MAJOR JAMES F. WILKES

FORWARD AIR CONTROLLER

When one thinks of a pilot during the Vietnam War, they probably think about a B-52 bomber pilot or a F-4 fighter pilot.   The aircraft flown by Major James F. Wilkes of Dublin was neither.  It was not a powerful jet fighter nor a heavy bomber.  In fact, the plane wasn’t your typical military aircraft.  Wilkes was assigned to duty as a Forward Air Controller or FAC for short.  Wilkes and other FACs performed a vital part of the war in Vietnam.  Their contributions, which have been overlooked often by high ranking officers and some historians, were gratefully appreciated by those who counted, the men on the ground.

The United States Army first began the use of aerial fire control in the Civil War with hot air balloons.  These balloons were easy targets and were put out of commission in short order.  In World Wars I and II,  fighter pilots attempted to spot enemy positions in order to aid ground troops. However, at high air speeds, visual observations at low altitudes were difficult.  During the Korean War, one T-6 group flew nearly five thousand air controlled missions.  

The use of Forward Air Controllers became extensive  during the Vietnam War.  Unlike most of the previous wars, combat in the jungles of Vietnam was often close and hidden from aerial view by dense plant growth.  Beginning in 1963, the United States introduced the FACs into action in Vietnam.  Originally the FACs flew Cessnas, which were civilian aircraft modified with four to eight phosphorous smoke rockets.  It was the mission of the FAC to respond to calls from infantry units in close contact with enemy forces.  Once called in, the FAC would fly over the area making mental notes of the area, including troop positions (both enemy and friendly), troop strengths, and any type of flight hazards.

Many times during the heavy fire fights in the jungles, friendly forces were only separated from enemy forces by sixty to seventy five feet. The FAC pilot would then send out a radio message to fighter crews on the “hot pad” at nearby Air Force and Marine bases.  Once the fighters arrived in the area, the FAC would direct the pilots to the target using of smoke rockets carefully placed by the FAC, often only a few meters from the friendly guys on the ground.  The pilot had to have a good knowledge of the ordnance aboard the fighters.  The type of weapon fired on enemy forces was dictated by the size of the force and its proximity to friendly forces.  On some occasions, the FACs would coordinate helicopter and artillery attacks on enemy positions.

The FAC pilot’s mission was extremely hazardous.  After all, they were flying slow light aircraft with no armor.  Once they began dropping the phosphorous smoke rockets, known as “Willie Petes,” they were easy targets for enemy machine gun and riflemen.  Some of the pilots sat on their flak jackets, while Wilkes’s ground crew took one step further to protect their pilot.  The men welded an iron plate on the outside of the aircraft just below the pilot’s seat, obviously to protect him from weapons fire coming from the ground and not the air.

The FAC pilot’s plane had a limited range.  Consequently, instead of being stationed on highly protected bases, the FAC’s pilot airfield was usually a narrow strip seven to eight hundred  feet long near areas  of heavy fighting.  Major James Wilkes was stationed in the northern part of South Vietnam, just below the Demilitarized Zone.  The Pacific Ocean was one side of his air strip and the mountains on the other.  He lived in a tent, known to the men as a “hooch,” for most of his tour of duty in Vietnam.  After several enemy strikes into his area, Wilkes and the other men, built a bunker near their cots.  When an attack came, they dove into the bunkers for safety.

On the 16th of March, 1968, Wilkes was attached to the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron, 504th Tactical Air Support Group, Seventh Air Force.  He was assigned to protect the troops of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Infantry Division. Two F-4 Marine Corps fighters were scrambled from the Hue area to provide aerial fire.  Wilkes, known by his call sign of “Bilk 24,” was already in the area.  The first attack was called off when Wilkes noticed that the friendly forces were evacuating the wounded and were too close for comfort.  Wilkes directed the Marine fighters seven hundred meters to the north.  He obtained the critical political clearance for an attack.  During the wait, Wilkes advised the fighters of the situation, briefing them on enemy positions and the fact there were several friendly helicopters in the area.  A low ceiling with haze compounded the problem.  Wilkes’s “Willie Pete” was right on target.  The lead pilot fired his napalm.  Wilkes quickly called in to make an adjustment for the second pilot, who also made a perfect drop.  The fighters orbited around the area, until Wilkes could assess the situation.  On the second run, Wilkes guided the planes in with orders to fire only on his command.  Once again, his directions were right on target.  The fighters pulled up and headed for home.  Capt. Davis, the flight leader, credited Wilkes’s expert guidance in allowing his team to hit the targets and have enough fuel to make it home.  Well over one hundred enemy soldiers were killed.  Eight military structures were completely destroyed and four others were damaged.  During the mission, “Bilk 24" was constantly exposed to enemy ground fire.  Wilkes made it back to his base, but barely.  The Marine pilot estimated he had only twenty minutes of fuel left.  Capt. Davis commended Wilkes’s control instructions as “the most precise, accurate, and timely control I have seen in my three hundred missions in Vietnam.   For his heroic actions in the battle, Wilkes was awarded his second Distinguished Flying Cross, our nation’s  fourth highest award for heroism.

Five weeks later, Major Gerald Ellis, USMC and his team were launched off the hot pad near Chu Lai.  When the Marine fighters arrived, Wilkes directed the planes to wait until he completed his work with a flight of F-8s.  After ten minutes, Wilkes directed the fighters toward their target, briefing them on the situation.  Major Wilkes was having difficulty identifying the target because of the extreme volume of chatter in ground radio transmissions.  It appeared the friendly forces were being held down by several snipers and automatic weapons positions located in several houses along a canal. The friendlies were on the other side of the canal, about twenty five meters from the enemy guns.  Bilk 24 made several low passes over the area to assess the situation.  On each pass the enemy forces directed their fire directly at Wilkes.  Just before dark,  the fighters began their attack, systematically destroying one target after another.  It was getting dark.  The ground fire kept coming.  Bilk 24 was running out of fuel, but he kept flying until the mission was complete.  Now Wilkes was faced with the unenviable task of finding his landing strip in the dark.  As he approached his home base, he called in for help.  The men on the ground launched a flare.  Wilkes was getting dangerously low on fuel.  He had to “seesaw” the wings back and forth to get fuel into the tanks.  Just as the second flare went off, Wilkes’s plane touched down, with only an ounce or two of fuel left in the tanks.  Major Ellis described Wilkes’s actions “as real professional.”  His letter citing Wilkes’s courage under fire, quick reactions, and skill on the very important mission started the wheels turning for some sort of commendation.  The letter passed up the chain of command in the Marine Corps and the Air Force for several months.  For his actions of heroism, Major Wilkes was awarded the Silver Star, the nation’s third highest award for heroism.  Major Wilkes left Vietnam in 1970 and returned to Georgia, where he was assigned as Chief of the Student Branch, 3550th Student Squadron at Moody Air Force in Valdosta.

This 1954 graduate of Dublin High School, who was commissioned in the flight program in 1957, retired from the Air Force.  In three hundred six missions in Vietnam, Major Wilkes was awarded two Distinguished Flying Crosses, a Silver Star, and fifteen Air Medals.  He was, in the words of Lt. Col. Dean Skinner, “one of the finest FAC pilots in the business” and one who saved the lives of an innumerable amount of his fellow soldiers on the ground.