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Door Gunner
A door gunner is a crewman tasked with firing and maintaining manually directed armament aboard a military helicopter. The actual role will vary depending on the task given on a particular mission. For certain aircraft a door gunner would use a fully automatic Gatling gun placement.
Dennis Webber, former US Marine Corps (USMC) CH-46 door gunner, recalls on Quora;
‘I was a Marine, served in Vietnam 1969–1970. We were trained in basic Infantry, but my MOS was in helicopter maintenance; avionics.
‘When first arriving in RVN we were given the choice to fly as a door gunner, now or never. I asked what that meant and Sargent said it was dangerous, measured in days. If you were killed, they haven’t had time to get to know you. (It hurts worse if you were a friend. Something I learned later.)
‘Shortly after I started flying, we had a mission in A Shaw Valley. Mixed feelings first time I seen it from a distance. Two big hills with a small, dirt road running into it. There are large, unpassable hills separating Laos and Vietnam. There are only a few places where the NVA were able to move into Vietnam. A Shaw Valley had a small, shallow river running through it. And a dirt road which ran next to it. The locals used the road to pass between countries for trade; and the French built an airport with a dirt runway in which they supported their troops at Dien Bien Phu. As it was a choke point, the NVA defended it in strength. Khe Sanh was nearby, we flew directly over it, but it was just a dirt hilltop by then. Nothing left.
The first target
‘Around five minutes in our sister helo set down to discharge a team of recon. As they pulled out, they came under heavy fire and took damage. Immediately afterwards, the recon team called in and reported they were under heavy fire and needed extract. We knew this was a trap the NVA used, to keep a squad pinned down and wait for the helo to come to their rescue. We all knew what was going to happen next. But we went in to get them out. That’s when the NVA targeted us.
‘The gunner is their first target (the pilot’s sit in an armored seat, with thick shields designed to stop small arm fire.) We wore bullet bouncer vests. These were thick layers of Kevlar, covering our chest and back. Designed to stop a small arms round. If I remember correctly, they weighed around 40 lbs each.
‘The gunners on the other hand are standing in front of an large open space, with a big “no balls” painted on the outside; also has arrows pointing towards the gunner and the words “shoot here” in Vietnamese.
‘OK, not really, I’m screwing with you. (But as soon as the tracers start coming at you, you really believe its there.)
‘You can’t see the NVA, the jungle grass is too tall. All you see is brief, sparkles. AK-47 muzzle flashes. Little flickers of light.’
50 cal machine guns
He continues;
‘We used 50 cal machine guns. No real way to target an individual, just pick out an area where the sparkles are, and press down on the toggle trigger with your thumb. When the sparkles get less, you found your target.
‘You’re supposed to fire in bursts, allowing it to cool in between. But, when your standing out on a CH-46 door gun position, in the open, clearly visible to those on the ground, watching tracers coming directly towards your head, you stop thinking. It’s all training at that point.
‘I squeezed the toggle and didn’t stop. Ran through a belt, loaded another in a blink. Continued firing as soon as possible. Fired continuously going in. Stopped when we were extracting. On the ground, the jungle grass was taller than my gun position; couldn’t see the NVA’s position any more.
‘As we pulled out, began firing into the grass blindly. Better to suppress than wait for them to contest our intrusion. The recon troops also bashed out all the windows on the door side and we became a full flagged gun ship. Have no idea if we hit any of them (did see some I actually killed on a return trip a few days later.) The 50 was so hot, the barrel was cherry red, and it wouldn’t shut off when I released the toggle. Slowed, rounds started to pop off, eject and a new round would load. After a couple of seconds, it would pop off. Finally, we were clear on A Shaw and I unlatched the breach and pulled out what remained of the belt. Round went off as I did this and during ripped up my left hand.
Door gunner shooting everything
‘But that’s what a mission was like. Absolutely terrified the entire time. Could see tracers coming directly at my head. The thought ran through telling me that “they can see me & their trying to kill me.” It difficult to describe just how terrifying it is. Rounds tearing holes in the helo just above your head. And there were so many, too many to count, too fast to focus on.
‘We were trained in Boot Camp to hit a small, 6″ circle at 500 meters. But in combat, when the proverbial shit hits the fan, you aren’t aiming. You’re terrified beyond anything you can describe. The fear takes over your entire being. They can see you and you can’t see them. So, you shoot everything. That’s all you think. Kill the b*stards. Kill them all. Don’t stop.
‘Once out, flying back to Phu Bai, I relaxed completely. It’s strange, but I felt that at that point, that I was more alive than I had ever been in my life. Everything fake had been stripped away and I could see clearly. It was over and I had survived. In talking to my buddy’s afterwards, those who had also been “there” (most who had flown as a gunner had flown resupply and never seen a NVA or been in combat), what I had gone through was almost exactly what they had felt, gone through.’
Webber concludes;
‘The short answer is, you do try to aim, but if you got a 50-caliber machine gun, with a case of ammo, you shoot the shit out of the jungle. Basically, kill everything, let God sort it out.’
Photo credit: Cpl. Jonathan K. Teslevich / U.S. Marine Corps
