POWERGRAMS

7 air support to Charlie Company of the 75th U.S. Army Rangers. The Charlie Rangers sent six men on Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) teams on a search and destroy mission northwest of Tuy Hoa. Known as the "Hub," the area was almost flat, on top of a mountain with lots of enemy activity. On the second day after Ranger teams went into the Hub, Woodall and his wingman drew the mission to support the Charlie Rangers with two helicopter gunships. But the weather forecast was incorrect, and the monsoon moved back in, bringing low visibility and grounding the helicopters. "We had gone over to the Charlie Rangers company area to tell their company commander that we were grounded so he could radio his LRRP teams in the field," Woodall said. "No sooner did he get off the radio to let them know, when one of the teams came on to say they were in contact. There was a firefight and they killed two North Vietnamese soldiers. They wanted to be extracted, which was normal procedure after a team made contact with the enemy." The commander repeated that the helicopters were grounded, which left the U.S. soldiers on their own until the weather cleared. But the team didn't know that the two soldiers killed were the point element of a large unit of the North Vietnamese Army moving in. Then the LRRP team made a fear-inducing call: they were surrounded, were low on ammunition and one Ranger was wounded. "My wingman and I knew the only chance for the LRRP team to survive was for us to fly the mission and try to reach them. We also knew we were grounded and would be disobeying orders," Woodall said. Nevertheless, Woodall and his wingman returned to their helicopters. They told their co-pilots, crew chiefs and door gunners they weren't required to fly the mission – only volunteers would go. "I already knew they were all going to fly the mission," Woodall said. "I called Tuy Hoa Control Tower for a northwest departure. Again, they told me we were grounded, instrument flight rules only. I advised them we were on a special visual flight rules mission and were departing to the northwest." About 30 minutes later, Woodall and his group reached the base of the mountain. They followed a river valley to the mountaintop and the Hub. When they arrived at the LRRP team's location, North Vietnamese soldiers put their attention and guns on the U.S. Army helicopters. "They knew the Rangers were surrounded and weren't going to escape," Woodall said. "After about 15 minutes and numerous gunship runs receiving heavy ground fire, I could tell these guys were going to stand and fight, even though I could see they were taking heavy losses on the ground." The enemy usually retreated to the jungle following several gunship runs. With the weather starting to lift, Woodall called the 134th Operations to launch another pair of gunships and two helicopters to extract the rangers. "By that time, we'd used all of our mini-gun ammo and rockets," Woodall said. "We were extremely low on fuel. We were making fake gun runs to keep the enemy's attention and gunfire on us." Finally, another pair of gunships arrived with two helicopters not far behind. As Woodall flew to Tuy Hoa, the helicopter's low fuel light was flashing. "Luckily, we made it back and landed with zero on the fuel gauge," he said. Woodall flew for Alabama Power from 2000 to 2011. PHOTO BY WYNTER BYRD

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