Gunfight at the Cambode Corral
- Christina DeSantis
- Apr 14
- 19 min read
Updated: Jul 22
This is an extract from Colonel Don L. Brooks' first book, “Fly to the Sound of Battle.” Brooks was an ALO/FAC flying the OV-10 Bronco. At the time, we were flying Top Secret missions in support of the Cambodian Army.
My flight on November 23 of 1970, is one I will never forget. It was only twenty days until my tour of duty in SEA was finished, and I was looking forward to returning to "the world."
The flight began routinely enough. I had the first go that morning, "Dawn Patrol." Gil Bellefeuille was my interpreter that day. I enjoyed flying with Gil. He could always be counted on to do a great job and was a lot of fun to be around.
Shortly after we got into the AO, Gil started checking in with the various ground commanders. As they were exchanging pleasantries, one commander requested we attempt to locate a missing convoy. He told us it should have arrived at his location the previous evening but didn't. We headed west along the route it should have been on. Well, it wasn't too hard to find. About ten miles or so down the road we found the remains of the convoy. It had been ambushed, with debris all over the road and in the surrounding area—a total wipeout. We spotted a number of the enemy still scrounging through the remains, but they ran like hell into a nearby pagoda as soon as they saw us coming. As I mentioned earlier, they knew our rules of engagement as well as we did. They figured they would be safe from us in the pagoda.
Gil radioed this information back to the ground commander, who began to organize a relief column to go down to the ambush site to recover the remains. Since there was nothing else for us to do for him right away, we pressed on to other tasks. We worked an air strike or two in other locations, as well as doing a few things for various other ground commanders for a couple of hours or so.
During this time, the relief column was well on its way to the ambushed convoy. The road took them through a small village. As they approached, they began taking mortar fire from the village. Since we were close by at the time, we were asked to help out. A Shadow AC-119 gunship was in the area, so I asked him to fire on the mortar position. Just by coincidence, Shadow's pilot was the same one that I had worked with a few weeks earlier when we found all the guns and we each had taken hits.
Once I saw Shadow was on target, I began flying a lazy circle at about 3000 feet or so, well outside his orbit, watching him fire his mini-guns on the mortar position. Several minutes later, the ground commander called, advising he could hear a .50 caliber machine gun fire at me every time I passed over a different small village down to the south of our target. I went over to take a look, but since I saw nothing out of the ordinary, I resumed my orbit, keeping one eye on the village.
I guess it was about ten minutes later, while we were near the suspect village that it happened. Gil and I both felt the plane give a violent shake and heard a loud explosion. It was as if we had been hit by a cannon shell or a missile!
"Gil, we've been hit! Get ready to get out if we have to!"
"Roger that."
I couldn't believe how cool he sounded. In my rear-view mirror, I could see that the entire cargo compartment, immediately behind Gil’s seat, was an inferno!
To pick up speed, I made a diving turn to the northeast toward Prey Totung, the nearest village known to be in friendly hands, the one the relief column had originally come from. The plane responded perfectly; the engines, all controls and instruments were fine; it was just burning up! I switched over to guard channel and got off a Mayday call on the radio.
I had thoughts of landing the plane. There was a strip not too far away, plus there was the paved road the friendly relief column was on. Of course, when I think back, if I had landed, the plane would have just burned up on the ground, but I really hated the thought of leaving a good-flying plane even though it was being consumed by fire!
The projectile, whatever it was, must have hit a fuel or hydraulic line, because it looked like the inside of a blast furnace right behind Gil's seat. I could only imagine what it might do to his parachute, mounted on the back of the seat. I needed to get him out as soon as I could, but it would have to be over friendlier territory if at all possible. Then, I would decide what I would do with the plane.
Although we weren't over the friendly village yet, I advised Gil to go ahead and eject since the fire was just too close to him. Again, I was surprised, since he didn't hesitate at all and, with a bang, was gone.
I immediately found myself surrounded by fire! His ejection took the top of our canopy off, drawing the fire into the front cockpit with me. I could see flames between the instrument panel and me! As you can well imagine, this turn of events immediately and permanently removed from my mind any thoughts of landing the plane. I can remember grabbing the ejection D-ring and giving it a good firm pull. I'll never admit I panicked, but I pulled it so hard that I broke the handle off in my hand—and nothing happened! I had finally made my mind up to eject, and now the damn thing didn't work! What I had forgotten was the fraction of a second delay built in to allow the rear seat to fire before the front seat went. I didn’t want a delay; I was ready to get out right now!
