Clip 036 | Shot Down in Vietnam | Capt Jerry Geller

0:00 What was the mission of that flight? I was off the hot pad out of July. We were armed with what was it, I think it was six napalm and six five hundred pounds snake eyes and off the off the hot pad. You know, you're you're sitting there and waiting in case you're called. The hot pad isn't generally called unless there's definitely some ground incursion that was not planned on. Do you want to explain what a hot pad is?

0:39 Yeah, So the hot pad of chu Ly was where there were two phantoms that were sitting there, armed, fueled, basically ready to go with the ground crew total you know, communication with ground forces. And you're sitting there in the ready room at the hot pad, because the hot pad was not right there where the squadron aircraft where the squadron meets, and you're you're when you're in the ready room at the squadron. This is a ready room on the hot pad, which was a little hut type thing, and you were there with your rio and your your other guy. Sometimes you're the leaders, sometimes you're the wingman. You're just waiting on the call. I'm just waiting on the call. So what we call that now a Strippler, same deal.

1:42 Air Trappler aircraft is loaded, ready to go, and as soon as the bell rings or whatever the signal is that they have. The pilots are usually in a shack like you that, like you experienced. This is in Afghanistan from what I've been, from what I was around, Yeah and yeah, they just run out the aircraft's ready to go, FI up and then quick take off. Yeah, because that means some Marines are in trouble.

2:05 And at the time they were mortaring Kison. So I don't believe it was my mission. That was the mission I think almost ten months later, which was the Big sieg hn Kson, I believe. I'm not really sure, but is that the Easter Offensive? You know, I really don't know. You have to look into it. Because I went in on March thirtieth, nineteen sixty seven. I believe it was in September that the the tet offensive and I think that's when they I don't know if they overran Kaison. I don't think they did, but it was if you look at the Vietnam history, the movies, the things that were on TV, the siege on Cason was a whole Actually, I remember that that's it was. It was like one hundred day siege. It was unbelievable. They were being attacked. And

3:10 that's actually where like one of the most famous Marines that were aver on TV and stuff was uh Arli Army. He was an air wing guy at Kyson during that siege. Oh was it? Yeah, during Vietnam so well. And so they were doing it all the time because Kyson was right next to the DMZ, okay, and where they were mortaring from was in the DMZ.

3:36 Well, the DMZ was notable for its smoke and haze and constant bombs and everything's going on in the DMZ because neither's side. Artillery was always going off. There was even after I was shot down, I could hear artillery going off wherever I was, you know, near Caisson and near wherever. So because the mortars probably were not far from Kisson, the actual base, I didn't even notice the base actually, we were just the mortars are on a different hill. I'm not sure how far from the base, but where I'm not sure what size mortars they were using or whatever. The enemy and it was extremely difficult to see the target even with smoke because there was so much smoke and haze, so I had to lift up my visor. Now,

4:47 the reason I had to lift up my visor is because the Marine Corps I don't know about today. I think today the military treats the Marine Corps maybe maybe like the Navy and Air Force. But back when I was in it, they were the dogs of the military. Yeah, we still get a lot of secondhand stuff, and it's all it was all the second yeah, which you called second class stuff. The Air Force pilots helmets had a twofold visor, a clear visor and a dark green visor. The Marine helmets only had the dark green visor. So if you were in the area where we were up at the DMZ, you couldn't see shit. So you had to lift up your visor, okay, and so in doing that, unfortunately, I exposed my face to the environment and so that's what caused my severe

6:03 blindness at the moment. But I didn't go into the hole getting were you attacking a target at the time, so what can you go into What actually happened? So we were on our second or third round to go after the mortars. There were a mortaring quisson and the I was the wingman, and the leader went in dropped his ordinance and didn't silence the target. It was so difficult to see where the target was until you got close. And that's not usually a good thing when you're flying five hundered knots. So I came in the first we neither one of us got it. They said, you know, targets still active. And he went in again and didn't do it.

7:09 And on my second go around. Here's one issue is being in the DMZ. You're right next to North Vietnam. Well, when you're right next to North Vietnam, they have all the anti aircraft. Yeah, they have a full spectrum of radar controlled missiles, you name it right, They could at nighttime just hoof it to near Kason. And that's why Kason was attacked so much. So on my second go round, I was coming around, I didn't feel anything hit the aircraft. I was hit before that, not on the same flight, but two flights before that with a fifty caliber.

8:13 Never felt it, never knew it. Had no idea, but the ground, the the what do you call it. The paralleoft told me, hey, Geller, you got hit by fifty caliber. I guess you were down pretty low. Well, all of our missions are down low. Except the TPQ behind me and the the uh that there's close air support and deepar support.

