Helicopters are quite common today, used for all
sorts of roles from sightseeing, to life-saving, to firefighting, to all sorts of military roles.
But helicopters are relatively new technology, only really coming into their own in the
maybe 1950s, but many people don't realize that helicopters were used operationally in
the Second World War. The world's first combat rescue using a helicopter in April of 1944,
is history that deserves to be remembered. There are various kinds of rotary aircraft, or
rotorcraft, including what are called autogyros, which use an unpowered rotor in free auto rotation
to develop lift. Autogyros were flying in the 1920s, and saw various service in the Second World
War. For example, the German Navy used the Fa 330, an unpowered autogyro that was towed behind
a surfaced submarine on a tether like a kite, and was thus sometimes called an auto kite. The
spinning rotors would lift the craft some 130 yards up where they could scout for targets.
The Fa 330 was not terribly practical to set up and use, and put the submarine at risk
of detection itself. But the little craft called the Bachstelze, or Wagtail, was used
to identify and sink at least one freighter, somewhere off the island of Madagascar,
in 1943. The British experimented with the roto kite design with the Hafner Rotoshoot
and the even more bizarre Hafner Rotabuggy, both with the idea of using a roto kite designed
to airdrop men in vehicles which would be towed behind an airplane, and then land using the free
auto rotation of the rotor to land. Neither got past the experimental stage, as combat gliders
offered a superior alternative. But there was a theoretical plan to attempt the same idea with
a Valentine tank. A more practical version of the autogyro uses a fairly typical airplane
fuselage and engine, but uses the gyros for lift. The British Royal Air Force used the Avro
671 Rota to help calibrate coastal radar stations, where its ability to fly at relatively slow speeds
was useful. Similar general-purpose autogyros were used by multiple militaries for things like
artillery observation, and anti-submarine roles. But the use of autogyro and auto kites always
had limited potential for military applications because they really don't offer a lot of
advantages over fixed-wing aircraft. But a true helicopter, a type of rotary aircraft where
the blades are powered, providing both lift and thrust, is a different story altogether, and had
much greater potential. The ability to take off and land vertically, to hover for long periods of
time, and to maneuver at slow speeds, meant that those kinds of vehicles might have capabilities
that fixed-wing aircraft simply did not. Frenchman Louis Breguet developed an innovative
helicopter using two contra-rotating coaxial rotors in the 1930s. But it never went into
mass production, and the development stopped with the outbreak of the war. At roughly the same
time, the German aviation pioneer Heinrich Falk developed a twin rotor helicopter called the FW
61, that broke the record set by Breguet’s design, and which many consider to be the first
practical functional helicopter. That design was developed into the twin rotor Fa
223 Drache, or Dragon, the first helicopter to make production status. While it saw limited
use during the Second World War, Allied bombing of the factories hampered production, and only
20 were built. And they saw little service, spending most of their time trying to avoid
capture by the Allies. The Luftwaffe also produced the smaller Fl 282 Kolibri, or Hummingbird, with
a captured version shown here in US insignia. The small helicopter was used by the Navy to
ferry supplies, and the army for artillery observation. B ecause of Allied bombing of
the factories however, only 24 were built. Meanwhile, helicopter development in the United
States was going on under the direction of legendary aviation pioneer Igor Sikorsky.
Born in Kiev in the Russian Empire in 1889, Sikorsky designed bomber aircraft for the Russian
army during World War 1, but abandoned the country after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917. He
eventually emigrated to the United States, and started an airplane manufacturing
company that specialized in flying boats, including the Sikorsky S 42, one of the original
models used for the Pan American Airways Clippers. But he was fascinated with vertical flight,
and sought patents for several designs, culminating in the VS-300 which was the first
practical helicopter to use a vertical plane tail rotor for anti-torque. The most common design
today. Fitted with floats attached, it also became the first practical amphibious helicopter. More
importantly, it became the basis for the United States first mass-produced helicopter, the twin
seat Sikorsky R-4. With the production model R-4B, and used by the British Royal Air Force under
the name Hover Fly, 131 of these helicopters were produced between 1942 and 1944. 33 foot 8
inches long, with a rotor diameter of 38 feet, the Sikorsky had a cruising speed of 65 miles
per hour, a maximum speed of 75 miles per hour, a range of 150 miles and a service ceiling of
8,000 feet; it had no built-in weapons. The R-4B was operated by both the Navy and the Coast
Guard under the designation HNS-1. The helicopter saw the first known use of a helicopter in
a life-saving role on January 10th of 1944, when the Gleaves-class destroyer USS Turner
suffered internal explosions in her weapons bay off of New York City, and a Coast Guard HNS-1 flew
two cases of blood plasma to the hospital in Sandy Hook New Jersey, where the survivors were being
treated. In the South Pacific, R-4Bs were assigned to ships carrying aviation repair supplies, where
