STORIES
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The Milk Run
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For any pilot flying aircraft carrier operations, the voice of the air boss, the officer in charge of all air operations on deck, is the sound of absolute authority. For this Navy helicopter pilot, the air boss represented trouble. He was a tyrant with a hair trigger. |
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Joe Cool, USMC
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I had just returned from Viet Nam where I'd accumulated about 1000 hours in the UH-34D. The H-34 is made out of magnesium, so the worst emergency you can have is a fire in flight. They make flares out of magnesium! The manual said wear chutes over 3000’ above ground, because you couldn’t get it to the ground before it would burn up. |
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Semper Fi in Action
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PopASmoke at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial; The Meaning of Semper Fidelis in Action
United States Marines can be a cantankerous lot, especially when they are at war. That shouldn't come as a surprise, considering that we are America's shock troops, assigned to impossible missions, often fighting against overwhelming numbers of enemy forces in the worst of circumstances, all on the short end of the defense budget. |
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Flying Frogs in Vietnam?
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A short story told by Chuck Brewer, (Ordnance Marine, Vietnam) to an Ordnance Marine in Iraq:
"...we got bored easily when we went any length of time without receiving incoming from the enemy. Anticipation made us nervous. So, being young men, Marines, we would find things to do. Now, all of the ammo on that base came thru us. So, we had our hands on a lot of fun stuff." |
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A Bit of UH-34D history
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The H-34 started as a private Sikorsky Aircraft development, which the military ignored. However, it soon became a true workhorse in service with all branches of the U.S. armed forces, in addition to a host of foreign nations, and a variety of civil operators. The H-34 was also the final evolution of large piston-engine helicopters before the rise of turbine powered designs. |
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Gopher Broke: The Story of "Blood, Sweat, & Tears"
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Marines were dying. They had hit an explosive device, and the Marines of Alpha Company, 3rd Platoon, 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Division closed ranks. They had been sweeping an area on the left flank of their insertion point. They had already engaged the enemy twice, had tagged a booby trap just moments earlier, and some of them were in a running firefight as they pursued enemy forces. The sound of that explosion told the Marines someone had just found another booby trap, the hard way. |
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Every Day is Monday
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Every day in Vietnam seemed liked a Monday; because the weekend good times were over, and you had to get up and go off to work. In my job there were always people eagerly waiting for me. They waited hidden, heavily armed, and ready to kill. Like every other day of that month I got up at about four in the morning, dressed, tried to hold down my breakfast, and act calm in front of the others. |
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Operation Tailwind
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In July of 1970, I arrived at the Marble Mountain Air Facility, Marble Mountain, RVN. where I was assigned to HMH-463 as a structural mechanic and began flying as an aerial gunner aboard our CH-53 helicopters. As the largest helicopter in the Marine Corps inventory, we flew many different kinds of missions from re-supply to insertion/extractions of troops and even moving USO shows from camps to camps. But some of the most dangerous and interesting missions were known as Mission 72. Mission 72's were those missions, where we would insert MACVSOG troops into Laos, also know as "going over the fence." These would normally consist of one CH-53 and one CH-46 as our chase bird. But then a Mission 72 in September 1970 would change everything. |
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Ron Zaczek Interview - Rescue of Recon Team Breaker
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In the Summer, 2001 issue of Pop A Smoke Ron Zaczek and I [ Robert Skinder] had a conversation regarding his struggle with PTSD which resulted from his service as a UH-1E crew chief in VMO-3. His condition and the therapy resulted in his classic book of the Vietnam Helicopter war, Farewell darkness. In the book, Ron revealed that among other events, the PTSD resulted from the rescue of a 3rd Recon Team named “Breaker,” attempted in a Huey slick. Early in the interview Ron stated, “We got three Marines out alive. We left the bodies of three Marines and a Corpsman behind. I’ve never forgiven myself for leaving them behind, even in death. Every Marine knows what I mean.” He also made it apparent in the book that the three Marines that they got out would most likely not survive. I suggested to Ron that we do this follow up interview based on recent developments. |
