February 2006 Cover Story:
Tribute to Veterans: Puff the Magic Dragon: AC-47 Gunships in Vietnam

Story by James C. Efird

U-Controlled Pencils
When I was a kid two significant events helped me understand the work of the modern-day war machine called the Gunship. First, my dad bought me a U-controlled model airplane for my birthday, which I promptly destroyed. I am unskilled in the art of UCA (U-Controlled Airmanship). Second, during my junior high days I discovered a book titled Jungle Pilot, the story of five missionaries who lost their lives in the jungles of Ecuador. My teenage mental image of young Nate Saint sitting with a pencil on a string, figuring out how to lower a bucket of gifts from his PA12 to Indian villages in the jungle, remains firmly imbedded in my mind to this day.

Perhaps the mental image remains sharp because much later that image together with my understanding (if lack of skill) of U-control helped me, as a young commercial pilot trainee, master the art of the On-Pylon Turn. Since then I have used both mental pictures -- the U-controlled aircraft and Nate Saint’s pencil-on-a-string -- to help my own students master not only the concept but the skill.

And now I know how the gunshippers did what the gunshippers did. Apparently one my contemporaries, way back in the late '50s, early '60s, also read that fine little biography and applied Nate's missionary principles to military work, delivering gifts to the natives.

An Idea Whose Time Has Come
A few months after Pearl Harbor, 1st Lt. G.C. MacDonald of the 95th Coast Artillery suggested mounting a machine gun in the door of a Cub for hunting submarines. It wasn't a new idea. In 1926, 1st Lt. Fred Nelson had experimented with a de Havilland DH-4 at Brooks Field, mounting a .30-caliber Lewis on the wing and flying turns-on-a-target. Apparently nobody paid much attention to him either.

Although MacDonald's idea was squelched, he never lost the vision. In 1961 now-LTC G.C. MacDonald resurrected his old idea. This time, he had not only more rank but an ally at Bell Aerosystems named Ralph E. Flexman, an assistant chief engineer.

Flexman had heard of Nate Saint's contact with the natives, and reasoned that the straight line of the rope holding Nate's bucket in the vortex of a cone could translate into a straight line of gun fire at a single point on Earth if a gunship were flown in a similar pylon turn. This logic translated into serious difficulties for the Viet Cong (VC).

Interestingly, I could find no record that either Flexman or MacDonald knew anything of Nelson's successful demonstrations in Texas. Or maybe they thought it was an Aggie joke.

In February 1962, U.S. forces were training VNAF forces in counterinsurgency operations. Part of that training included using C-47s based at Bien Hoa Air Base to drop flares to illuminate outposts and small villages under night attack by VC forces. When the training program ended in 1963, the C-47 flareships were transferred to the 1st Air Commando Squadron.

The side-firing gunship concept was controversial, and its advocates needed evidence it would work. In early 1963 they initiated Project Tailchaser and began flight tests from WPAFB with Capt. John C. Simmon flying T-28 and C-131 aircraft to demonstrate the feasibility of holding a target in sight during a pylon turn. In spite of promising results, the project struggled until the arrival of Capt. Ronald W. Terry in the summer of 1964. Capt. Terry was returning to Wright Field from duty in South Vietnam, and, from his experience with Air Force operations in support of SVN troops, he recognized the gunship potential. It was Capt. Terry’s persistent advocacy, piloting skills, leadership, and enthusiasm that revitalized Project Tailchaser and ultimately led to combat success.

Combat Test Program
In November of 1964 Terry briefed Gen. Curtis E. LeMay, who gave him permission to modify a C-47 and test it in combat. Terry began operations out of Bien Hoa AB, South Vietnam, during December 1964. The Air Force had created two FC-47s ("FC" meant "Fighter Cargo," a designation that apparently annoyed fighter jocks, so it was changed to AC-47) by installing GE SUU-11A 7.6 mm Gatling guns, a gun sight cobbled up from a crosshair reticle and a 16 mm camera reflex viewfinder, and a supply of flares. Terry trained crews of the 1st Air Commando Squadron in techniques of gunship operation, which involved boresighting the equipment, acquiring a target, entering an orbit pattern, and then adjusting it as required to fire on the target.

