I worked in maintenance for several months prior to volunteering to crew an aircraft. My memory for names and places isn’t that great, but for events it’s much better. I think I spent a day in the 2^nd platoon and then was switched to the 1^st, where I remained until we changed to the 123^rd and then I’m not sure. I had forgotten about the Pelicans and Scorpions.

I only remember a few names (lots of faces). I have had contact with Greg Hooper, crewchief, who lives in Portland, OR. I had a couple of gunners that I can remember, Kolstad, Bellingham, WA and Conway, Brockton, MA, Sgt. Voss. I just remember Robert Speight, and Spanky Lopez. I had others gunners, but those are the names I remember. A career buck sergeant. Two characters, that gunned for me, one was a crewchief (Greg Hooper) that got busted. He and another gunner had gotten drunk and tried to make the First Sergeants jeep a Molotov cocktail and burnt an outhouse in the process. I think they finally went to the gunships. Pilots, the photo album refreshed my memory, Mr. Carpenter (of course) Tom Terrific (that’s all I remember) Capt. Oliver, Mr Latini, and lots of faces.

I don’t even remember my A/C number. I think I had three. The first was a 1964 model. I went on R&R early 1968 and who ever was flying the ship, while I was gone, ran it into the ground in an LZ and damaged it to the point that it had to go into depot maintenance to be repaired. I was assigned another ship, I believe a 1965 model. While on assignment with the Special Forces at Khe Sanh, I believe this was during the siege just after Tet, the A/C had problems with the transmission oil pressure, so we didn’t fly it back. The crew flew out in a C-130 to Da Nang and left the ship. It was hit by a rocket several days later, before the maintenance people could check it out. I don’t remember the third ship, by that time we had moved back into the compound and were part of the 123^rd .

I do remember events. I recall the death of Anderson. I was not on that combat assault, but was part of the one the next day that went back into the same area. No resistance. Capt Olivers, we were flying in the same area, either just before or just after his ship went down.

About the ship that went down in the water. My ship was also on flare ship that night. The helicopter that went down had this big spot light rigged in the cargo area. It was off a tank (M-1?). The powers to be were going to try some new tactic for locating Charlie at night during a mortar attack. After we took off and started dropping flares, I can remember seeing that ship below us, flying low level, using the spot light to detect movement (unfriendly forces) on the ground. We found out later on that night that they were missing.

Just after the new year 1968, I thought the company had a bunch of tents set up to house new in-country personnel. These were replacements for the Army in the Chu Lai area. (This is where it gets fuzzy) I thought that person that was killed was part of this group, but he was hit in the second hooch of the first platoon, so may be he was one of our new gunners. He was late getting out of his bunk and mortar hit the roof above him. He was only 18 an had been in-country for 2 weeks to a month. I do remember someone telling me that Spanky Lopez had dragged him into a bunker and tried to stop the bleeding, but to no avail.

Kam Duc was the Special Force camp west of Chu Lai. We did support the Special Forces out of Hue Phu Bi. Our crew had Thanksgiving dinner there in 1967. Christmas 1967, I spent in the hell hole of my helicopter attaching new hydraulic hoses. New Years 1968, we were still on the beach, lots of gun fire (ours). Tet, the majority of our platoon was huddled in our bunker, listening to rockets and mortars rounds coming in. The next day my ship flew to Khe Sanh to support the Special Forces.

I do have lots of photos that I have not looked at for years. I need to get them out and look them over.