In early February 1966, the 6th Airlift Platoon was receiving all new UH 1D aircraft and all their personnel were in transition training as well as integrating with the 145th Airlift Platoon. They remained at Bien Hoa until early April when the initial Company Headquarters folks from the 281st arrived in Nha Trang. It sort of reminded you of the old Bud Abbott and Lou Costello comedy routine of “Who’s on first, What’s on second.” This first blending went relatively well, all things considered, especially with all of the trials and tribulations of establishing new tactics, learning a new mission area every few weeks and sorting out who was in charge of what.
By the end of March, all of the assets of the combined assets of the two Flight Platoons became the 2/171st and were consolidated at Nha Trang. This new aviation unit was placed under complete Operational Control of the Commander, 5th Special Forces. Our mission was to provide helicopter support for the highly classified “Project Delta.” It was OFFICIAL and we were becoming pretty good at the task.
Now the dance began. In mid to late March we were supporting “Delta” at Hue-Phu Bai. This mission placed us in the unenviable position of “hunting for Charlie” in the Ashau Valley which was like flying up the Grand Canyon with a jungle clinging to the walls. The weather and location combined to create some really bad situations to operate with as we often ran out of visibility and power to climb at the same time. The Recon teams didn’t fare much better but we all combined to get the job done. Returning to Nha Trang from this mission, we lost two aircraft and had one seriously injured crew chief in the following incident:
March 30,1966 – Captain Lou Lerda, TC USAR, Unit Aviation Maintenance Officer 03/66 – 11/66:
I guess luck ran out on me today, to explain why; I’ll have to start back at Phu Bai yesterday.
We had been supporting a brutal Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol (LRRP) mission in the Ashau Valley of the northwest area of South Vietnam for ten days (Operation 4-66 Forward Operating Base Hue / Phu Bai) and were returning to our home base in Nha Trang on the central coast of Vietnam . Our formation formed up after a refuel stop at Qui Nhon. At this point I changed aircraft because one of the gunship pilots stated that his bird was acting up and I wanted to see just what the problem was for my own knowledge.
I left my personal gear aboard the first aircraft since this was to be the last leg of a routine flight back to Nha Trang. Our flight was at 4,500 feet, just south and west of Tuy Hoa on the central coast, when Joe Thurston, the pilot of the lead gun ship which had all my personal gear, called over the radio “My God Witch Doctor” (my maintenance call sign), our engine just exploded, I’m going into autorotation.” He made a turn toward the paved highway below and began his autorotation. The remainder of the flight began to orbit while the recovery ship (the bird I was flying in) and another gun ship started following the downed helicopter for what we all thought was going to be a routine recovery. The first ship had been hit by the equivalent of 50 caliber anti-aircraft gunfire.
Joe T. and his crew made a beautiful approach to the road only to find themselves staring at a VC (Viet Cong) road block. Joe set the ship down on the road and his entire crew immediately began drawing fire. He called on the FM radio and said “My crew chief has just been hit and we’re taking heavy fire from all sides.” The gunship flying cover then began a gun run to suppress the enemy fire and Jim Jackson and I in the recovery ship began a low fast approach to the downed aircraft.
“My crew chief has just been hit and we’re taking heavy fire from all sides.”
Our recovery ship was about to touch down in a rice paddy next to the helicopter that had auto rotated when a number of guys in the other green uniforms began to run away in all directions. Suddenly it appeared to be hailing lead all around our Huey as we attempted to complete the recovery. Our crew chief shouted “look out” as Jim J started to bring our ship to a hover. Just then our Huey seemed to literally explode. We sustained a direct hit to the main rotor system mount. The head, mast, rotor blades and transmission left the aircraft and then there were nine people on the ground with Charlie instead of four. At this point, time seemed to go into suspended animation as we waited for additional helicopter gunship support from Tuy Hoa (about 7 miles away) to arrive on site to help neutralize Charlie.
The following ordeal actually took 27 minutes from – autorotation to our final recovery – but it seemed like several years. “When our recovery aircraft crashed into the rice paddy, both crews were evacuated under heavy fire from an estimated platoon of Viet Cong, (later revised to nearly thirty five), from a hillside about 250 feet to the west of our position. Because of the extreme heavy fire, neither of our flight crews was able to move to a more suitable location for evacuation. Two helicopters attempting to rescue us were forced to abort.
My first response mentally was “my God, this is it. We’re going home in a box”. Once I regained my composure, I realized that the enemy positions had to be taken under fire by aircraft before another rescue attempt could be made. The only way this was going to happen was for someone to go back inside one of the downed Huey’s, turn on the radios, put on the flight helmet and start talking with the ship assigned as command and control (C&C). Disregarding enemy fire from as close as 150 feet, I began to advise the C&C of our situation. As additional gunships arrived on scene, I called fire direction for them in order to neutralize the situation. By this time the VC had selected more strategic positions and were becoming harder to spot.
After we reduced the enemy fire substantially, the first recovery ship was directed into the landing zone and we insured that the first six crew members were on board the recovery ship. They made it out OK but once again the small arms fire seemed to intensify. The C&C aircraft crew instructed the first recovery ship to immediately head for the medical facilities at Tuy Hoa to attend to the wounded crew chief. I called in another round of ARA (Aerial Rocket Artillery) before directing the second recovery ship in to pick up the remaining crew members on the ground.
Everyone was recovered and the wounded crew chief was evacuated to 8th field hospital in Nha Trang where he recovered. The next day after the 339th Aircraft Maintenance Company went in and recovered the downed helicopters, they counted nearly 175 bullet holes (nearly equally divided between the two aircraft) in the recovered Hueys.
The 101st Airborne secured the area and helped with the recovery of the aircraft along with what gear Charlie saw fit to leave behind which in this case was darn little.
What we did not know until 35 years later, after much of the information was declassified, was that our flight had been tracked from Phu Bai to Qui Nhon by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. We had been specifically targeted to be ambushed south of Tuy Hoa because of the high terrain surrounding our flight route. The 5th Special Forces LRRP missions had disrupted a significant NVA military operation in I Corps and retribution was in order.