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The Bucket Issue (bootcamp story)
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The Bucket Issue
Back in the depths of time, when the air was clean and sex was dirty, back when I was young and dumb (no comments please) I thought it would be a good idea to join the United States Marine Corps. Early January 1954, found me at that bastion of southern hospitality and gracious living, Parris Island, South Carolina. While it was being impressed on my young and tender mind and body what a completely useless piece of (possibly) human offal I was, I was allowed to participate in many secret and mysterious rituals of the USMC. Among the many adventures this young boot had was ‘The Bucket Issue’. |
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Saluting a Shipmate
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10 May, 2005
Here’s a story for you, a true one. As you know, our Corps is a little different from other military services, in fact, from most organizations of any kind. You don’t just go in for a couple of years and get out, untouched. There are certain elements that you might not be able to put your finger on but you know that you are a little different from your co-workers and neighbors and it’s not all IQ. This story, so fitting today, is about the code words that are drilled into us somehow. A few that come to mind are courage, integrity and perseverance. One of the values that we are taught is the job is finished when the job is finished. Sometimes it is finished at O-dark-thirty and sometimes, later. |
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Fighter Pilot Down - A Eulogy
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Dtd: 7-28-00
From: LtCol Gregory J. Johnson, USMC (Ret)
Subject: NOTAM (Notice to Airmen): Fighter Pilot Down
Colonel James E. Johnson, USMC (Ret) departed pattern 0500 Zulu, 27 July 2000. Last seen on heading and course, full throttle forward, afterburners glowing. Last report indicates passing through Angels 300. He was 81. PCS (Permanent Change of Station) orders and flight plan come on wake of two year battle with leukemia. Received orders at home in Kaneohe, Hawaii. At last PIREP (Pilot Report), Subject Named Marine (SNM) indicated "six" was clear. |
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Helicopter Maintenance Events Diary
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Naval Air Test Center 1971 to 1972
by Captain Keith Scott, USMC Retired
The Naval Air Test Facility at Patuxent River, Maryland evaluates new aircraft and aviation systems for the Navy and Marine Corps. The Navy Test Pilot School located at Patuxent provides the pilots that fly the aircraft being evaluated. The Test Facility is the intermediate authority between civilian builders and fleet acceptance by the Navy and Marine Corps. New aircraft and aviation systems must meet government contract specifications before purchase. Project officers normally accomplished their tests by installing recording instruments in project aircraft and flying the envelope for each specification. |
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Tarbush Night Medevac
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by Rod Carlson
The flight schedule was posted a day in advance, so I'd known for 24 hours that I had drawn my first night medevac mission. During that time, the closest I had come to being able to relax was a long run on the sand up to China Beach. With everyone else flying day missions, the hootch was deserted, but I couldn't sleep. I tried writing a letter,, but gave up when I felt like William Holden writing his final words to Grace Kelly in "The Bridges at Toko Ri." |
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With Apologies to Chuck Robb
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by Rod Carlson
After returning from wars, Americans go back to school before moving on to success and wealth. After Vietnam, I was in business school at the University of Virginia. Most every day, a few of us survivors would have lunch and distract ourselves from the inevitability of having our total stupidity discovered and being ejected from the school. Looking up from his chicken pot pie, Art Johnsen, known for touch and goes at Khe Sanh said, "Hey, there's Chuck Robb." |
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A L/Cpl's First Big Action
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by Sgt. Roger Ynostroza
DONG HA - It was Lance Corporal David J. Simmons' first big action. In Vietnam since August, Simmons was an M-60 machinegunner aboard a CH-37C cargo helicopter on a routine resupply mission near the demilitarized zone. The large double-engine chopper delivered several 55-gallon fuel drums to a 3rd Marine Division unit when intense automatic weapons fire broke out. Enemy positions on a saddle at a nearby razorback ridge began raking the landing zone. "I guess we weren't on the ground for but 30 seconds after the firing broke out," said Simmons. |
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Look, Up In The Sky. It's A Bird, It's A Plane, It's.......
