Puff

Via Quan Nguyen Thanh

 

 

 

"Puff the Magic Dragon (or Spooky) was a sight to behold. Our compound was on the river, and the first time I heard Puff I thought it was a fog horn. The AC-47 plane had three miniguns on the pilot's side of the plane, and as he banked into a circle, he had a special sight to be able to acquire targets (the guns were in a fixed position). I think every fifth round was a tracer, but it was a solid red line. I came across these adapted lyrics but the origin is unknown. --In-Country

It came to be during one of these night missions to protect a hamlet on the Mekong Delta in early 1965, another witness to its power, a Stars and Stripes reporter watched in awe and wrote how the stream of tracers reminded him of a dragon’s breath. After reading the story, the commanding officer of the wing said, “Well I’ll be damned, Puff the Magic Dragon”, referencing a children’s song made popular by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary.

That was all it took, forever more, the solitary AC-47 and those that joined it later, carried the call sign ‘Puff’. Even the Vietcong got in on the action, believing that the monster was real, and that shooting at it would only make it angry. It did."