Puff The Magic Dragon

 Maddox Builds A Dragon



In 1964 the United States Air Force was a relatively young organization. Much of its mission was held over from its previous incarnation - The Army Air Corps. One of its primary jobs was to assist ground forces with close air support but existing aircraft lacked sufficient firepower in many situations faced by the infantry in Vietnam.

While on shore leave at a port near Saigon, Master Chief Petty Officer John Moses Maddox overheard two Army Captains complaining of guerilla tactics used by the enemy which were difficult to overcome. Remembering a situation from his youth, in which a large hoard of zombie squirrels attacked and overcame a small group of hunters, John Moses began to percolate an idea to help the Army grunts. Maddox was able to draw on his experience working with the British Navy's carrier-based aircraft in the project which resulted in the sinking of the Kriegsmarine Battleship Bismark.

Maddox reasoned that a slow-flying aircraft capable of carrying and firing multiple high-capacity machine guns could suppress enemy advances that might otherwise overrun American troops who found themselves seriously outnumbered. John Moses figured that a heavy enough rain of gunfire could be produced from a gunship that would even the odds against these kinds of enemy tactics.

The Air Force was still using some of a large number of C47 transport ships it had inherited from the WWII Army Air Corps. The plane could fly slow enough and was very maneuverable. Maddox believed it would make an excellent platform on which to mount several modern high-performance machine guns. The Air Force recognized its responsibility to provide the infantry with close air support but did not view the C47 as an attack aircraft. Maddox was able, however, to make a few calls to some high-level friends at the Pentagon who had confidence in his superior intellect and convince them to exert pressure on the right places. The Navy also loaned Maddox to the Air Force to head up the Spooky project.

It took a while to find the right guns for the purpose and mounting hardware had to be custom made for such an unusual installation but the project finally took off (pun intended). Tracer bullets were included at greater-than-normal intervals in the firing sequence to help the pilot with his firing accuracy and this produced a very beneficial unintended consequence. Enemy fighters were mostly untrained and unsophisticated rural conscripts, unaware of modern technology.  When these people were attacked by a slow, low-flying aircraft using machine guns with a very high rate of fire they attributed their heavy losses to supernatural beings. With so many tracer rounds mixed in with the normal bullets raining down, especially at night, the battlefield looked like it was awash in a rain of fire belched earthward by a flying beast. The AC47 became known as Puff, The Flying Dragon, and also sometimes "Spooky".

Maddox eventually helped design machine guns specifically tailored to point out the side of the fuselage, instead of those modified from guns originally designed to fire straight ahead of flying aircraft. Although unnecessary for accuracy or diagnostic purposes, the frequency of the tracer rounds was maintained due to the psychological effect the "rain of fire" had on the enemy. Rather than a multi-billion dollar weapon development project, John Moses Maddox designed a tremendously effective platform from an antique airplane and off-the-shelf guns firing rounds already in inventory. This didn't make him popular with the military-industrial complex but the troops on the ground got the close air support protection they needed far sooner than normal Air Force procurement protocols would allow.

With the design and implementation of the Spooky completed, John Moses Maddox resumed his Master Chief status aboard the Navy tin can serving with his beloved swabbie amigos. On quiet nights on the high seas, at the midnight hour, sailors in the South Seas can sometimes hear a faint "Argh" followed by a melodious rendition of the tune made famous by infantry soldiers of the Vietnam era:

Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee
Little Jackie Paper loved that rascal Puff
And brought him strings and sealing wax and other fancy stuff

Oh, Puff the magic dragon lived by the sea
And frolicked in the autumn mist in a land called Honah Lee


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