Snoopy

My first mission in Vietnam was Kilo-2, affectionately known as “Snoopy” or “Sniffer”. Prior to mission launch, a detector was installed in the helicopter with a probe attached to one of the skid tubes. The detector would sample the air drawn in through the probe and would measure the presence of ammonia in the air. Ammonia is a by-product of human perspiration and urine. Where ammonia was detected, humans were present.

We would be assigned a particular grid area to cover, usually about two square miles. After arriving at the grid coordinates we would drop down to just above the tops of the trees and fly a zigzag pattern until the entire area was covered. One pilot would fly the pattern; the other pilot would keep our location identified on the tactical map and call the turns to the pilot. The machine operator would monitor the gages and call over the intercom whether the contact was a “mark”, “heavy mark or “needle pegged” indicating the strength of the signal. The pilot responsible for the map would mark the locations of the marks according to their strength. The door gunner and crew chief would be on their guns ready to suppress fire as well as observe activity through the jungle canopy when possible.

This mission would be flown for up to a week to build intelligence as to troop movement and strength which would be followed by combat assaults, artillery, air strikes or all three.

The NVA and VC learned quickly the significance of what was being done and were not the least bit hesitant about exposing their position to fire on us. We received more ground fire flying Snoopy than any other mission except hot patrol or LRRP extraction. Eventually we had a fire team of UH-1C gun ships and later, AH-1G Cobra’s that would orbit above us while we flew and would engage the positions foolish enough to shoot at us. The crew chief and gunner would drop smoke grenades when this happened to mark the location and the gun ships would roll in and hose the area down with rockets and machine gun fire.

Snoopy was a popular mission for the more adventuresome, aggressive pilots and especially with the gun ship guys because they almost always got to shoot. We flew this mission off and on for the entire year of 1968 so it must have had plenty of intelligence value. I know that many combat assaults were the result of the mission. I don’t recall the loss of any pilots or helicopters when flying Snoopy but we did take plenty of fire that resulted in battle damage of our Huey’s.