ZORRO
STRIKES
;e T- 28’s secret war in Southeast Asia
BY THOMAS MCKELVE Y CLEAVER
It was a dark night over ;e Ho Chi Minh Trail. “Zorro- 16, Nail- 43. I have
you approximately seven thousand above terrain. You are on fire. What are your
intentions?” “Roger, Nail- 43. Understood — on fire.” Air Force Captain Charles Brown
didn’t need the FAC to know he was on fire; he could see the glow of the fire out the
exhausts of his AT-28D! Whatever his intentions, the decision had to be fast. “I was
in a burning aircraft, at night, over the Ho Chi Min Trail in Laos — these were not the
ingredients for a good night.”
It was January 27, 1968. Flying out of Nakhon
Phanom (NKP) with the 606th Special Operations
Squadron, the job of the AT-28D pilots was to find
and stop the supply convoys moving down The Ho
Chi Minh Trail at night. “We were needed because the
fast-movers had trouble seeing trucks at night. The
objective was to jam them up by hitting the first and
last trucks, then let the fast-movers or the A-26s work
on them.” Brown’s patrol area was the section where
the trail exited North Vietnam and turned southeast
through Laos toward South Vietnam. Arriving on
station around 2015, Brown had watched two jets miss
with their bombs before “Nail- 43” cleared him in hot.
“I saw strings of 37mm fire in the area where I thought
the FAC was holding. I was about to call him when my
aircraft shook, jumped, and burst into flame.”
“Nail- 43” suggested heading to the Rooster Tail, an
area of rough terrain with no reported military activity.
“My aircraft’s control response seemed okay. The
engine and prop were still turning. I was indicating
140 knots and losing altitude. The windscreen was
covered with oil, but I could see out the sides. I told
them I was going to stay with it as long as I could
and he told me it was 50 miles to the Rooster Tail. I
contacted NKP, gave them my position, told them
my aircraft was on fire, and reported I was going to
