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Editor Paul J. Metzner |
Dedicated
to the little helicopter with “Blades
of Wood” flown by “Men of Steel” VOL.1 Number 2 |
Editor |
To Fly IS
HEAVENLY – TO HOVER IS DEVINE
Help Stamp out Fixed Wings
INTRODUCTION
At this the beginning of this our second
edition, I must say that the Inaugural Edition was a resounding success. Below,
we are introducing a new column titled “RING of FIRE”. This addition will cover the exploits of our
Airborne Rescuemen/ Firefighters. As was the case
before, we will be adding LINKS
usually starting with www. that will connect you with other Web Sites providing
additional information on the subject. Our success is dependent on you our
readers. We need you to contact us with information/articles so we will have
the content available for future editions. We are also seeking photographs for
our archives to be used directly with related stories or as illustrations in
others. Enough already, let’s get this “Bird” fired up so you can enjoy this
issue.
Steve
RING of
FIRE
At 0720 L, 
Crash Alarm
sounded scrambling the crew of PEDRO 26, DET4, 41st ARRW,
land and deploy
the Medic to re-hook the FSK. As the pilots were maneuvering over the Kit, an
explosion was both heard and felt inside the aircraft. One of the Firefighters
reported that the aircraft had exploded and many people were down. Two-Six
immediately repositioned the FSK to combat the resulting fire as the Crash
trucks were out of foam and in some 
cases
unmanned due to personnel injuries. Fortunately the remaining fire quickly
burned or was blown out by the rotor wash and was no longer a factor. Repositioning
back approximately 200’ to be clear all obstacles, the Airborne Rescuemen were deployed to render assistance to the
injured. By then, the Flight Medic had made his way to the incident and taken a
position with MEDIC 2 the on-scene Ambulance. He began treating injured
Firefighters as they were removed from the scene. During this period the two
Airborne Rescuemen working as a team extracted a
severely injured victim from a position beside the crashed aircraft. After
turning their victim over to the Medics, they returned to rescue another victim
in the same area. Immediately after removal of their second victim, another
explosion occurred. While the Rescuemen were involved
in removing both victims, Two-Six had landed and one of the pilots deplaned and
prepared the rear of the aircraft to receive litters. Litters were secured from
the aircraft, assembled, and the most serious victim returned to the helicopter for Medical
Evacuation.
At 0745L Pedro 26 with one victim and
the Flight Medic departed for the Base Dispensary. Landing in a grassy area
south of the dispensary, they released their patient to the waiting medical
personnel and quickly returned to the accident scene.
While PEDRO 26 was away, the Airborne Rescuemen went back to the aircraft to look for an
unaccounted for individual. The victim was located, but deemed to be beyond all
help. Fire equipment had been left running so the next job for the Rescuemen was to secure this equipment. With the exception
of the Flight Medic who remained with the Ambulance going back to the
dispensary, PEDRO 26 returned to the Alert Pad at 0805L.
PEDRO 26
Crewmembers were:
CAPT
David E. Buchholz- Instructor Pilot and ACC
MAJ Jack A. Weatherford- Pilot
TSgt James E. Morse- Flight Medical Technician
Sgt Peter
Marcotte - Airborne Rescueman/Firefighter
Sgt Norman R. Jones - Airborne Rescueman/Firefighter
NOTE: Sgt Marcotte and Sgt Jones
were awarded the Airman’s Medal for
their repeated forays into the explosion area to aid and remove victims.
*************************************************************
S.E.A. STORIES
TDY AT NKP, 1964
By
Jim Burns
My first arrival at NKP on a typical hot,
humid tropical day, in July 1964 was loud, as the C-123 “shuttle” slammed its
tires onto the PSP runway. It seemed that each plank clanked as the wheels
rolled to a stop. We then taxied to the PSP parking area, swung around and
dropped the rear ramp. I helped the C-123 crew roll off some large fuel
bladders full of JP-4 and then stepped onto the ramp for the first time. This
was definitely not the typical base that I was used to. I helped load some of
the empty fuel bladders onto the C-123. She taxied out and was gone.
