Boat Builders

BOAT BUILDERS By: Melissa B. Carrasco

Egerton, McAfee, Armistead & Davis, P.C.

THE ANGEL AND THE ARBITRATOR

In September 1967, something new appeared in the skies over South Vietnam.1 It was 38 feet, 6 inches tall and 97 feet, 9 inches long and had a wingspan of 132 feet, 7 inches.2 Equipped with down facing, 20-millimeter Gatling guns along its side, two, 40-millimeter Bofors cannons, and 7.62-millimeter miniguns, the Lockheed AC-130 Gunship was aptly named the “Angel of Death.”3 It could loiter in the air for an extended period of time and then swoop in to provide close air support when it was needed the most.4

Over the past fifty-four years, the AC-130’s and their elevenmember crews have served in Vietnam, Laos, Grenada (Operation Urgent Fury), Panama (Operation Just Cause), the Persian Gulf (Operation Desert Storm), Somalia (Operation Restore Hope), Bosnia (Operation Deliberate Force), Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom), and Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom).5 In each arena, the AC-130 has been there to support ground forces with an accuracy and reliability that was legendary. But, it was not without sacrifice.

The evening of May 24, 1969, the AC-130 known as “The Arbitrator” left Ubon Royal Thai Air Force Base to perform armed reconnaissance [looking for and eliminating enemy supply trucks and troupe carriers] on the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos.6 Its pilot was Lieutenant Colonel W.H. Schwehm, and on board, was Staff Sergeant Jack Wayne “Jackie” Troglen.7

Troglen was a true Tennessee boy—born and raised in Sparta,8 the birthplace of Bluegrass (according to Sparta) and halfway between Knoxville and Nashville.9 He was only twenty-two when he arrived at Ubon AFB.10 Troglen was The Arbitrator’s illuminator operator.11 His job was to drop the flares that would light up the target area so the gunners could see their targets.12 Troglen’s job was to protect U.S. troops from becoming unintended casualties when the Angel of Death came calling.

Not too far into the mission that night, the crew spotted an enemy convoy. It prepared to open fire when The Arbitrator was hit by 57 mm anti-aircraft artillery.13 The Arbitrator’s hydraulic system failed; the crew lost the use of the rudder control, the elevator trim, and the autopilot.14 Somehow, Lieutenant Colonel Schwehm managed to turn The Arbitrator back toward Ubon in the hopes of making an emergency landing.15

About twenty-miles from Ubon, Lieutenant Colonel Schwehm ordered his crew to bail out for their own safety.16 Most of the crew followed orders, but one refused to leave—Staff Sergeant Cecil Franklin Taylor.17 Taylor was from Oconee County, South Carolina.18 He was thirty-three years old, married, and had been deployed to Laos for over seven months.19 But, this was not his first time. A sixteen-year Air Force veteran, by May 24, 1969, he had seen more than his share of combat missions.20

What Taylor saw on that plane was that Troglen had been severely injured in the attack.21 So, Taylor stayed with The Arbitrator and with Troglen. Taylor stayed as The Arbitrator crash landed and hit the barrier cable housing. He watched as The Arbitrator’s wings were torn off, and he stayed as The Arbitrator skidded off the runway and burst into flames. Lieutenant Schwehn and his co-pilot were able to leap to safety, but both Cecil and Jackie were trapped in the burning airplane. That is where they lost their lives in the wreckage of The Arbitrator—the Angel of Death.22

The Arbitrator was the first AC-130 casualty, but it was not the last. Less than a year later, the AC-130 known as “War Lord” was hit by 37 mm anti-aircraft artillery along the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos.23 Ten of its crew were killed. Only Staff Sergeant E. Fields survived.24 All told, six AC-130s and fifty-two of their air crew members were lost during the Vietnam War.25

Still, the AC-130 and its crews have continued to serve. This year marks the thirtieth anniversary of the last AC-130 that was downed by enemy fire. On January 31, 1991, an AC-130H Spectre gunship under the callsign “Spirit 03” was shot down by an Iraqi surface-to-air missile during the battle of Khafji during Operation Desert Storm.26

Iraqi troops had attacked Khafji, a small Saudi Arabian town just across the border of Kuwait. They rolled in with forty tanks and five hundred troops. Only two U.S. Marine reconnaissance teams were left in the city. All night on January 30 and into the wee hours of the morning on January 31, the AC-130H gunships stayed with the Marines raining wave after deadly wave of gunfire upon the assaulting troops. But the Iraqi forces were not defenseless, and the anti-aircraft fire grew more and more intense as the night wore on.27

By 6:00 a.m., Spirit 03 was running low on fuel, but still the crew continued firing on targets identified by the Marines on the ground. The Marine air controller identified a Free Rocket Over Ground (FROG) system that threated the ground troops, so the Spirit 03 went hunting even though it only had enough fuel to get back to base.28

Suddenly, the AC-130H’s left-wing was struck by a surface-to-air missile, and the wing caught on fire. Its pilots, Captain Thomas Bland and Major Paul Weaver tried to maintain control of the gunship, but the fire spread, and two-thirds of the left wing broke off. The airplane began to spin making a bailout impossible. Then, it crashed into the Persian Gulf.29

It took over a month for recovery crews to locate the crash site. All fourteen crew members were lost. It was the largest single loss of life for the Air Force in Operation Desert Storm.30 But, as a result, the AC130 was upgraded to include modern chaff and flare dispensers, infrared missile-launch warning, and electronic countermeasures, and no AC-130 has been downed by enemy fire in thirty years.31 Boat builders build boats, and heroes never die in vain.

1 The United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration, Week of September 8, https://www.vietnamwar50th.com/education/week_of_september_8, last visited Aug. 9, 2021. 2 Airman Magazine, Airframe: the AC-130 Gunship (Dec. 22, 2017), https://www. airmanmagazine.af.mil/Features/Display/Article/2594229/airframe-the-ac-130gunship/. 3 The United States of America Vietnam War Commemoration, supra n. 1; Airman Magazine, supra n. 2. 4 Airman Magazine, supra n. 2. 5 U.S. Air Force, AC-130U (Jan. 20, 2016), https://www.af.mil/About-Us/Fact-Sheets/ Display/Article/104486/ac-130u, last visited Aug. 9, 2021; see also Airman

Magazine, supra n. 2. 6 Warbirds Resource Group, Lockheed AC-130 Spectre Operational History, http:// vietnam.warbirdsresourcegroup.org/ac130-operation.html, last visited Aug. 9, 2021; see also Final Mission of Ssgt. Cecil F. Taylor (Dec. 13, 2018), https://www. vvmf.org/Wall-of-Faces/51117/CECIL-F-TAYLOR/, last visited Aug. 9, 2021.