Rescuing Papa Wolf
By
Jim Shaw

J.D. Allen & I were leading a 2-ship vcty Bat Lake. Papa Wolf Blaine Jones rolled in to mark the tgt and took a belly full of 23mm. He and Eldon Bleak headed feet wet. We declared a MAYDAY and joined up on Blaine and checked him over. He was trailing fuel and hydraulic fluid with intermittent flames showing through the holes. When we got pretty well out to sea we set a course for Da Nang. Blaine & Eldon were all set to get out but the bird was still flying. We were on their right wing and I had my camera at the ready. When their gear started coming down we figured they were doing a controllability check, but instead that was signaling the departure of the last of their hydraulic fluid. The bird rolled left and out they went leaving me with no picture. We followed them down and played on-scene commander until the SAR folks were in the vicinity and we were Bingo. In the meantime a helicopter that happened to be airborne (Navy?) figured they could help out and set a course for our location. Said course took them directly over that (CRS name) VC infested island just off the DMZ were they were promptly shot up and decided they had better things to do. Blaine hurt his back and was unable to get into his raft. They were both back at Ubon the next day as I recall.