As
I scanned the “base”, I saw three HH-43B helicopters, three or four shacks,
some more fuel bladders 
scattered around the edge of the ramp, a few large
diesel generators, several trucks, an outhouse and about twenty GI’s. I began to introduce myself and meet the
“base personnel” (all twenty or so of them). I arrived in mid-afternoon and
after a short time, was 
told that we had been released from alert duty for the
day and would be going into town. We all piled into the trucks and headed to
our hotel which was located about 10 miles or so to the East. We left the base
and helicopters to be guarded by the two Thai guards who lived in a small shack
near the “front gate” along with their wives and families.
The trip into town was like a parade, with all the
kids and villagers along the way lining the edges of the road and waving to us
like they had never seen a “GI” before. It was like this every morning and
afternoon for the entire four months I was there. We arrived at the “Civilized
Hotel” where I was assigned a room in the two-story part of the hotel. The
two-story part had either six or eight rooms and the rest of the rooms were in
a one-story motel style building next to the two-story part. We bunked two to a room which had GI type
beds. These beds sagged so damn bad that after the first night, I had mine
replaced with a Thai bed. It was hard as a board (as a matter of fact it was a 
board) with a thin cotton mattress on it. It slept
like a dream.
We would get up
each day and head out to the base to stand rescue alert for Navy
photo-reconnaissance flights and other fighters flying into 
removed
as un-necessary for our mission, and I seem to remember that we “tweaked” the
flaps a little bit, to the point that when brought up to full power it only
took a very, very small pull on the collective and we were was flying. I
guess we thought we had more power and could get out of an area faster. We
“traded” some rations to some group that had come through and in return
“obtained” two BARs with ammunition. We mounted them from bungee cords in the
rear cabin door opening and now thought we were AH-43Bs. As I remember,
one of the Rescue Squadron Commanders dropped in on a HU-16 one day to pay us a
visit and got really upset that we had “armed” our helicopters. We alleviated
his concern by making sure we hid the BARs any time 
one
of the HU-16’s or HC-54’s showed up. As I remember it, we did not have any
“over the fence” missions while I was there, but I think we went over a few
times to practice pickups. I also seem to remember pre-positioning some 55 gal.
drums of JP-4 at some of the Air America sites in
Maintenance was another issue. I seem to
remember having to do an engine change on one of the birds and we didn’t have a
hoist so we used a large limb on a tree and raised the engine with come-a-long
and ropes. We then pulled the 43 out from under the tree, lowered the bad
engine to the ground, picked up the new engine, raised it back up and pulled
the bird back under the tree to lower the new engine in place. Worked like a
charm!!
I don’t know if any one remembers the problem
of the fabric peeling off the blades if you flew in the rain. One day we made a
flight to Udorn for something and on the way over we got caught in a rain
shower. Right away you could hear the change in the sound of the blades as the
fabric pealed back. Once on the ground,
I used duct tape to tape the fabric back down and wrapped the blade with it. Although
not according to the book, we had a successful flight back to NKP. Once back at
NKP we changed the blades.
Most
of our flights were only training flights during my TDY. I think we did a few
PJ jumps so they could keep up their proficiency. We did not have any fire
fighters on our crews at this time, as local base rescue was not our mission.
We flew with two pilots, one flight mechanic and one or two PJs. We also had a
few “Ugly American” flights, where we would catch some poor, unsuspecting Thai
out in the middle of the field or rice paddy and “buzz the hell” out of them. I
remember once we had two Thai women penned in one of the big fish trap rigs,
with the nose of the bird almost touching the entrance and them inside. I bet
that made a lot of points with the local citizens. When we were released from
alert each day, we would head to our hotel and spend the rest of the day in
town as tourists or sit around the hotel and tell war stories while listening
to “Hanoi Hanna”. She played a lot of American music.
