Coming back from a highly successful early morning heckler mission, two intrepid VC-35 crews, at their usual 1500 feet, cleared a ridge and were presented with their favorite target - on a platter. In the valley ahead, a lone locomotive was making all the knots it could muster for a tunnel some distance ahead, and was much too far away to make it - ordinarily. A quick communication between the pilots revealed what they had feared - they didn't have so much as a spit-wad between them to use on the target. They decided to think things over regarding the problem for awhile, and in the meantime started to make passes at the locomotive. One aircraft would make an attack approach, then the other. The first dummy attack came in, and the engineer of the locomotive slammed on the brakes and bailed out on the opposite side of the engine. That kind of looked promising, except that as soon as the aircraft went past, the engineer climbed back in his cab and opened the throttle, gaining maybe fifty yards before the second aircraft came in, whereupon the scenario was repeated. This game of cat-and-mouse went on for several minutes, and it began to look like the mouse was going to win, since the cats were toothless and clawless. It was evident that the cats had three choices - (1) Land and try to pot the engineer with their 38's, (2) Ram the sucker, or (3) Forget the whole thing and go home. Choices (1) and (2) were not too appealing, and our boys decided to give the day to that gutsy engineer. But before they left, one of the pilots made one last pass, and out of sheer frustration, pickled off the only thing he had at the target - his empty belly tank. The results were surprising. It can only be guessed that, at some point, our engineer had been witness to a napalm attack, and thought that this was another one and wanted no part of it. At any rate, he brought the engine to a screeching halt, vented all his steam into a towering cloud and hit the road for places far, far away. On the way home, the lead pilot notified the incoming Air Group strike of the location of the target, and they detached a couple of AD's to the area. They found the target where our boys said that it would be, and preceded to dis-assemble it. One more example of how strange things happen in a war. (You can call it a "Police Action" if you like, but I never will.)