From the Hornets to the Crusaders

My plan here had been to tell the tale in a chronological order from my arrival in Vietnam to my departure (DEROS). I have violated that rule on a couple of occasions because, well, I could. For the most part I will continue along that road, but sometimes will either jump forward or fall backward to cover an interesting tale.

It was in March that the command staff, meaning the company commanders and the battalion commander realized that there was a problem looming on the horizon. The Crusaders, that is, the 187^th Assault Helicopter Company, would see many of its senior pilots, meaning the aircraft commanders, rotating home in a short time. To avoid that, some of the pilots were moved around. I was one of those.

I was told that I would be moving up to the Crusaders from the Hornets and by moving up, I mean going from a point about thirty miles from Saigon to Tay Ninh, which was closer to Cambodia and a little farther north.

I arrived there without much in the way of fan fair. I had packed my duffle bag, stuffed some other, person items in a satchel, climbed into the back of a Huey, and was flown to Tay Ninh. I really don’t remember much about that but I must have reported to the company commander and was assigned to the first platoon.

The Crusader's Officers Club. Notice the sign on the right that suggests that if you

wear your hat in the club, you must buy the bar a round of drinks. I point this out because 

it is a rule that is routinely ignored on those TV shows that feature an officer's club. 

Because I was now a new guy, not in Vietnam, just to the unit, I was again a Peter Pilot, meaning that I wasn’t an aircraft commander. I flew with the first platoon’s ACs on a number of occasions and again, don’t remember much about that. One of the ACs was a heavy smoker and had a habit of engaging the forced trim on the cyclic. That meant that if you let go of it, for whatever reason, it would return to the position that put the aircraft in a climbing right turn. The theory, I think, was that if the pilot who had actual control of the aircraft was suddenly incapable of flying it, the helicopter would not quickly spin out of control, but would enter a shallow climb, giving the surviving pilot a chance to grab the controls.

It also meant that you had to fight the cyclic the whole time because it wanted to enter that climbing turn. Rather than slight pressure to move the cyclic, it required a little more effort. I thought of it as annoying. It made the task more difficult and I know of no case in which using the forced trim in that fashion saved anything. I did find a way to defeat it so that flying wasn’t as strenuous as it had been.

The first platoon had a scheduling board and the platoon leader would put up the aircraft assignments for the next day on that board including which AC and pilot in which aircraft. One day, after about a week or so, I checked the board and didn’t see my name in the pilot slot. I thought I had the next day off and as I turned, I though that I did see my name. I looked back and found that I was assigned as the AC of Spare Two.

Each day two “spare” aircraft were assigned. Spare One, would be pre-flighted and ready to go if needed. If the flight was staging somewhere away from Tay Ninh and there was an airfield or location closer to the area of the day’s operations, Spare One, would locate there. If not needed, when the flight was released, Spare One returned to Tay Ninh if it had flown anywhere else.

Spare Two was the aircraft that would replace Spare One, if Spare One was called up to take a slot in the flight. In other words, it was fairly unlikely that Spare Two would be flying and all you had to do was remain in the company area, sleeping, reading, playing cards or whatever in case you had to replace Spare One. It wasn’t much of an assignment, but then I was now the AC of Spare Two for the next day.

There had been no announcement that I was now an AC. No one said a word to me about it. No ceremony, such as we had had at the Hornets when I was made an AC there. Just my name on the scheduling board in the left-hand slot for the AC rather than the right-hand slot for the pilot.

Of course, the next day, my name moved up and I was assigned to one of the chalk positions in the flight.  I don’t remember where it was because, I don’t remember if we had the lead or trail part of the flight, and I don’t remember if I was assigned an aircraft in the middle of those positions.

I do remember that I was assigned an aircraft, and if it was available, then that was the aircraft I would fly. If it wasn’t, then I would fly another, such as the one that I blew up on a land mine. And I had a crew, or rather, there was a crew chief and door gunner assigned to my aircraft as well. We all flew together most of the time.

For a little bit of foreshadowing, which we’ll get to later, their plan to prevent a number of the ACs leaving the company about the same didn’t work out.

  

I Blow a Helicopter Up on a Land Mine

 

My original plan was to post here, in chronological order, my service in Vietnam. That is, it would begin with my entry in country and end with my DEROS some 355 days later. That meant that some of the really interesting events would have to wait until I was appointed an aircraft commander later in my tour. But sometimes things just get in the way.

I have been watching 12 O’clock High on one of those nostalgia channels. I have said for years it was sort of my inspiration into volunteering for the Army out of high school because the Army had a program for high school graduates that sent them to helicopter flight school. Age wasn’t the factor; it was the high school diploma and a sufficiently high score on a battery of Army tests to select those who would have the aptitude to complete flight school. It also required a number of physical tests, such as one to determine if you were color blind or not. Obviously, given the nature of this blog, I was successful in passing those tests, was inducted, and finally, eventually sent to flight school.

My flight school class. I'm second from the left in the second row.

What ultimately inspired this break in my self-imposed chronology was an episode of JAG, in which Harm, as a passenger in a Lear Jet flown by Air Force pilots, found himself sitting in the co-pilot seat. The Air Force lieutenant, who was obviously the aircraft commander, but only a lowly first lieutenant, was outranked by Harm. Those in Hollywood apparently believed that Harm’s superior grade gave him command of the aircraft. Rank, however, has nothing to do with it, and while in the air, the aircraft commander, regardless of rank, was, well, the aircraft commander. Harm, in this case was subordinate to him.

