"Get the Hell Out of Here"

"Get the Hell Out of Here"
Submitted by - CPT Dave Farenbach, Pilot, Kontum 8/67-8/68

Fletch Maffett was one of my heros. My most vivid memory of Fletch was produced on day 2 of Tet.  At about 1500 several of us 2d platooners were milling about our area at the Kontum airfield waiting for 2 of our birds to return from their mission so we could turn them around and join the fight.  We began to hear some sporadic small arms fire coming from the north side of the runway and very shortly thereafter, Larry Thompson who was HH 26 at the time, landed, hurriedly taxied into the ramp area , jumped out, and looking directly at me yelled, "Get a pilot in this airplane and get it the hell out of here".  I bloody well grabbed my hard hat and M-16, I got it the hell out of there heading east.  Immediately after breaking ground I put the airplane into a right turn, building airspeed but with a steep bank.  It was in this bank close to the ground that I saw several blue baseballs go flying in front of the nose and heard and felt something hit the airplane.  When I had enough altitude to look at the gas gauges, the fullest one had 1/4 tank, so there was no hanging around to lend a hand.  Thompson had expended the rockets and since I was alone I couldn't reach anything in the back seat either so I headed for Holloway.
 
I double-timed it from the ramp to Fletch's office and as best I could, told him what had just transpired and that's pretty much all I remember of that day.  But I soon found out that Fletch got to work immediately.  He scrounged a Chinook, flew in it up to Kontum, cleaned out our ops hut taking maps, maintenance equipment, whatever was deemed carryable and hard to replace, plus all of our enlisted guys and a couple of pilots and flew it all out of harms way.  And that night the Huey company that had recently moved into temporary encampment on the north side of the airfield lost 2 birds (quite possibly to the same big gun I encountered) and our building, revetments, POL and ammo dump went up in a giant explosion that could be seen from the bunkers at Holloway.  Could have been a flare; could have been a sapper--I never found out.
 
At our reunion at Rucker in 2009, I had dinner one night with Fletch, Arlie and a couple of other guys and I overheard him telling Arlie about this airplane that somebody flew down from Kontum with a hole in the right wing about a foot from the wing tip and inches from the aileron hinge big enough for him to stick his fist through.  It was really fun telling him that I flew that airplane into Holloway and telling those guys how it all happened.  And also to have those guys know the extent to which Fletcher Maffett's natural instinct was to take care of his people. 
 
He was a terrific man and I shall never forget him as long as I live.