When fully modified into D configuration and equipped with the
R-1820 engine in place of their
800hp R-1300, A models were
fitted out with a full range of
hardpoints for gun pods, rockets
and bombs. Later AT-28Ds were
modified from T-28Bs and Cs,
the latter identified by the recess in the lower, rear fuselage
where the tailhook had been.
(Photo by Roger Cain)
Zorro tales
Norm Crocker came to the Zorros after flying 49
B-52 missions in SEA. “When I saw the request
for volunteers for T-28s, I was told I couldn’t be
accepted because I had access to the (strategic)
War Plan. I volunteered again for A-26s and got
the same thing. After I un-volunteered, I was
given orders in October, 1967.” Crocker’s specialty
became attacking the AAA defenses. “You’d watch
the guy ahead going in, and spot the guns when
they opened up on him. It was easiest to spot
an untrained gunner who would fire straight up.
Experienced gunners didn’t do that. We called full
moon nights ‘the gunner’s moon.’” The deadliest
AAA used was the ZPU- 23 with four 23mm cannon
in single mount. “The ZPU didn’t fire tracers but
you could spot them from the ‘flower pattern’ of
the muzzle blast. You could tell . 50 caliber from
37mm by the color of tracers. One 37mm hit was
all it took to knock down a T- 28.”
Captain Charles Brown’s T- 28
is armed for a mission over
Laos. (Photo by C. Brown via T.
Cleaver)
The major problem for the Zorros was the
relative lack of performance of the AT-28D.
According to Drummond, “The big problem with
the T- 28 in combat was you had no energy to
evade with. It dove at 250 knots, and while you
could turn tight, you didn’t move through the air
fast enough to evade the AAA.”
By the spring of 1968, time had caught up with
the Zorros. The relatively light wing structure of the
T-28A resulted in spar cap failures, while the weary
engines began giving out. Skyraider replacements
appeared. For Drummond, who had flown 130
night missions over the trail, that wasn’t good
news. “They were keeping us away from the ‘red
areas,’ where the guns were heavy, which meant we
weren’t going where the trucks were. I got bored
with the mission and volunteered to go across the
river to Laos as an advisor to the Laotian Air Force.”
The never-admitted war
If the war fought over Laos by the 606th was
secret, that fought by the advisors in Laos was
never admitted. “The Geneva Accords of 1962
said the U.S. could have no military personnel
in-country,” Drummond recalled. “I never wore
a uniform there. It was a real lesson as an officer,
to exert my authority with the enlisted guys there
by being who I was rather than what I was. I used
that the rest of my Air Force career.” The advisors
were forbidden to fly combat, and the U.S. air
attache’ rigidly enforced the rule. For the pilots,
“this meant we couldn’t really gain the Laotians’
trust, if we didn’t make missions.” Drummond and
others resorted to “test flights” in the T-28s. “We
would take off with ordnance and return without
ordnance. We weren’t on the radio when we were
on the mission, since the air attache was listening
in.” Drummond flew three tours with the Laotians
between 1969-75, and also flew Cessna O-1s with
the Ravens on the side. “Between 1965 and 1975,
I drew 48 months of combat pay.” During a later
tour he became involved in an even more-secret
war, that of “The Golden Triangle.” “We operated
in the northwest end of the country with a CIA
agent who’d been there since the days of the OSS.
The Nationalist Chinese guerillas in northern
Burma had gone into the heroin trade, and we
flew several missions against the bases they had
established in Laos.” Those missions have never
been officially confirmed.
Drummond remembers that, unlike Americans
in South Vietnam, the American advisors in Laos
became more committed the longer they worked
with the Laotians. “When the war was over and
we had to leave, they had to give every guy a direct
order to go.”
The Zorros' success
Brown, Crocker and Drummond are unanimous in
acknowledging the reason for the Zorros’ success.
As Drummond put it: “The main reason we were
as successful as we were was because of Colonel
Aderholt. He did what was right for the mission
to support the pilots, regardless of the official
policies and rules. As a result, he was always in
trouble with higher authority. They retired him as
a colonel, then had to call him back and promote
him to brigadier general, which upset the whole
general corps, that he would be up with them. He
was the best CO I ever had.”
The record of the Zorros remained classified
until the 1990s. Even today, there is no official
acknowledgment of the secret wars in Laos
and Cambodia that the T- 28 and its pilots were
involved with. The available record shows clearly
that the airplane and the pilots involved were
among the most effective in the entire Southeast
Asian conflict. J