After what seemed like an eternity, the seat ejected, as advertised, and out I went. In fact, Gil told me later that he thought I had waited too long; he said the entire cockpit was a fireball when I popped out of it. I have no recollection of an upward thrust, but I do remember a sensation of looking between my feet and seeing the aircraft falling away from me, along with a blizzard of confetti caused by my beloved map kit being shredded in the slip-stream. The next thing I really remember was hanging in the chute.
Looking around, I could see Gil had a good chute also, but he was quite some distance away. I noted our now empty Bronco in a wide turn, streaming fire from the entire cockpit area. In fact, it continued its turn until it was pointed directly at me!
"What an inglorious way to go," I thought. "Shot out of the sky, survive an ejection from a burning aircraft, and then get run over by your own plane!"
Fortunately, it continued turning, went nose up, then appeared to run out of steam and dove into the ground. It was a weird sensation—I saw it explode on impact, but I heard nothing!
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, I’m here to proclaim, there is no more lonely feeling in the world than to be hanging in a chute over Indian Country, watching your ride back home smash into the ground, wishing you were in any one of a million other places—and with only twenty days to go before my tour was over! I could sense hundreds of evil eyes watching me. It was a very naked feeling. "What am I doing here?"
Before ejecting, I had put the plane into a dive in an attempt to pick up as much speed as possible, trying to get over the friendly village before the fire got to Gil's seat. I could now see Prey Totung out in front of me, probably a mile or so away. I thought, if I could just get there, I'd be in safe hands. Maybe I should try to slip the chute, as I'd heard could be done. As best I can recall, I was probably down to around 1,500 feet or so when I ejected. So now I'm going to slip over a mile before I get to the ground? Not too likely! All I accomplished by pulling down on my risers was to accelerate my rate of descent. When I realized that there was no way I was going to reach the safety of the village, I decided I had better see where I was going to land. I had waited too long. Right below me, coming up at what looked like a thousand miles per hour, was a barn roof!
I instinctively reacted by swinging my legs up, hitting the roof butt first. Since it was constructed of thatched bamboo, I crashed right through it, finding myself sitting on the ground, with a most surprised Cambodian farmer and his cow standing right next to me! I don't know which of the three of us was most frightened. You have just got to imagine—they didn't see or hear me coming, the first thing they knew was when I dropped in on them, right through the barn roof! The farmer's eyes were as big as saucers and the cow was jumping around like crazy. My first thought was that this fellow is really going to be pissed at me for tearing up his barn roof and might take a pitchfork to me. I wanted to let him know I really was a nice guy, so I jumped up and said, "Hi!" He nodded his head in response.
My next thought was to get away from him while he was still in shock and before he went for his pitchfork. Since I had lost my bearings when I went through the roof, I pointed in what I thought was the direction of the village and said, "Prey Totung?"
Even though we spoke different languages, he understood and pointed the same way, repeating, "Prey Totung."
By this time, I was out of my harness, so I said, "Thank you very much," and left, taking my survival kit with me. I left my chute draped through the hole I'd created in his barn roof. What the heck, maybe he could use it as a patch.
Outside the barn was a trail leading in the direction of the village. After going down it a short distance, I realized that this wasn't too smart; it certainly wasn't the way we had been taught to evade. I started looking around for a place to get off the trail and hide. There wasn't much in the way of hiding places. I was surrounded by open rice paddies and a few clumps of trees here and there. For lack of a better idea, I went over and sat down in the short grass at the base of a tree. At least I was off the trail, and I needed to settle down a bit, get my heart out of my mouth, and decide what I was going to do.
As I took stock of things, I realized I had a small cut on one arm and above my eye. My helmet was gone, probably lost during the ejection. I still had my kneeboard, which I took off and threw away. I longed for a drink of water, as I was incredibly thirsty.
About this time, while looking around my position, I spotted a guy in the shadows of some trees across the rice paddy, about 75 yards away! He was dressed in only a loincloth and was carrying an AK-47! Also, he was wearing my helmet! Here came my heart back into my mouth! I couldn't believe he hadn't seen me, as I wasn't hidden at all! My best guess was that he was so intent on watching the trail I'd been on, he really wasn’t looking around. Staying as still as I could, I slipped my .38 from its holster. "Well," I thought, "here's where it ends. Gunfight at the Cambode Corral."