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by Roger Herman
It was 1965 and I was in flight training as a Marine helicopter pilot in Pensacola, Florida. When I began training in May of that year, I think that I might have heard the name Vietnam mentioned once or twice. I hadn't really paid much attention to it. Fifteen months later, when I had completed training, I was on my way there. The war had escalated significantly during this period. As a result, helicopter pilots were needed "in-country" as soon as possible. In order to get us over there in the shortest amount of time after we got our wings, some of the additional training that was considered optional was deleted from the schedule. |
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The Gunner's Lot
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by A. M. Leahy
During my brief experiences as port .30 cal. machine gunner in VMO-2's UH-1Es, HMM-363's UH-34s and starboard 50 cal. machine gunner in HMM-161's CH-46s, several thoughts occurred to me during my 1967 and 1968 assignments to III MAF as a combat artist serving in I Corps. |
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Yankee Papa Extract - A Grunt's Perspective
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by Mick Carey
I remember now a cold, foggy morning northwest of Khe Sanh. I was the team leader of a five man recon insert. We were to penetrate north and west to get intel on suspected improvements to Ho Chi Minh trail that would allow heavy truck and tracked vehicle traffic. We were also supposed to check on some new seismograph detectors that were not sending back signals. Part of the patrol orders were to avoid contact, although G-2 (Intelligence section) advised us that they did not have any indication of any enemy troops in any strength in the area. The insert went smoothly on the first day. |
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Combat Extract
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by Gene Salter
It's another of those incidents that sticks in your mind no matter how long you live. It frightens you so much that when it's over you lock it away in a closet of your memory so that no one, not even you, remember what happened. Or, maybe, you don't want others to know just how frightened you were. Anyway, the emergency extract of a recon team from the side of a mountain during the Viet Nam war, is one of those experiences that is hard for me to forget. The memory of it was thrown back at me when I saw my helicopter in Mike Leahy's painting called VIETNAM: HOT RECON TEAM EXTRACT. |
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Angry Eyes at A Shau
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by George Twardzik
The following experience occurred in the A Shau Valley around March 25, 1966, which demonstrates the down and dirty gut spirit of Marine helicopter pilots and aircrew, especially the can-do, will-do character of my outfit, Marine Helicopter Squadron -163. At the time, I was a PFC flying as a gunner in the UH-34Ds, based at Phu Bai. Around March 23rd, we received a frantic call from an Army special forces unit of about 220 men who were in a very critical situation at their outpost in the Ashau Valley. |
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The Admin Run
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by Ralph Aye and Rod Carlson
Dawn was breaking as the U.S.S. Okinawa rolled gently to the left and turned into the soft morning breeze. The sun shown momentarily and disappeared behind a dark overcast as the preparations continued to launch a single UH-34D that was growling and snorting at idle with its rotor blades windmilling. Wearing a dark green helmet and flight suit, along with the usual bullet bouncer, Dave Ogden walked out of the ship's line shack, turned and waved to the air boss in pri-fly, threw his flight bag to the waiting crew chief and climbed up the left side of the helicopter. |
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Six Degrees of Seperation
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by Chuck Nowotny
The summer of 1965 will always remain very special in my memory. I had just finished my second year of college and was living on a community Lake South of St. Louis (TISHAMINGO) and was having the time of my life. Vietnam was some where in Southeast Asia and it didn't have any effect on my life whatsoever; until Lillian Duncan, my best friend Henry's mother and a lady I referred to as mom also said one day " did you hear that Jim Magle had been killed in Vietnam." She said that it had been on one of the covers of Life magazine." I was absolutely stunned. Someone that I knew was killed in a "war" in Vietnam? |
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The Ugly Angels
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Julie Jackson, American History, November 10, 1999
It was 1985 and a man named Gerald Hail searches through a metal graveyard in Tucson, Arizona for an aircraft he could use only for its valued parts. Mr. Hail already owned several UH-34Ds, which is a very rare machine, so when he came upon an old, frail, and beaten helicopter of the same make, he bought and had her shipped home -only to await the use of her once young limbs. |
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The Noble Warrior: Rescue at Hill 845
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by Lieutenant Colonel Gregory J. Johnson, USMC (Ret)
Glancing around at the clutter in my attic recently, I decided it was time to sort through some of the unpacked boxes associated with my military retirement and move to Pennsylvania. A fond smile crossed my face as I gingerly pulled out aging flight logbooks. As I randomly scanned the yellowing pages, I was surprised by the vivid and detailed recall the numerous sorties inscribed on those pages evoked. Aviation seems to have that effect on the mind. |
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Team Box Score
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From "Inside Force Recon, Recon Marines in Vietnam"
by Michael Lanning and Ray Stubbe
Team Box Score of the Third Force Recon Company reached its assigned recon zone six miles northwest of Dong Ha on 15 February 1968 by walking from the nearest firebase. Composed of eight men including patrol leader Second Lieutenant Terrence C. Graves, six enlisted Marines, and a corpsman, Box Score had a rather typical mission, to determine enemy activity, engaging what enemy they found with supporting fires, locating landing zones and trails, and attempting to capture a prisoner. |
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Operation Frequent Wind
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by Chris Woods, Crew Chief of Swift 2-2
Gentlemen, start your engines." The laconic command copied from the Indianapolis 500 auto races, echoed from the 1MC, the public-address system of the U.S.S. Hancock. Moments later, the Commanding Officer of Marine Heavy Helicopter Squadron 463, LtCol. Herbert Fix, lifted his CH-53D Sea Stallion off the deck of the aging carrier. When the other seven choppers in his squadron had left the deck, they fluttered off in a tight formation through blustery winds and dark, ominous rain clouds that hovered over the South China Sea. |
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Circuitous Travel Leave
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by Norm Urban
May, 1965 – July, 1966
This is not really a Viet Nam story, but rather a LEAVING Viet Nam story. But it’s fun to tell about, and hopefully, interesting.
