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Chapter 19

  by Kathy Hufford

   TET 68

APH-5 Flight helmet of WO1 Kent Hufford. This was a reinforced limited production helmet. An AK47 round went through the right side of the helmet and into the earphone assembly on February 2, 1968 during “TET 68"

On January 31, 1968 , during the “TET new year”, the Viet Cong launched offensives throughout South Viet Nam . At Bien Hoa, it started with a major 122mm rocket attack. Blew me out of my bunk. Since I had my boarding pass/plane ticket to go back to the states on February 5, 1968 , I had quit flying about a week before. That was the normal practice. You quit flying a week or two before you were due to leave. So the gun alert crew went to the aircraft, and I, and others went to the bunkers. During that nite over 450 Viet Cong came through the perimeter on the east end of the runway, they made it halfway down the runway, when the gunships got airborne. Between our four gunships and two others from another unit, by morning, just about all 450 VC were laying dead on the airfield. In daylight, the new AH-1 Cobras took off and shot up some more. The AH1 could not fire its rockets nor miniguns at night because it would flash blind the pilots. So, in daylight, the AH-1s got their pictures taken flying over cold VC bodies. Our gun crews flew about straight the next 18 hours. I was asked to go fly and give them some relief, I said sure.  I had to recheckout my stuff, and started flying. It was not like the previous couple of months trying to find VC to shoot. They were all over the place.  The VC had taken over a few huts in Long Bin village.  The 11th ACR had them surrounded.  They pushed in from one side and 100s came out the back where we were.  It was like stepping on ants.  We rearmed and refueled hot.  I must have flown 15 hours straight.  About 2 in the morning, we got to sleep about 1 hour on the aircraft in the revetments, on the flight line.  We next flew over north of Saigon where the 1st Division units were in contact.  I made one pass at about 1000 feet, locating the friendly troops from the enemy. At that altitude, we heard a lot of popcorn going off. Rifle fire at altitude sounds like popcorn. I made one firing pass at a group of VC in an open area, I got down to about 500 feet about the ground. As I started to break right, we took 9 bullets in the right side of the aircraft, starting at the nose, all the way to the tail, including one in my helmet. The bullet went thru the plexiglass window, thru the side of the helmet, into the earphone and broke up in the side of my skull and ear. It blew out my ear drum and cut the wires to the helmet. I was flying, it knocked me out for a second and my head went back, and when I came too, the windshield was full of blood from the inside, mine. I started fighting the controls, since I was in a daze. The copilot, Dave Holloway, first day as a gun pilot quite firing the miniguns and took the controls from me.   We started flying to the 24th Evacuation Hospital.  The crew chief and door gunner pulled the pins  on the seat from the back to bandage me up. Since the blood was running down my neck they thought I had been hit in the neck. I yelled at them to take off the helmet and not put a bandage on my neck. I spent two days in the hospital, talked to the doctor to let me make my February 5th flight to the states, since I had a ticket in my pocket, and I lived only 5 miles from an Army hospital.  I made it home.  I was medically grounded for six months and started flying again.  Twenty nine months later I was back in Viet Nam again flying helicopter gunships.