Just for a moment, I hesitated. This is really going to be a long shot (no pun intended) for a pistol, especially in my nervous state. Even if I were lucky enough to hit and disable him with my first shot, how many friends does he have in the area that might hear the shot? But if I missed him ... well, with that AK he would just blow me away. I decided to just stay still and make a noise like a tree.
I'll never know why he didn't spot me. He just stayed there under that tree, watching the trail. I suppose he didn't want to move around too much because by now there were several aircraft overhead. After what seemed like an eternity, he slowly slipped away ... and I was glad!
While this was taking place, Gil was having his own experiences. When I had called for him to eject, he pulled the handle without any hesitation. Since he had his head bent down, looking at the D-ring when the seat fired, he got a stiff neck from the rapid upward thrust. Like me, he did not remember any opening shock when the parachute deployed, he only recalled pulling the handle and then hanging in the parachute. He saw me come out of the fireball that was the cockpit, watched as the plane appeared to do a nose high stall, then head for the ground. He, too, saw the explosion when it hit, but said it was absolutely soundless.
Gil came down in an open rice paddy, near a big tree. He hit the ground rather hard and was briefly stunned by the impact. When he regained his senses, he shed his parachute harness and headed over to the tree, crouching beneath it. Like me, he knew he was in Indian country and was scared shitless.
Shadow had heard my Mayday call and had seen us go down. He had moved over to where the crash site was and began an orbit over the burning wreckage. At this time, he hadn’t spotted either Gil or me on the ground. Another FAC, Rustic 12, had been working two A-37s some distance away when he also heard the Mayday and had brought the fighters over with him. In short order, I had a virtual air armada over me. I liked that!
I got on my survival radio and Rustic 12 answered right away. I felt much better already! I assured him I was OK, but that I had seen a guy looking for me. He told me that if I spotted him again, let him know, as assets were available to rectify the situation. He also established contact with Gil, confirming he was safely on the ground and OK.
Rustic 12 gave us the typical "good news, bad news" story. The Jolly Greens rescue helicopters had been launched from Bien Hoa, but they were being held at the Cambodian border. I'm not sure I correctly remember the reason; seems like it had something to do with them making a "hot" pickup without Sandy (A-1) escort. The Sandys were all up north, helping out with the Son Tay raid. At any rate, 12 suggested we get to the friendly village if we could, so our pickup wouldn't be "hot." He also advised us that the friendlies in the village had seen us go down and were sending out patrols to find us.
Radio communications were difficult at best. There were a lot of folks on guard channel, and Rustic 12 was talking to and coordinating with a lot of different people. Everyone wanted to talk at once. With all this confusion, interruptions, interference, etc., the conversations described in the preceding paragraphs took quite some time to complete. In the midst of all the other distractions and problems, Gil and I were still separated, plus we were too far apart to communicate directly with each other. A high priority of mine was for Rustic 12 to assist in getting Gil and me together, and I was trying to get this concern transmitted as best I could. Gil, like all the other interpreters, hadn’t had the opportunity to attend any of the survival or evasion training courses that the pilots had all attended. I was quite concerned for his safety.
About this time, I spotted about a half dozen rag-tag troops approaching my position from the north. They were coming down the trail at the double. While I wasn't absolutely sure they were friendly, I guessed that they were. For one thing, 12 had said they were coming. Also, they came from the right direction, and whereas the previous guy I had spotted was sneaking around under the trees, these folks were running down the trail. I stood up and waved, and they came right over to me.
You sure couldn't tell what they were by their clothing. Their leader, a Cambodian lieutenant, was wearing fatigues, but the rest were in all sorts of mixed garb. Their weapons were a mixed bag also; M-16s, AKs … one even had a .45 caliber "Grease Gun." I hadn't seen one of those in years. One other soldier was armed only with a canvas bag of grenades; their artilleryman, I guess. I really felt much better now; I had my own army! Let’s go find Gil!
Communication with the troops was a problem, but with the little French I knew and sign language, we got by. The lieutenant wanted to go to the crash site. I assured him there was no need to go there. Since I considered myself fairly secure now, my number one concern was to join up with Gil. Since Rustic 12 was talking to both of us, I thought it would be a simple matter to have him vector us in. I was wrong!