the helicopters could be used to ferry parts to airfields where they were needed. Because the
R-4B could mount a stretcher, they were also occasionally used for medical evacuation. But
three Sikorsky R-4B's were assigned to a unique unit, the United States 1st Air Commando Group,
or 1 ACG operating in the largely ignored China, Burma, India theater. Originally called
Project Nine, the 1st Air Commando Group was created by General HAP Arnold, Chief of the
US Army Air Forces, to provide fighter cover, bomb striking power, and air transport services
for the jungle long-range penetration units of the British Indian army, under the command of General
Orde Wingate. Commonly known as the Chindits. The Air Commandos operated independently of
the rest of the military chain of command, and they were mavericks who were helping to
wage an unconventional war against the Japanese, often operating behind enemy lines, and
using innovative tactics. In January of 1944, the 1-ACG managed with the aid of
FDR's Chief Adviser Harry Hopkins, to acquire three of the new Sikorsky R-4
helicopters, then popularly called Egg Beaters, which were broken down and transported to India
on C-46 transports. But almost immediately tragedy struck, as on its first flight in India on
March 21st of 1944, one of the helicopters crashed killing the pilot. He became the first
man to die in a US helicopter in a combat zone. Then another of the pilots was wounded in
action while flying a conventional airplane. When, on April 21st, Colonel Phillip Cochran, Commander of the 1st ACG radioed that one of the
Egg Beaters needed to be sent to the airfield at Tahan in Northern Burma immediately,
there was only one pilot still available Second Lieutenant Carter Harman had been
a music critic, writing for the New York Times before the war, but he had also been a
small plane pilot and so when the war started, enlisted in the Army Air Corps. He had
volunteered to fly the new R-4s because the training camp was in Connecticut close to his
home. Little did he know that that would lead to an assignment in the jungles of India, about
as far away from New York City as you can be. Another pilot of the 1 ACG had crashed his
L1 Vigilant light aircraft in northern Burma, along with three wounded British soldiers.
The Vigilant had lost its landing gear so could not take off again. Now the three
men were being pursued by the Japanese, in mountainous territory where even small
aircraft couldn't land. Lieutenant Carter was being asked to perform the world's
first combat rescue by helicopter. Just getting to Tahan was going to be difficult,
Tahan was 600 miles away from the base in India, the normal range for the R-4 was 150 miles. They
filled the copilot seat with jerry cans of fuel and he took off. Flying in mountainous territory,
he pushed a helicopter to its theoretical ceiling, stopping at 1 ACG bases along the way for fuel. He
arrived at Tahan on April 25th. Once there he had to fly an additional 125 miles to a hidden base,
well inside Japanese territory, where the 1 ACG operated light planes for medical evacuation.
The 1 ACG sergeant and three British soldiers were in dire straits. The soldiers' wounds were
festering, and they were being pursued by the Japanese. Harmon would have to fly in and pick the
men up, one at a time, and ferry them to a place where small aircraft could land, and fly them to
safety. This was uncharted territory for the small craft whose engine was having difficulties in the
heat. As Harman noted, “The helicopter also didn't like Japanese soldiers.” The small, largely canvas
covered craft, offered no protection from enemy fire. The heat and altitude pushed the helicopter
to its limits. Harman managed to extract two of the wounded, but as he got to the evac point on
the second trip the helicopter's engine seized, overheated. The sergeant and the last wounded
soldier would have to hold out through the night, and see if the helicopter would start again in
the morning. It did, and Harman rescued the last wounded soldier. But when he went back to get the
1 ACG pilot, the clearing was being swarmed by soldiers. Harman barely got to the ground ahead of
the soldiers, and the sergeant jumped on! As they went to lift, the engine nearly seized again and
the helicopter sank! But Harman managed to get it to full power, and they dashed away! The first
known helicopter combat rescue was a success! Only when they got back to base did they find
out that the soldiers that were coming into the clearing were not Japanese soldiers.
They were actually some of Orde Wingate Chindits who were coming to the rescue. While
there were Japanese soldiers in the area, Harman never saw
them. R-4s conducted other rescue operations,
and even their first combat mission in May. Colonel Cochrane noted of the action,
“Today the Egg Beater went into action, and the damn thing acted like it had good sense.” It
was an auspicious start for helicopters, and the 1st Air Commando Group, which continues on today
as, the US Air Force 1st Special Operations Wing. 2nd Lieutenant Carter Harmon was awarded
the Distinguished Flying Cross for his service. He survived the Second World War,
and had a long career in music. He was a music critic for more than 20 years writing
for publications like the New York Times, and Time magazine. He also composed music,
was the executive vice president of the music label CRI records, and wrote three books.
He passed away in 2007 at the age of 88. I'm the History Guy, and I hope you enjoyed
this edition of my series of short snippets of forgotten history, about ten minutes long. And
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