Spooky - Hawea (Guv) Grey

Submitted by Editorial team on

Extract from interview with Claire Hall, 14 December 2007

Reproduced with permission of Hawea (Guv) Grey

The Viet Cong always tried to shoot Spooky down because of all the ammunition inside. We saw that and it was like a red line of water going from the airplane to the ground, but they were bullets, and it was like a red line of water continually going to the ground as the plane was going forward. Now they say that Spooky could put a round every four inches on the ground and there was thousands of rounds coming out that barrel, so every round was covering an area of four inches by four inches on the ground. So whatever was under there was dead. It was a spectacle because if you understood the amount of ammunition that was being pumped out of this plane onto the ground, and seeing the tracer hitting the ground – every other round is tracer not every round – you know, you understand how much ammunition is being pumped into that ground by the Americans. And he was called Spooky because it looked spooky, Puff the Magic Dragon, he was called Puff the Magic Dragon.

Reference

Vietnam War Oral History Project, Manatu Taonga Ministry for Culture & Heritage

How to cite this page: ' Spooky - Hawea (Guv) Grey ', URL: https://vietnamwar.govt.nz/audio/spooky-hawea-guv-grey, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 10-Sep-2013