With all the confusion on guard channel, and all the other people 12 was trying to talk and coordinate with, we just couldn't get it worked out. I've heard audiotapes of the rescue, and I still can't believe all the confusion. Rustic 12 did a commendable job keeping his cool and sorting it all out.
To some extent, the immediate need to join up with Gil went away when he reported that he, too, was in friendly hands. A patrol had also found him. This certainly took some of the urgency out of our getting together, but I still considered this a high priority.
As he told the story, from his location under the big tree, he heard some troops approaching. Gil drew his revolver and got into a defensive position behind the tree, ready to fight it out if necessary. He said he fully intended to use five of the rounds in his pistol on the bad guys and the last one on himself. He did not want to become a prisoner, nor did he think it would be in the best interest of the Rustic mission for him to be captured and interrogated. Again, much as my experience had been, he guessed correctly that they were friendlies. They were calling to him, repeating “friend, friend” in French, plus their dress and weapons indicated they were good guys. All in all, it was a very successful join-up between Gil and the friendly Cambodians that had been looking for him.
A bit later on, I heard the distinctive sound of a Huey approaching my location! I grabbed one of my signal flares and prepared to pop a smoke. To my surprise, I discovered it was securely tied to my survival vest by what appeared to be parachute cord. I couldn't break or untie it, and I'd lost my knife somewhere during the ejection/barn roof penetration. As you might well imagine, I was hesitant to ignite the flare while it was closely tethered to my body!
Fortunately, the Huey passed quite near me, close enough for one of the door gunners to see me waving. The pilots began a turn back toward me. One of the Cambodian troops in the patrol, seeing my dilemma with the signal flare, handed me a smoke canister, which I activated and tossed into the rice paddy. I called Rustic 12, advising him that there was a Huey in the area. He appeared more surprised than I was; none of us had any idea there were any helicopter assets anywhere in the AO. I assured him that I indeed had a Huey moving toward me and that I intended to get on board.
Sometime later, we found out that the ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) had two Hueys on detached duty at Phnom Penh, a CIA operation. Within the TACC at Seventh Air Force HQ in Saigon, there apparently was one desk with a phone, manned by a Vietnamese lieutenant—after all it was a combined effort, wasn't it? When the word got back to Seventh that we had been shot down, this lieutenant, on his own initiative, picked up his phone and launched the Hueys to go find us. This is how we got rescued, while the bureaucratic red tape prevented our own Jollys from coming to get us. This lieutenant, by the way, was a special guest at my farewell party when I left Vietnam.
The Huey set down in the paddy a short distance in front of me. My "troops" accompanied me out to it. I waved a quick, but sincere "Thanks" to them as I climbed aboard. I left them the contents of my survival kit to do with as they saw fit. I've often wondered what ever happened to them. I feel I owed them so much more.
The Huey lifted off and within a very short time we found Gil. I welcomed him aboard and was delighted to see that he was indeed OK. He had a cut on his chin, but it was overridden by a mile-wide grin. We weren't sure at first where they were taking us, but at the time, we really didn't care. After a bit, we were able to tell we were heading toward Phnom Penh.
It wasn't long until we touched down at the Phnom Penh airport. I couldn't believe my eyes when we stepped out! There was a contingent of the Cambodian Air Force, all formed up, standing at attention. They went to "present arms," paying their respects to Gil and me. They welcomed us as returning heroes. I was told later that we were the very first American fliers to come through alive for them to show their appreciation to. When the O-2 had been shot down a number of weeks earlier, the Cambodian forces had recovered the bodies of the two pilots and returned them to Bien Hoa with full military honors. The Cambodian commander, after greeting us, led us inside a building where I was able to use a radio to contact Rustic 12 once again, to advise him we were safely on the ground in Phnom Penh.
Gil and I were then shown to a small van and were driven into town to the main hospital of Phnom Penh. They escorted us inside, leading us to an emergency ward for treatment of our injuries. I was rather embarrassed to be taken to the head of the line, past numerous soldiers on stretchers lining the hallways. Their wounds made ours appear totally insignificant. The Chief Flight Surgeon of the Cambodian Air Force treated us. In attendance was the Hospital Commander, who was also the Dean of the Medical University of Phnom Penh. The Vice Chief of the Cambodian Air Force also showed up.