While in high school, I watched 12 O’clock High, and a friend of mine, while we were riding in the back bus to swim meets, would pretend that we were flying B-17s on combat missions. The bouncing around in the bus seemed to simulate the B-17s flying through clouds of flak on combat missions.

For those of you who wish to validate this tale later, I point to the 187^th AHC Unit Incidents section of their website. On May 16, 1969, you can read the sentence that shows I did blow up a helicopter on a land mine. You can access it here:

http://www.187thahc.net/Incidents/incident_index.htm

Just click on 69 and scroll down to May 16, 1969, to read about the incident. I mention this, as I said, for verification.

As was my habit, though I’m not sure why, as aircraft commander, I would always fly the first mission of the day. As one of the senior aircraft commanders at the time, I was paired with an FNG. The co-pilots were not assigned to a crew, the philosophy being that they would be exposed to many different pilots and would gain experience from all of them and not pick any bad habits.

187th AHC "Crusaders" on the ground waiting for the next mission.

We made the routine pick up of infantry soldiers and were taking them to the LZ. I glanced at the co-pilot and said to him, “I’m not telling you what to do, but it is a good idea to put the sun visor (on the helmet) down to shield your eyed in case something comes through the windshield.”

Everything was fine and we hit the RP and then the IP and were inbound. There had been no arty prep, and we were landing in rice paddies that provided no cover for the enemy. Just before we touched down, there was a tremendous explosion just in front of the aircraft. Without thinking, I executed a hovering autorotation and we hit the ground. The soldiers bailed out of the cargo compartment, scattering rapidly.

To the left, I saw one of the helicopters pull slightly forward of his position in the formation and the door gunner leaped out, running toward us. To the right, the crew chief was out and coming toward us.

Over the radio I heard someone saying, “I know where the RPGs are coming from.”

I’m thinking if the first one was that close; I don’t want to hang around for the second.

Trail said, “Lead. You’re down with nine. Explosion in the center of the flight.”

There must have been other chatter on he radios, but I don’t remember any of it. I just glanced at the instrument panel, noticed that all the instruments were in the green, so I rolled the throttle back to 6600 rpm. There were no major vibrations from the shrapnel in the rotor blades.

Lead said, “On the go.”

I picked up to a hover, kicked the pedals right and left to ensure I had control, and pushed the cyclic forward. I saw the door gunner from that other aircraft skid to a halt, and then turn to run back to his helicopter.

I continued to climb out, thinking that I would rejoin the flight and they realizing that when we touched down in the PZ, none of the soldiers are going to want to climb onto my aircraft. The chin bubbles were broken, the nose was slightly caved in, and the pedals on the co-pilot side were broken off.

I keyed the mic and said that I was going to take the aircraft to Cu Chi. It was the closest airfield. I broke away from the formation and could see the big column of smoke that seemed to always be on the perimeter of Cu Chi, which was visible for miles and what we used as a nav aid.

I called the tower and said, “This is Crusader 617, extensive combat damage. Requesting straight in approach.”

The tower asked, “Are you declaring an emergency?”

I had thought that was clear, but said, “Yes.” I wanted all the emergency equipment out there in case I rolled the aircraft up into a little ball.

I reported that I was and that I was on final. The tower said, “You’re coming in downwind?”

At that point I didn’t care because the wind as the least of my problems. I just “rogered,” them and shot the approach to a hover. Everything was still in the green and I turned off the active runway and landed in the maintenance of the three quarter cav (3/4 Cavalry Regiment), if I remember correctly. I shut down and then wondered what in the hell we were going to do.

It was then that a jeep rolled up and a colonel and lieutenant got out. I don’t know who they were. The colonel didn’t say anything to me, but pointed at the broken chin bubble and told the lieutenant to get up into the pilot’s seat and dangle his feet out through the broken Plexiglass. At that point I had a life-sized picture of the colonel, at home, showing the picture and telling the harrowing tale of his adventure in saving the aircraft.

We, which is to say, my flight crew and I, were taken to battalion headquarters. I was told that Spare Two, which had been standing by at Tay Ninh, would be brought down. I was going to take over that aircraft and standby at Cu Chi until the flight was released. Spare One, which had originally been on standby at Cu Chi had been launched when I left the formation.

We made it to the mess hall for lunch. While we were eating, a captain approached the table and told me that the battalion commander was disappointed… my boots were not properly shined. I’m thinking, I’ve just blow up a helicopter, I’m lucky that the worse injury seemed to be a slight headache and a ringing in my ears, and the battalion commander was more worried about the luster on my boots… not to mention that we didn’t shine our boots. We paid someone else to do it.

Frankly, I don’t remember anything else about this. I don’t know how the crew for Spare Two got back to Tay Ninh. I don’t know why we were assigned to take over rather than the crew for Spare Two just standing by instead.

When I got back to Tay Ninh, I had to fill out a “hit report.” That was sort of fun. Number of hits? One. Damage? Well, it was quite a list because the front was slightly caved in, the pedals were broken on the pilot’s side, the chin bubbles were gone, the windshield was cracked and the air frame was bent. That helicopter would never fly again.

On the other hand, I was scheduled to fly the next day after the flight surgeon cleared me. He said the headache would go away and the ringing in my ears would stop. Besides, we were short of aircraft commanders at the time.