I think the Ozmates can one-up you all in this case. I've since spoken to the CO who was involved, and he tells me it didn't happen
quite as described, but close enough.
DEAD ON TARGET
In the late Sixties the RAAF saw the need to add a helicopter gunship to its inventory to assist in the Army’s Vietnam involvement. Despite the American’s bringing a Cobra Gunship to Canberra in an attempt to sell them to the Australians, the frugal bean counters won out, and the long-suffering men at the coal face had to make do with a compromise - a standard Huey with twin side guns, twin forward facing miniguns, and a forward firing rocket pod on each side. The resulting gunship was, like any compromise, not without its shortcomings, but it did have one advantage over the ‘store-bought’ version, in that its side door guns allowed the Australian gunship to fire out to the side and to the rear. This feature was a very rude shock to the VC until they learned to be aware of it.
The task of setting up the gunship flight in Vietnam was undertaken by the men on the spot with minimum assistance from ‘the System’. The squadron was lucky to have a young Equipment Officer unlike any other. Usually EquipOs are the bluntest of Blunts, but this one was anything but. He was a scrounger extraordinaire, and virtually equipped the 9 Squadron gunships from the black market, in one case swapping a pair of the highly sought after Australian Army GP boots with an American for a complete pair of miniguns.
The task of actually mating all this complex and diversely obtained armament to an airframe not designed to take it fell mostly to the Warrant Officer Armourer at the Squadron. He did a brilliant job, and the armament suite he helped design and fit to the Huey remained the standard on gunships, virtually unmodified, until the RAAF surrendered the helicopters to the Army in 1989.
Years after the Squadron’s return from Vietnam, the WO Armourer, long retired from the RAAF, died. The officer who was the original gunship leader in Vietnam was by then the CO of 9 Squadron at Amberley, west of Brisbane. The WO was to be buried in Southport, and the CO decided to stage a flypast of gunships for the funeral as a special mark of respect. The gunships would fire a long burst from their miniguns, (with blank ammunition), as they overflew the cemetery. It was to be a sort of up market firing party - a bit more impressive than six soldiers firing a volley from their rifles over the casket.
For those readers who have not heard a minigun fired, it is nothing like your classic rat-tat-tat of the average machine gun. At 6000 rounds per minute, the electrically operated guns each emit what can only be described as a very loud, continuous - and quite frightening - roar.
The officer tasked to lead the formation listened, slightly incredulous, as he was briefed to fire his miniguns at 500 metres over a civilian cemetery, but the Boss seemed to have all things covered. Like all these operations, there would be a man on the ground equipped with a radio to clear the flypast in and to co-ordinate the exact timing. On this day, it would be the CO acting as the radio man on the ground. The formation leader was given the co-ordinates of the cemetery. He worked out his lead in direction, flew to his pre-arranged holding point, and with watches synchronised, set out to be overhead at the exact moment required.
He established comms with the CO at the cemetery, and was ‘cleared in live’ - or in this case ‘cleared in blank’. Approaching the cemetery, he saw the funeral party, adjusted his course slightly to line up exactly with the grave, and as he flew overhead, his timing accurate almost to the second, fired his miniguns. On the ground, the result was every bit as spectacular as hoped for. The roar of the miniguns caused a sensation, but the pilot was distracted by two rather disturbing reports in his headset as the burst of fire ceased. One was of the Crewman, who, looking back, reported that half the funeral party had gone to ground, including some who had actually jumped into the grave. The second report was from the CO on the ground. His voice came faintly over the radio: “Bushranger 01, where are you? Your time over target was ten seconds ago, and I can’t hear you.”
Oh dear - right time to the second, but… wrong cemetery. Apparently the CO had taken down the details of everything, but had assumed that the funeral was at the Southport Cemetery, whereas it was actually at another cemetery some kilometres up the road.
The ex-Warrant Officer’s family members were a little disappointed at the lack of a promised flypast. And happily, the family of the unfortunate man whose funeral party temporarily joined him in his grave to avoid the ‘attacking’ helicopter saw the humour in the incident. The CO was able to apologise for the ‘attack’ and all was well. It quite probably eased the pain of parting for the deceased man’s family. It gave them something else to think about, and most certainly must have made for some unexpected laughs - and skinned knees - at the wake.