The Cone of Fire
The intense, lethally accurate fire chewed the enemy to pieces and saved the lives of countless friendly personnel. No one who saw the fountain of fire pouring from the FC-47s could ever forget it. The very sound and fury of the FC-47 -- later called the AC-47 -- raised South Vietnamese morale even as it “spooked” the VC, and the aircraft soon got affectionate nicknames such as "Puff" and "Dragonship." The call sign "Spooky" was assigned to early gunship operations.

VC Chet Roi
The first test use of the AC-47 gunship in combat occurred on December 15, 1964 with testing continuing into early 1965. One early and significant success happened on the night of December 23, 1964. The AC-47 defended a small outpost at Tranh Yend just 37 minutes after the request was issued. Defenders at one of the outposts radioed for fire support, and soon the noise of battle was joined by the roar of two big radials. As flares dropped from the aircraft, the VC hunkered down to wait for the plane and its flares to leave the area, a tactic they had used many times before. But this time it didn’t work.

As the VC went to ground, the noise of battle was joined by a scream from the night sky and "streams of fire and death" began chewing up their positions. Every few seconds the screaming stopped, only to return from another direction. The VC withdrew. Later that night, the scenario was repeated farther south at Trung Hung to relieve another besieged garrison.

The test program went so well that the Air Force created the 4th Air Commando Squadron in August 1965 as the first operational unit equipped with the AC-47 gunship. Based at Tan Son Nhut AB, the 4th ACS operated several forward operating locations throughout South Vietnam (Bien Hoa, Pleiku, Na Trang, Da Nang & Can Tho). In November 1965, the 4th ACS was assigned 16 operational aircraft with four more assigned as “advanced attrition” aircraft. Eventually, two more squadrons were created: the 3rd and 5th ACS, all under the 14th Air Commando Wing (ACW). In August 1968, unit designations were changed from Air Commando to Special Operations.

Mission Accomplished
From 1964 to 1969, the AC-47s successfully defended 3,926 hamlets, outposts or forts. They fired over 97 million rounds and killed over 5,300 enemy soldiers. No outpost or village under gunship protection was ever lost to the enemy. Typical was the defense of the embattled DUC LAP compound in Quang Duc Province. Major Daniel Rehn, pilot of Spooky 41, observed: "When we arrived (over Duc Lap), the buildings in the compound were all afire and the men were grounded in a blockhouse below the burning operations center. I set up a quick orbit of the area and began firing on targets about 200 to 300 meters from the camp. Almost immediately we began receiving intense AA fire from four points. I began by firing a long burst at a target from my mini-guns but when the tracers started to fly close to us, I moved to another altitude to peck with short bursts at the enemy locations."

For several days, the gunships shot 761,044 rounds and dropped 1,162 flares. Up to four AC-47s worked the area simultaneously. The AC-47s not only devastated the attacking enemy troops but stiffened the confidence of defenders, particularly at night. As the men at DUC LAP put it, Spooky truly became their "Guardian Angel."

During a night defense of a hamlet in the Mekong River Delta, a reporter from the Stars and Stripes watched an AC-47 attack from inside the fortifications.

"Upon witnessing the wrath that the AC-47 brought down on the VC attackers that night, he reported that visual effect of the tracers, one in every five rounds or 20 per second, gave the appearance of dragon's breath. He also tied the roar of the guns into the description. Upon reading the account in the Stars and Stripes, the CO of the 1st Commando Squadron exclaimed 'Well, I'll be damned! Puff, the Magic Dragon.' from a child's song recently popularized in the U.S. by the trio Peter, Paul and Mary. Captured VC documents later told of orders not to attack the Dragon as weapons are useless and it will only infuriate the monster."

