Vietnam helicopter pilots describe the war from the cockpit

the only place in this jungle that we could land there was a small stream of probably about a hundred yards wide a clear area through the jungle and the the friendly guys were on the left hand side in the woods and the bad guys were on the right hand side of the woods and we had to land in between them we got on the ground barely and the first gunship got shot down we started to hit getting hits in the tail boom at the aircraft and the the Vietnamese came out of the woods to our left carrying a guy on a litter and helping two other wounded with their arms over their shoulders and about that time the second gunship got shot down and it went into an area about two miles away and all of a sudden we there was this loud explosion I felt the helicopter rock over to the left side and I heard this boom and then something went and I thought we'd been hit by a rocket-propelled grenade and all of a sudden the whole cockpit filled with smoke and I turned to my co-pilot and I said hey ray were on fire and he said yeah man we're on fire the bullet went through there through the bottom of my seat and missed my backside probably that much hit the map case and went out the other side and hit my crew chief in the arm that was the first time I was hit [Music] about half the time we were doing downed aircraft recovery so to to work with a downed aircraft recovery we would be sitting back at our base camp er our hooches getting a suntan or reading a book or taking a nap or whatever and they would blow a horn in the operation centre and we would have one minute to get off the ground most of the time we were doing things like logistic support we threw a lot of combat assault which is a direct insertion of infantry into combat we did a lot of things with special operations marine recon those are the basic types of missions that we flew our mission was to go out to where the wounded were located I flew 20 752 missions combat missions and evacuated 2,900 and I think 32 patients in most cases we knew we were going to recover a downed aircraft that was probably shot down nobody lands in the middle of bad-guy country purposely they do it because they have to basically we'd get a call from a ground unit either Vietnamese or or American and we'd go out to the side of the wounding and they would try to secure an area for us to land and we often time til kits though those pictures that you saw of the guys standing on the ground with his weapon or leaving this in in two tiny holes in the jungle or out in the rice paddies that's where we pick the wounded nineteen years good years old going on twenty first lieutenant got promoted to captain and April of 69 I think the average age of the pilot over there was about twenty-three and I was their flight leader at twenty and turned twenty-one when I was in country I was 28 years old when I went over the first time was a brand new captain and then I was 32 when I went back to my second tour my first encounter with with a hot LZ was was during my what we call in-country orientation it was a two ship landing zone and the first aircraft the lead aircraft was blown up in the landing zone which blocked anybody else from being able to get in personally I don't remember the first time I was shot that we expected to be shot at every time we got in the seat and strapped down the aircraft and in most cases our expectation was was correct we would approach the area at about a thousand feet drop the collective on the helicopter and go into about a two thousand feet a minute rate of descent at 100 knots and try to hold that almost to the ground a lot of times you only had like 15 or 20 seconds on the ground to discharge your troops let them offload before was time for you to leave because the next flight coming in was right behind you the method we use was try to get in and get out as fast as we could because if you spent much time on the ground or you were slow approaching or taking off you are most vulnerable at that time a approach to an LZ that was a noisy confusing tension raising experience every time you you never got used to the to the loud noise and the the distractions gunfire going into a landing zone actually sounded like popcorn so if you listen to a popcorn popper on your stove or in the microwave that's what gunfire sounded like as you were landing [Applause] round came up bounced off the collective and hit my left thumb here and last we did yet and then something hit me hard my head flew back and hit the back of a seat the the lead aircraft was was blown up in the landing zone the command and control aircraft which would had the unit commander in it basically told us to break off the approach we had four more helicopters with troops told us to break off the approach and not land we ignored that I was the the lead flight of the lead aircraft for the first bridge in my number two aircraft got a little bit too close and he actually cut my tail rotor off as we as we hit the landing zone what had happened a bullet had come through the windshield down here where it bolts into the frame hit my helmet right here between my eyes and came out back here behind my ear and when it came through that brought a bunch of metal and plexiglass with it and hit me here it and filled my left eye full of metal and plexiglass not a piece about that big sticking right here in the corner we ignored that went ahead and landed anyway discharged our troops for security for the people on the ground but more importantly we landed to pick up the wounded to get them to emergent you know to to medical care and doing that somebody had to get out of the helicopter and that's when we discovered that you know not only to where their minds a movie track we were being shot at as well we immediately went subconsciously into the emergency procedure for a loss of tail rotor control so I started doing that and we got turned around about 180 degrees and I think I was about 6 feet eyeball-to-eyeball with the pilot and the other aircraft and said this isn't right but we did it and got the wounded crew out and to the to the nearest hospital cut my nose and it chipped out a hole in my head up here and chipped out a hole back here but I spent five days in the hospital and was back flying again [Music] I'm so very proud of what we all all of us helicopter pilots did in Vietnam we lost I think thirty two hundred and fifty-eight Huey helicopters there lost a lot of people the fighter flee response was not applicable we only had the opportunity to fight we could not flee we had a job to do and no matter what the circumstance we were there was there was never any option and there was never any discussion about not doing it so to recognize that and the crews that participated in in Vietnam and and flying the Huey and gave the ultimate sacrifice to us is very important I think about those guys often times but I think we can all look back with a great pride or let's give me on what we did over there [Music] the smoke so this officially I got super episode 40 for those people because of the smoke we've gotta call my mom this other program but be crazy about [Music] [Music] you

Channel: Military Times

Views: 1,500,433

Rating: 4.9152665 out of 5

Keywords: vietnam, helicopter, vietnam helicopter pilots, 101st, air cav, vietnam war, pilots, pilot, airborne, air cavalry, medevac, cobra, huey, huey helicopter, Vietnam war huey pilots, vietnam war helicopter pilot experience

Id: 6toXHd0xGdg

Length: 9min 49sec (589 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 18 2018