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Three Baker, this is Navy Two Two Seven.”
    “Go ahead Navy Two Two Seven, this is Army Five Two Four.”
    “I’m at two zero thousand, five minutes west your position. I’m a flight of four F-4 aircraft. What have you got for us?”
    “There’s a Green Beret camp on the top of the mountain under attack by what looks like a regiment. I can’t raise them on the radio.”
    “OK, where do you want it?”
    “You better make a pass, it’s a pretty small camp.”
    “OK, I got you on the tube. Where are they in relation to you?”
    “Half a mile north.”
    “OK. Making descent at this time. You guys wait for the word.”
    The first F-4 appeared not quite three minutes later, moving so fast that Parker didn’t see him until he was almost over the smoke-shrouded camp. He then pulled up in a steep climbing turn.
    “Get on my tail, we’re going in on the deck with napalm,” the Navy flight commander ordered.
    The next time Parker saw aircraft, they were below him, flying in a V down the valley. They passed over the camp, and then a moment later, the approaches to Dien Bien Phu II erupted in great orange bursts, followed immediately by clouds of dense smoke.
    They made four napalm passes before they communicated again.
    “Army Five Two Four, we’re out of ordnance, but there’s help on the way. They will contact you on this frequency.”
    “Thank you,” Major Parker said politely.
    Three minutes after that, the copilot touched his shoulder, and pointed.
    A flight of six Douglas A-1 Skyraiders—very large single-engine propeller aircraft with the capacity to carry an awesome amount of ordnance—were approaching from the north.
    Parker wondered if the cure wasn’t liable to kill the patient.
    “Aircraft approaching Mike Seven Charley, Baker Three Baker, this is Army Five Two Four.”
    “We have you in sight, Five Two Four, go ahead.”
    “Charley has not, repeat not, overrun the target area,” Parker said. “Avoid the encampment.”
    “Roger, Five Two Four. Where is Charley?”
    “Everywhere but on the top of the hill.”
    “Roger. Understand everywhere but the top of the hill.”
    “Affirmative.”
    Major Parker then flew in circles to the south of Dien Bien Phu II, privately fuming at the brass assholes who forbade the arming of Mohawks under any but special conditions. The rocket and weapons pods on his Mohawk had been removed. Because his mission today was a medium-altitude electronic surveillance, he was at the controls of an unarmed and useless airplane: The goddamned brass were splitting hairs about which of the armed forces was permitted to shoot who and when.
    He flew for about thirty minutes until a flight of helicopters appeared, obviously bound for Kilimanjaro. When they got closer, he was surprised to see that they were Bell HU-1Bs, the new Hueys. That meant the Utility Tactical Transport Helicopter Company, the first of its kind, was operational. This was, he thought, probably their first mission.
    And then, because there was nothing left that he could do for Kilimanjaro, he headed toward Da Nang to refuel.
    (Four)
Dien Bien Phu II
1620 Zulu, 14 October 1962
    There were nine HU-1Bs in the relief flight; and Major Parker had guessed right, this was their first operation. The Huey was the first helicopter designed and built specifically for military operation. The nomenclature stood for Helicopter, Utility, Model 1, Version B. It was powered by a turbine engine, and it was a great improvement—especially in engine life—over the Army’s previous cargo helicopters, the Sikorsky H-19 and H-34, and the Piasecki H-21 Flying Banana, all of which had gasoline piston engines.
    The Hueys flew in three V’s of three aircraft, the following V’s a hundred yards behind and two hundred feet above the preceding V. There was only one helipad, a circular area a few feet wider than the helicopter arc, marked with an “H,” but there was room for three Hueys to land within the inner barbed wire of Foo