The Puff carried 21,000 rounds and three 7.62mm mini-guns with a fast (6,000 rounds per minute) or slow (3,000 rounds per minute) rate of fire, with seven crewmembers (two pilots, one navigator, two gunners, one load master and one flight engineer), it operated typically at 3,000 ft., 130 knots airspeed, without armor or escorts and carried 24 to 56 flares, thrown out the door manually.

The Saving of Spooky 71
The lowest-ranking airman ever to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor was 23-year-old Airman First Class John L. Levitow, loadmaster on an AC-47, Spooky 71, which went to the aid of besieged troops at Long Binh Army Base a few miles northeast of Saigon. It was John Levitow’s 181st combat sortie.

Spooky 71 climbed into a darkening sky from Bien Hoa Air Base, a few miles northwest of Saigon. It was February 24, 1969, the second day of the Tet counteroffensive. The gunship carried about 150,000 rounds of ammunition on each flight and about 50 magnesium flares to illuminate targets on the ground, robbing the VC of the cover of darkness.

That evening, Spooky 71 had been in the air for four and a half hours when Maj. Kenneth Carpenter, the aircraft commander, was directed to an area south of the Army base where enemy mortars were laying down a heavy barrage. Levitow was responsible for setting the ejection and ignition controls of the Mark-24 flares that lit up the battlefield with 2,000,000 candlepower.

Charlie's attack lifted momentarily, and the gunship began dropping flares as requested by a nearby ground unit. Levitow handed a flare to Airman Ellis Owen, whose finger was through the safety pin ring, preparing to toss the flare through the door at Carpenter’s command.

Suddenly Spooky 71 was rocked by a tremendous blast. An 82-mm mortar shell had exploded inside the gunship’s right wing, showering the cargo compartment with shrapnel. All five crew members in the rear of the plane were hurled to the floor, bleeding from shrapnel wounds. The aircraft rolled into a steep, descending right turn, momentarily out of control. The flare, torn from Owen’s hands by the blast, rolled around the aircraft floor fully armed amidst several thousand rounds of live ammunition.

Levitow, in pain and shock with 40 shrapnel wounds, saw one of the crew lying dangerously close to the open cargo door. As he dragged the wounded man to safety, he saw the armed flare rolling around the cargo compartment.

Weakened from loss of blood and partially paralyzed by his wounds, Levitow tried vainly to pick up the flare. The plane was still in a 30-degree bank. Finally, in desperation, he threw himself on the flare, dragged it to the door, and pushed it out just as it ignited in a white-hot blaze. Levitow then passed out from his injuries.

Carpenter managed to regain control of the gunship, its wings and fuselage riddled by 3,500 shrapnel holes, one of them three feet in diameter. It took considerable effort to get Spooky 71 back to base. "I consider the fact that the aircraft was able to fly at all a miracle," Carpenter said. Shot up and near stalling, Spooky approached Bien Hoa in the dark. Between the town of Bien Hoa and the base was an old French minefield, never cleared and fenced by barbed wire. Landing short would have been a disaster. Ambulances and a medical evacuation helicopter were waiting on the flight line at Bien Hoa, Spooky 71’s home base, when the battered plane landed with its five injured crewmen -- two of them, including John Levitow, seriously wounded. Levitow was flown to a hospital in Japan. Levitow declined to board the helicopter until Carpenter finally ordered him to do so.

After recovering from his wounds, he flew two more combat missions and showed up at the flight line for a third when the squadron commander told him he was grounded. He had been nominated for the Medal of Honor -- at Carpenter’s urging, Gen. George S. Brown, the 7th Air Force commander, had marked the recommendation up from an Air Force Cross -- and he was no longer allowed to fly in combat. He returned to the States to complete his enlistment as a C-141 loadmaster at Norton AFB, Calif.

The nomination package included statements from Carpenter and most of the crew. "Others were there, others were wounded, but Levitow being the furthest removed from the flare, recognized the danger, took action when seconds counted, and saved the lives of the entire crew," Carpenter wrote. "Levitow's progress was clearly marked with his own blood on the floor of the aircraft."