October 15, 2019 Curtis Laird on How to Drop Gunpowder

The Liberty Gazette

October 15, 2019

Ely Air Lines
By Mike Ely and Linda Street-Ely

Mike: Remember last week’s story from the Literature of Laird, about him going all John Wayne and getting those seven dump trucks in a circle to protect their aircraft overnight from the Viet Cong? That happened in Kontum and just a few days later, he was assigned another mission to fly back there again.

Curtis: On that next mission, it seemed the enemy wanted to make everybody miserable as they started a periodic shelling of the airfield and some of the surrounding area. We were flying loads of gunpowder and projectiles to the friendly artillery as they were trying to make the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese miserable also.

These loads we carried with our heavy-duty helicopters called Cranes averaged between 14,000 and 15,000 pounds each. That’s a lot of gunpowder. We were in-bound with our first load when we radioed those in charge at the Kontum airfield to ask where they wanted us to release it. We were quite surprised at the instructions. It seemed the bad guys were trying to knock out the airfield, and we would have to deliver the loads onto the beds of moving five-ton trucks.

The “plan,” if you want to call it that, was as we would make our approach, a truck would zoom out of a revetment and race down the runway, dodging the craters from their mortar attacks. We would approach the moving vehicle from the rear and deposit the load in the bed. The truck would continue, darting back into another revetment for safety. Like other unique situations we encountered in war, this was another one of those “no rehearsal” exercises.

Although we all had a lot of apprehension about surviving this plan, fortunately, it worked. Three weeks later, my unit relocated south about 120 miles, and there was no more Kontum for a while.

Linda: When Curtis was back in the U.S., he flew medivac for the U.S. Army. That experience showed him that people are capable of doing the worst things to each other, no matter what country they’re in. But he also had some interesting experiences flying here stateside. And talk about the importance of being flexible, ready for anything and ability to “turn on a dime”… Fortunately, Curtis’ previous forays into adventure taught him to think fast on his feet. Like that time he was flying from Fort Benning, Georgia to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to pick up a cargo pod for the 478th Heavy Helicopter Company.

Nearing the fuel stop at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana, Curtis and crew advised the tower controller they’d be refueling. To their surprise, the controller advised of “a situation in progress,” and they’d direct the helicopter where to park. Unfortunately, they led them to a light load parking area which had just been paved with asphalt. Fresh asphalt in Louisiana in July could be a problem for such heavy aircraft. Come back next week for that story and more.

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