McBrayer had raised sufficient Hell to get me back as his wingman for the next few days. So on 12 January, a group of 5 Divisions (20 planes), with me on Mac's wing, set out for Saigon and the coast of French Indo-China. As we approached Saigon, huge columns of smoke were rising from the dock area and from the town, in general. A group from another carrier had been there and taken care of most of the land targets. I was amazed at the lush green area around Saigon. It was beautiful even with the destruction in the center.

 

We headed back to sea, and north up the coast toward Cam Ranh Bay. As we came abreast of Cape Padaran, we observed a Jap convoy headed north, about 10 miles off shore. The convoy consisted of three destroyer escorts, four troop transports, an oil tanker, and miscellaneous small ships. Our group pounced on this convoy like a charging tiger. On my first run I strafed, and got a rocket hit on one of the Destroyer Escorts. The rocket did not do major damage. It almost missed, but did tear away the railing and part of the deck on the far side. On our next run, Mac and I both got rocket hits on the tanker. By the time we made our third run, all of the ships were either on fire, and sinking, or had been sunk. About the only thing left was the bobbing heads of hundreds of Jap soldiers floating in the water. As we flew away a column of smoke from the sinking tanker rose 8,000 in the air.

 

The anti-aircraft fire from the Destroyer Escorts was heavy, but not as bad as we had encountered over land targets on Luzon and Formosa. The only scare I had was after our second run, when Mac started to trail smoke as we pulled up for altitude. He was losing power, but after a little effort in the cockpit, he gave the OK signal and we continued. We never did figure out what had happened.

 

Back with the Task Group, we relaxed with an afternoon CAP. Still no word of the Jap Fleet. The next three days were spent searching for the elusive, or perhaps I should say phantom, Fleet. Those flights were long and tiring. The people who designed the life rafts we carried in the planes must have had sadistic natures. They positioned the CO2 inflater bottles so that they occupied a position just below the bone in the human rear end. After about four or five hours in the cockpit, the pilot developed a real "pain in the ass." A search team usually consisted of one F6F Fighter, and one TBM torpedo bomber. To conserve fuel low power settings were used. This resulted in low airspeed (100 to 120) knots. At that speed the controls were mushy, and it was tiring to fly with the slower TBM's. The flight pattern was a continual weave from side to side, over the torpedo bomber.