Hey Mom
We’ve had a bit of a day. It started out with us chilling as we waited for orders, then the scramble siren went off and the Colonel just gave us the kind of look that made it clear that that was our problem. So I guess we’re back on SAR rotation! First up it was an F111 (that’s an Aardvark to those who prefer names) that had crashed somewhere near this giant crater that we’ve named after Torpex. You remember Torpex? I’m sure I’ve written about her before. Anyway, she liked blowing things up, hence christening the crater.
We didn’t stay to reminisce though, as the hostile locals tried to push down on us from the north. Fortunately we had Mr Scatter Sir as aircover to discourage them as we headed east. Want to guess which direction was uphill? Yep, east. Why do these pilots always crash at the top of hills? With the initial contact broken paused to get our breaths back, and so of course got attacked again. From two directions this time, so Yellow covered the attack from the east, and Blue pivoted to take on those from the north.
We pretty much cleared out the bastards to the north, then moved up to support Yellow, which was going fine until the Chelt decided that they wanted to play with mortars. I spent most of the time tagging along at the back while talking to the air, to try and make sure they hit close enough to take out those attacking us, without them also hitting our lead elements. Fortunately Sarge found us a nice gully to advance up, so their artillery couldn’t see us, unfortunately it had already seen Yellow, so our push became a bit of a rescue mission. They tried mortaring us as we pushed, but we ran through and dealt with their machine gun guards, then overran them and rescued our colleagues.
As we recovered them RDX’s eagle eyes spotted some hostile trucks heading towards us, so I vectored Mr Scatter Sir and his friends onto them. Bless the Air Force, they did their best, but it was Blunderbuss for the USMC who finished the attack off with one of his rockets. To make up for it the flyboys then napalmed a tree line that had been giving us problems and we pushed on up to clear up any stragglers and get in close to the actual crash site. While waiting for a resupply crate to be dropped, we were treated to the free spectacle of an air-to-air dog fight! The Chelt sent a biplane after Mr Scatter, but he showed them some good old American pluck and now has his first air-to-air kill, which seems to be a thing that those guys take seriously!
After that it was time for excitement on the ground as we made the final punch through the jungle to the crash site. The escape capsule hadn’t worked, so one pilot was KIA before we got there, and the other in a bad way. Clearing the hilltop of Chelt took a long time, and sadly, in that time, the other pilot was attacked and killed. With that there was no point in hanging around anymore so we headed back down into the valley for our pickup, and somehow the LT managed to fall off some rocks and injure himself, but not seriously.
I’d love to say that that was the end of it, but the LZ got bounced and we had to fight our way out. We’re quite used to that these days, but this was a nasty one. Mr Scatter Sir tanked his Bronco into the trees as he tried to rocket a bunch of Chelt, and one of them managed to molotov the loading ramp of the helo which caused us no end of trouble. The pilot lifted before we realised there were still three people on the ground, but they managed to hold off the attacking hostiles until we could get back to them. I tell you, a flight in a helicopter when everyone’s uniform and kit is on fire isn’t fun, not for anyone, but we recovered the three of them and headed home.
I wish that was the end of the day, but just as we were starting to relax again back at base the sirens went off again, so we loaded up and headed south. It was an A4 Skyhawk this time, so a single pilot to find, and thankfully there were reports of his parachute having been seen, and indeed someone spotted it from the helo as we were flying. Makes our job much easier that.
We landed in a clearing less than two hundred metres from the chute, and ran like crazy up the hill to where the chute had been seen. Chelt were moving in too, and we had to dissuade them quite forcefully, even to the extent of our helo having to lift to go and stage somewhere clearer. Overkill recovered the pilot, but by this point there were Chelt crawling all over the LZ and we had a real fight on our hands getting back down the hill. We tried to hold in the treeline and clear it but they just kept coming, from both the LZ and the crash site.
We then got hit by something big, it might have been recoilless or such, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it might have been rockets from the air cover Mr Scatter Sir called for us. It took down more of them than of us though, so we take the wins where we can. It all got a bit frantic from there on, but we did a lot of shooting, called the helo back, did a lot more shooting and then ran for the helo as it landed. Well, most people ran, I sort of hobbled as I’d been hit in the leg and couldn’t run, but I made it. The helo took some hits though, and could only make it a short distance north before its engines gave out and it had to land. Fortunately that was far enough away that we just had to wait for a second helo to come pick us up while the air force malleted some people taking pot shots at us from across the river.
Hopefully that’ll be us off roster for a few days now, but you never know. Love you all, but please forgive me if I don’t want any BBQ for a while after I get home
Morse