After our treatment was completed (Band-Aids would have done the trick), the hospital commander invited us all to his office, where a couple of bottles of good Scotch miraculously appeared. I talked primarily with the Vice Chief, who spoke excellent English. He told me that the Chief expressed his regrets that he wasn't able to join us, but that we were to be his guests at dinner that evening. Hotel reservations were made, entertainment was lined up, and someone was looking for civilian clothes for us. They really wanted to express their appreciation by showing us a good time. Of course, that was fine by Gil and me.
After a bit, an American from the Embassy showed up. I think he was an Army major, but I'm not sure, since he was in civilian clothes. He was extremely nervous and obviously had been tasked to keep our presence low key and get us out of the country ASAP. Apparently there had already been some questions from reporters. He advised us that the Jollys were now out at the airport, and that we should get out there right away. Two big USAF HH-53s on a Cambodian airport tended to beg questions, I suppose. Well, our hosts didn't want to let us go. They wanted to entertain us; but at the same time, they didn't want to cause any trouble with the U.S. Embassy. The major was caught in the middle. Finally, the flight surgeon had what seemed to be the answer; he declared our injuries too serious for travel, and that we needed to remain under observation for 24 hours. Well, that idea floated for about fifteen minutes. Then the major got another call from the Embassy. His answers this time were a series of, "Yes, sir; immediately, sir." Within moments, we were back in the van, on our way to the airport.
The Cambodian pilot who had spent some time with the Rustics at Bien Hoa joined us for the ride back out to the airport. It was great to see him; he was a super guy and had been a special friend of mine during the time he had stayed with us. By the way, he attended a training course at Maxwell AFB, Alabama, a year or so later, and I was able to spend a most enjoyable evening with him there. As I mentioned a bit earlier, I was delighted to finally learn he and his family survived the "Killing Fields" and escaped to the U.S., and I have had a number of good visits with him in recent years at our Rustic Reunions.
When we arrived at the airport, the Jolly crews were now missing. Since they had no idea when we were going to show up, they had pretty well scattered to go sight-seeing and had to be rounded up. During this delay, my Cambodian pilot friend took me over to one of the Mig fighters parked nearby and let me climb into the cockpit for a bit. This was a first for me.
The Jolly crews were finally ready to go, and within short order we were airborne again. I frustrated the medics, I suppose, because I refused to lie down and act like a survivor. I kept going up front to observe the pilot flying this big helicopter, especially when it came time for in-flight refueling. This was still another "first" in this most eventful day. By the way, the Jolly pilot had been an underclassman of mine at the Academy and was a long-time friend.
On our return flight, we picked up a Mayday call from Rustic 13, who had been scrambled off to replace us after our shoot down. They had taken a hit themselves while flying in the same area that Gil and I had been in when we were hit, possibly from the same gun. That gunner was definitely a seven-level! Our Jolly pilot got all excited; he figured he would be able to get a "double" rescue! As it turned out, Rustic 13’s plane, fortunately, was still flyable, and they were able to return home. I looked at it the next day. The .50 caliber slug came in the bottom, right between the rudder pedals, went up through the instrument panel, and then exited through the windshield! That had to be exciting! By the way, it was this incident that gained 13 the nickname of "Magnet Ass." And yes, the village the gun was located in "ceased to exist" at dawn the next day.
There was a crowd of folks on the ramp to welcome us home. We were really glad to be able to be there and be a part of it. I wouldn't have enjoyed missing it! Someone took movies of our arrival. Since my head was wrapped turban-style in bandages (for only a small cut), I tried my best to look like a severely injured survivor. Of course, Gil had to ruin the effect. He flipped them the bird as he stepped out of the Jolly!
After a medical checkup, a debriefing, and dinner, we went back to the Rustic Hooch, where we found the party had already begun. Gil and I had to drink extra fast to catch up—but we made it!
I don't think this story would be complete without telling you about the feelings I had, beginning the next day. The real impact of what a close call I had experienced hit me like a ton of bricks. There were so many things that had worked out just right. If any one of them had not, I'd have been done for. For several days, nothing could make me mad or irritate me. I found myself speaking to strangers I'd pass on the street and being glad that I could. It was like being reborn.
I suppose my feelings could be summed up quite well by reading the inscription on the plaque that the First Air Cav presented me a few days later, just prior to my departure from SEA. It is said to be a quotation from 1968 by an unknown soldier in Vietnam:
YOU’VE NEVER LIVED UNTIL YOU’VE ALMOST DIED. FOR THOSE WHO FIGHT FOR IT, LIFE HAS A FLAVOR THE PROTECTED WILL NEVER KNOW.
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