While I wasn't exactly involved with these missions, I was involved with the mechanical support of the AH-1G Cobras that were involved in them.
Command And Control OF The North (CCN) missions where flown out of Quang Tri, approximately 56 miles north of Hue. Highway 1 would get you there if you were driving.
Below is the military description of CCN:
Reconnaissance missions were flown out of Quang Tri to penetrate positions in North Vietnam, Loas and cambodia. Out mission was to fly with the UH-1H Heuys who would drop off a mixture of special forces NCOs and combincations of American, Korean "Rock" soldiers, and Vietnamese soliders (a total of 9); all of whom wore and carried unmarked clothing and equipment, in order to maintain plausible deniability.
Our Cobras where used to support the Hueys while they dropped off and picked up the men. These men were dropped off and picked up using ropes, monkey ladders and landing zones. All were considered hot.
From my perspective, this was a real as it gets. My one and only experience with this mission was to fabricate a hydraulic line from scratch, be flown up to Quang Tri, remove the line that took a bullet and replace it with the one I created.
I had no idea what a CCN or what our Cobra mission was. I just knew I had to fix the line to get the Cobra back up in the air.
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