in the service and was in an infantry unit in Alaska, we were the first line of defense in the event the Russians came across the Bering Sea which is a joke in itself, but we didn't talk about it. There was no discussion, there was no discussion about Vietnam, even within the military itself. There was no discussion about it.

Robin Bartlett, author

Personal reflection

[00:24:12] Steve: One of the things that struck me talking to you is how one year in that environment has shaped a lifetime. Can you give me some insight into how your life has been affected by your one year?

[00:24:28] Robin Bartlett: So... I did encounter a lot of really pretty horrendous situations.. We didn't have body bags, but I had to fill out death cards and attach them to the man's boot along with their dog tag and wrap 'em in their poncho, and that was, that was a very, very difficult thing to do.

And I took those experiences and some of the night firefights and ambushes and my interpretation is I locked them away in this titanium trunk in the back of my mind. And I just kept them there. I could not allow them to affect my decision making or my emotions, ... made me a very hard and stealed me against the emotions.

And after about 20 years, my trunk started to leak. And some of these events started to bother me. Not at nightmares, but in daydreams. I would reconstruct some of these events and they would come alive for me. And I was wide awake. And I had a good friend who was a psychiatrist and I went to see her and she gave me a simple exercise to practice and I did, and... it helped me control those leakages from my titanium trunk.

[00:25:49] Steve: And I guess writing the book was part of that control?

[00:25:53] Robin Bartlett: Writing the book was designed to be a catharsis, to come to grips with some of these events that happened to me. It... kind of had the reverse effect.

 A lot of it came back when I was writing. I could re-experience the events in incredible detail. It's amazing how much your mind retains. I could... reconstruct the event. I could see the scenes. I could smell the smells. I could see the colours. It was amazing how much your brain, once you get into it, how much your brain... retains, but not as horrific as the first time. It was softer. The colours had faded a little bit. The trauma was not as intense.

[00:26:39] Steve: And now that the book is published and you have your personal experience on record?

[00:26:45] Robin Bartlett: So the... writing of the book did help to some extent, to come to grips with my own PTSD. Unfortunately I had a wife who...   tells me my greatest strength is that I am fearless and my greatest weakness is that I am fearless  and I think some of that is true.  And the thing that has helped me the most is... she's kicked me in the ass on a regular basis to... help me to become more empathetic.

I raised three boys, learned to hug and to say, "I love you".  Something that was very difficult initially to do.