first use of wire guided missile information
for A/2/20 ARA 1 CAV
For date 661009
A/2/20 ARA 1 CAV was a US Army unit
Primary service involved, US Army
South Vietnam
A/2/20 ARA 1 CAV losses were none
Aircraft lost in A/2/20 ARA 1 CAV were none
Description: Action as described by Roger L. McAlister, 28 January 1994. As a fire team leader of A Battery 2/20 ARTY (ARA) 1 Calvary Division, we were vectored to a very "dicey" target on 9 October 1966. Navy patrol boats had been taking fire by night from onshore heavy automatic weapons fire, but by day they could not identify the origin of the attacks. On the morning of the 9th, a LRRP team was inserted and began searching the narrow beach front and scanning the mountainous cliffs and hill mass above them. The patrol was taken under fire from above and pinned down on the beach, clinging to the rocky ledges for cover. The Air Force was called in but could not fire at the narrow (1' x 6') pill box type opening without threat to the troops below. The same was true with the conventional 2.75" rockets we used. However, we had one Charlie model equipped with a combination of 36 rockets and two SS-11 wire guided missiles. As fire team leader, it was my assignment to test this weapons system under "real? world" conditions. Our battalion commader was LTC Morris J. Brady who later became MG Brady and commandant at Ft. Leavenworth. "Falcon 6" radioed me to try this experimental system on this target - very sensitive due to the LRRPS down below on the beach. My copilot, ho had to fly the aircraft while I fired and "flew" the missile, was CW2 Alejandro Makintaya. Alex was killed on his second tour on 9/11/71. But his day, as always, he was cool as ice. We launched the first missile at approximately 800 meters and kept the missile on track until the very last instant when some mild turbulence buffeted the aircraft and the missile impacted one foot high and to the right....missed! We quickly broke left to get away from the basketball sized tracers. For many months Alex and I rousted each other about the "mild turbulence" versus who flinched and caused the first shot to miss. Undaunted, as all Sky Troopers, we set up for another run. This time our crew chief and door gunner, Smitty and Jonesie, used suppressive fires with their M60's to attempt to degrade the accuracy of the 12.7mm gunner and Alex went onto the instruments so this time we would know for sure who flinched. The second shot ran hot, straight and normal and at the mouth of the natural bunker. We saw the tail fins explode as they sheared off. Then ........ nothing ...... for about two seconds, that seemed like forever; then a "Guns of Navarrone" type fireball. (As depicted in a photo taken by Jonesie.) We later learned from the LRRPS that this cave was 100 meters deep and apparently the missile flew all the way to the back wall before it exploded....in the midst of their ammo cache. That was what caused the huge fireball. After action reports showed 102 KIA and in an adjoining cave 55 other VC came out with their hands up. There were no heroes here, only soldiers who were all willing to go back a second time and do it right. The crew chief and door gunner were killed 1/24/67 when they flew as my wingmen in an aircraft piloted by CPT William Hingston, a West Point graduate and my friend. So, I am the only one left to narrate this history. I send you this picture and dedicate it to these brave men who have gone ahead. Rodger L. McAlister
Comments: CWO McAlister, Roger L.; fire team leader; ;
CWO Hingston, William E.; pilot; ;
SP4 Smith, Robert Harold; crew member; ;
*** Jonesey; crew member; ;
The source for this information was Story written by Roger L. McAlister
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Date posted on this site:
05/13/2023