8:54 Uh t A s anyway, where you were going after I mentioned it before, I can't thanks straight when you're going after targets that are not tactical tactical air ta TAC okay, So when you're at tactical things very often, especially when they're on the Ho Chi Minh trail. But don't tell anybody I was in laws. Of course it's fifty years later. Is it fifty years later? Yet I could now say yes, fifty years later. I think you're in the clear now twenty seventeen. So yeah, Laos and North Vietnam, A couple of missions in North Vietnam and where you did really steep forty five degree drive dives and you actually dropped a ten thousand feet on forty five degree dives with dumb bumps. Oh, I mean, yeah, they're all

10:07 dumb bumps. I guess then, well, well, uh first, yeah, all dumb first bombs came out towards the end. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it was no, we had all dumb bombs. And I'm telling you how you're supposed to ever find target at ten thousand feet they give you maps of what it's sort of supposed to look like, but it's like it's like an absolute flee in a Harry's haystack. You do not know where you're dropping. And on this one mission up in the north, I remember I was the leader, and I just said, anybody, anybody has any idea where the target is. We didn't have any ideas. We just unloaded on this dark spot. You know, but you're at a forty five degree dive because they could fire at you, you know, so you were up there

11:09 where you could evade most stuff, and even twenty millimeter at ten thousand feet they're pretty not very effective. They'd have to hit you. And but they did have radar stuff, so there was that possibility. Yeah, And that's supposedly what got me was radar thirty seven millimeter, and it was something we were supposed to do. But the leader, I said, why aren't you changing the pattern coming in from a different direction, because that's what we were told in our briefing. But he didn't do that. So obviously they had a bead on me, and as a second guy through, that's something we would try to we try to reinforce with our JTAX the Joint Terminal Tack controllers that you can run an attack on a target from one direction, maybe come

12:03 in from that same direction for a reattack, but then you need to start switching up and use different parts of the airspace because that's what happens. They're like, well, he keeps yeah, he keeps coming from this direction, So I'm just going to keep waiting until I see him again. Yeah, And so you're saying, that's what happened with you. So you didn't realize you had been shot when it happened, right, And I was in the dive, although I started noticing as I was getting near the target. I can't. I don't have much stick control. But you're in your ten degree dive. You don't really you're just making little movements at that point, and you're down low. We were down on the ground, you know, a ten degrees dive. You're what do you You're dropping snake eyes from about how

12:50 high? Hundreds of feet or like two hundreds yeah, yeah, three to five hundred feet. Oh wow, So you're yeah, you're real low, you're real you have no time to write, and that's why you're dropping snake So you were coming in and you were dropping but you but we couldn't drop quite so low because just because of the terrain, yeah, but also because of the uh, the haze was but you had to get down low with all the smoke. Yeah, it's a fine line. It's a real fine line. So we were probably at five hundred feet because you needed to be cognizant of the ground there, up and down sort of thing. But had you had you completed your bombing run and were you pulling up with you you had been shot. Yes, that's obviously the most dangerous because we were still

13:41 heading down. So at that point I pulled off, tried to pull, got the stick of my lap. I had some response. If I didn't have any response, i'd be part of the mountain. But I had enough response to hit a tree on top of the ridge after the the hill that they were on, and hit a tree which completely smashed my windshield and caused my immediate blindness. Wow. Yeah, so you turned my eyes into pancakes basically, So you didn't you weren't able to eject or anything? Oh, I did mean so you hit the tree and then ejected, right, did it? Did you eject or did the plane eject. You know, I didn't have any kind of I had to ejected. I thought I was dead because everything went black. Yeah. I didn't think about my eye, but

14:41 I but then, did you realize what had happened? Like I just hit something? I just hit? Oh? I realized I hit the tree. You could see it coming up to you. Oh so you so it wasn't like it just out of nowhere you saw it happen. I saw it one second. Man. Yeah, but you wouldn't. I know. I couldn't let go of the stick because I had the stick in my lap. I couldn't let go of the stick. I would stick. I would have hit the mountain. Yeah, man, So did do you think that you pulling the ejection? Was that out of instinct or did you? Oh? Yeah, I knew the noise. They said that a napalm went off when I hit one of the ones you were carrying. Yeah, because I hadn't dropped any nape Did you do you remember punching out? Oh? Yeah, what

15:31 was that? Like? It was just instantaneous. I mean, I guess you were blinded too, So I was. I was blinded, so I knew that there was no no recourse. I couldn't land it. Yeah, and I had no attitude. I couldn't see how possible. How far away from the target that you were striking did you eject eject from? I was probably were ejected on the other just on the other side of the ridge.

16:06 It was probably probably a mile. Okay, I was probably a mile to and a half because I was going five hundred knots, so close enough that I would have been a concern I had you not been rescued quickly, right, because they would have known now whether they saw the parachute or the ejection seat. The luck that I had was that I was probably angling slightly up and it was on the other side of the ridge, so they couldn't see me from the target, or they probably would have turned their mortars towards me for that instant. Yeah, they weren't. They weren't fans of eight No.

17:00 No, So do you remember ejecting? Do you remember landing? Were you conscious through the entire thing? I don't know. I was not conscious. I went in and out of consciousness when I landed. I couldn't tell you whether I was conscious or not, but I think I was unconscious. And then because I remember all of a sudden noticing all the shroud lines hanging down, and I said, I'll never get away from these shroud lines because I still had my torso harness and whatever I had on me. And I said, because you wanted to keep whatever your escape in evasion packet. And I do realize what caused my scar under my chin, or with the bleeding under my chin was my bowie knife that I had when I ejected or when I landed, it came up and hit me in the chin. Oh man,

18:11 did it go through your chin? No, luckily, yeah, but I had like four stitches or something under my chin. And when the helmet blew off my face, it's just imagine ripping that nylon strap that was there right a lot of forest. It ripped my ear lobe. So my ear lobe was bloody and my chin was bloody, my mouth was bloody. I tasted blood because those little pieces of skin that you have holding your lip to your gums in the front of your mouth minor gone