During the Vietnam War, F-4 Phantom jets cruised at 575 mphand could hit more than twice that speed if needed, but Air Force Capt. Buck Welch flew a much, much slower — and more dangerous — 100 to 120 mph in a twin-propeller Cessna O-2 Skymaster.
That’s precisely why he and other forward air controllers were so valuable; they could spot in the jungle what speedy jets couldn’t, and directed bombing runs for those jets on enemy positions below.
Welch, a Pacific Aviation Museum Pearl Harbor board member and Punchbowl area resident, flew about 240 combat missions from August 1971 to August 1972 out of Da Nang in the northern part of South Vietnam and Pleiku in the central highlands.
As the Pentagon recognizes the 50th anniversary of the war — 3,500 Marines were deployed in 1965 in the first big movement of regular ground troops into South Vietnam — the Pacific Aviation Museum is holding its “Biggest Little Airshow” this weekend on Ford Island with a special focus on the Southeast Asian conflict.
The 10 a.m.-to-4 p.m. event Saturday and Sunday will feature scale-model war-bird flybys and a display of Vietnam-era aircraft. Vietnam vets and their families will receive free admission and access to a VIP tent.
The Vietnam War, which was controversial then, continues to be a bit so even with the determination that this year would be declared the 50th anniversary of its start. Many have observed that U.S. military “advisers” were involved in South Vietnam well before 1965 to try to stop the spread of communism.
“What I see about our Vietnam experience, from my cockpit, is that we went about it with the best of intentions, but we did it with one arm tied behind our back,” Welch said. President Lyndon Johnson tried to fight a limited war “against an enemy that was not about to fight a limited war.”
But the United States always had overwhelming air superiority, and there was no question about commitment to the mission, Welch said.
Even by 1971 “every American in Vietnam knew that we were getting out and we would be out soon,” said Welch, who is a Punahou graduate. “Therefore, am I going to hang it out in (these) circumstances and take risks? … But I mean, these guys, when a flight showed up on target, I didn’t see them dropping their bombs at 20,000 feet and then going back to base or the officer’s club. I saw them pressing the target as if this was what the war depended on — was this mission.”
Welch would literally lead the way for fighter bombers by finding targets, marking them with white phosphorous rockets and communicating with the pilots doing the bombing. He was armed with a .38-caliber revolver and shorty M-16 rifle that he said he tried, pretty unsuccessfully, to fire out the window a couple times.
Welch, now 69, remembers one night mission where each of the attacking F-4s should have said “there’s not a way in the world we’re going to try this” but they went anyway.
A South Vietnamese firebase with two American advisers was under attack by an overwhelming force when one came up on Welch’s radio and said, “We need help now,” he recalled. Welch found a hole through a bank of clouds and took the Phantoms down through it over the base.
One American was killed by ground fire, and the other said, “‘Just bring it on me.’ He said, ‘I’m going to be dead here in a minute anyway. Just hit our position,’” Welch said.
The four F-4s dropped their bombs, obliterating the area below, but the one American — Welch doesn’t know what service branch he was from — lived through it and radioed back.
“Eight men (in the fighters) decided to do something totally foolish, and some of them were probably going home the week after,” Welch said. “We do produce some extraordinary military people in this country.”
Eight extraordinary pilots in four F-4 Phantoms and perhaps one more in a little Cessna.
Welch said he will be at the Pacific Aviation Museum, which has an O-2 Skymaster. Air show visitors can drive onto Ford Island. The cost is $5 per person. For information, go to PacificAviationMuseum.org. Tickets also can be bought at the door.