In May ’65, I joined HMM-361 as a 2nd Lt helicopter pilot, just as the squadron boarded the USS Iwo Jima at Long Beach, Ca, for the trip to Okinawa, with a stop in Japan to drop off some A-4s. We worked up on Oki for a month or so, then flew via C-130, into Danang, where we set up camp at the southeast end of the main runway. Great flying. Cheated death a few times, like everybody. |
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The A Shau Mission
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by Norm Urban
Setting: HMM-163 at Hue Phu Bai, March 10-12, 1966
We had been listening to increasingly disparate radio calls from the Ashau Special Forces camp, asking for help, for a few days prior to the March 11, 1966 "Ashau" mission. The Special Forces camp, on the Laotian border, was manned by a reinforced SF detachment, an Arvin unit, and a detachment of "Nungs". They had been surrounded by the NVA and VC forces. The North Vietnamese 235B Div HQ was reported to be operating in the valley. |
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My First Combat Mission
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by Mike "Moon" Mullen
I was on my (no shit!) first combat mission with HMM-262, flying Marines from a BLT into combat on Operation Badger Tooth, in December of 1967, off of the USS Valley Forge. I was Ron Gatewood's copilot, and Ron, at that time a seasoned veteran of many "sandwiches" had briefed me to "......just lower the ramp in the zone and dump fuel if I ask you to....." |
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Tales of an Ugly Angel - The Purple Heart
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by Gary Doss
September 14th, 1967, Phu Bai, RVN
We were up early that morning; the sun had yet to make its appearance for the day. I had already shaved, dressed and made my way down to the mess hall for some hot over cooked coffee, dry sausage and stale toast. I couldn't stomach the powdered eggs that always looked so deceivingly delicious.
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HMM-263 Events Diary
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Maintenance Department 1961 to 1966
by Captain Keith Scott, USMC Retired
HMM-263 was housed in the old hangar at New River Air Station in 1961. The old hanger was the only hangar at the Air Station at that time. It's still there with the round roof and the control tower at one end. Some shops were located in the old hangar and other where located in temporary metal buildings next to the hangar. Our Squadron followed the fundamental concept of separating technical disciplines into individual spaces. Administration, Operations and the Ready Room were on the first and second decks of the old hangar. |
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A Shau Valley
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by Wyman Blakeman
There were 16 aircraft scheduled to go into As Hau the evening of March 10, 1966. Col House (Commanding Officer of HMM-163) led the first 8 in at 1700 local time. The 2nd flight of 8 was scheduled on station at 1720. Fortunately for the 2nd flight of 8 the weather deteriorated rapidly and I, as flight leader of the 8, detached my second 4 and left them east of the valley over the ridge line. appear we hadn't been trying. |
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Low Flight
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by Jim Dishon
In 1972 the Corps had purchased its first AV-8 Harriers and had decided the first Harrier pilots would be men who had been trained in both jets and helicopters. So, a group of helicopter pilots was selected to cross-train in jets, and a group of jet pilots was selected to cross-train in Hueys as part of the operation aptly named Project Transition. At that time I was a Huey IP with HML-367 at Camp Pendleton. |
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The Man in the Doorway
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by Michael Ryerson
They came in low and hot, close to the trees and dropped their tail in a flare, rocked forward and we raced for the open doorways. This was always the worst for us, we couldn't hear anything and our backs were turned to the tree line. The best you could hope for was a sign on the face of the man in the doorway, leaning out waiting to help with a tug or to lay down some lead. Sometimes you could glance quickly at his face and pick up a clue as to what was about to happen. We would pitch ourselves in headfirst and tumble against the scuffed riveted aluminum, grab for a handhold and will that son-of-a-bitch into the air. |
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