We
were put on a higher alert status on Aug. 2 (
While I was at NKP my wife, back in
One day we were in town and
some Dutch and English guys showed up at our hotel. We got to talking with them
and discovered that they worked for a Dutch road construction company. I think
the name of it was Grove Jones Construction or something like that. They were building roads in 
a great set of skis. I think the whole town
was standing by the
On another day we were again
drinking with the construction crew and created our own little bit of mischief
at the hotel. The hotel owner, Mr. Wandee, had a small
zoo at the back of his house in the hotel complex. He had some mynah birds,
which we had taught to cuss like a good GI. He also had some pigmy deer and a
couple of monkeys. One of the monkeys was very tame and we would lead it around
on its leash, feed and water it, and play with it. The entrance to Mr. Wandee’s house had a little arch way on the path leading in
and the monkey spent most of it’s time sitting on top of the arch. His leash
was attached to a wire so he could move around a little bit. One evening
someone began giving the monkey some gin or vodka as we partied. I guess they
got a little carried away and got the monkey plastered. The next morning when I
was leaving for the base, I saw the monkey sitting in a tight ball, on top of
the arch with his arms wrapped around and over his head. I went over and shook
the post of the arch to get his attention and I couldn’t get him to move a
hair. When I got back from the base that evening, the monkey was still sitting
in the same position. So I again went over and shook the post to see if he was
all right. After a bit of shaking, he finally lifted his arms, opened his eyes
and looked at me. He had the worst set of “red road map” eyeballs I think I
have ever seen. This was one sick, hung-over monkey. By the next day he had begun
to move around some, but it was about three or four days before he seemed to
get back to normal. From that day until the time I left NKP, he never would
take anything (not even water) from any of us GI’s to drink. I guess he did have
some smarts after all.
One
weekend I rented a motorcycle and took Mr. Wandee’s
14 or 15 year old son (who spoke great English) with me and went riding up the
road along the 
seemed like real nice folks to me and I had a
great time. In order to prevent another chewing out for the same reason, we
went down the other way to Ubon the next weekend and visited with some Aussies
there. I really did have a great time while on this TDY and met a lot of fine “Thai’s”
while I was there.
Most of the time, we ate our
evening meals on the local 
economy. We had been eating at the restaurant
just behind the Ho Chi Men clock and tasting our
way through the food slections. I found that I really liked “kow pot gunt”
which was a spicy shrimp-fried-rice. One evening we were sitting there eating,
facing the street so we wouldn’t see the chickens and pigs walking around in
the “kitchen”, when we spotted two white “round eyed” women walking down the
street. Being the gentlemen that we were, we hopped up and introduced ourselves.
They were with the Peace Corps and were assigned as teachers in one of the
schools in NKP. They were not what you would call good looking, but they were
nice girls and it was nice to talk with some American women. They also shared
their knowledge about Thai food and steered us to some really good dinning
delights. One that I remember was the “Lottie” (sp), the little pancake thing
that was sold off of a cart in the street. We found a little restaurant
across the street from the Civilized Hotel that had signs painted on the wall
advertising “Hamburgers and French Fries”. We asked the owner about the sign
and he said that he used to make them for the “Seabee” crews that were building
the base in 1962 & 1963. We convinced him to start making them again and
even though the “beef” was really Water Buffalo, they still were pretty good.
He also had the motorcycle rental business where I had rented my “rides”. When Mr.
Wandee found out about our dinning habits, he hired a
North Vietnamese cook who had been trained as a French Chef and opened his own
restaurant at the hotel. This guy could really cook and made some fine meals.
The businessman in Mr. Wandee took over after he had
us “hooked” on the great French cooking and he started to raise the prices of
the meals. In retaliation for this move, we went back to the Hamburgers, French
Fries and Thai food. He got the hint and lowered his prices, however this
little price game went on many times while I was there.
When we were relieved of alert duty, we
would all scramble to be on the first truck to leave for town. There was a
practical reason for this. If you got back to the hotel first, you got to take
a shower with the water that had been in the small water tower that had been
heating all day in the sun. If you missed the first truck, the hot water would
be used up and you were stuck with a cold shower.
We used to
play basketball with the local town team a lot and they would whip our butts.
They would run us to death and we always had to send in subs. But we had a lot
of fun, and I think the Thais enjoyed whipping up on us as much as we enjoyed
the fun of the game. We had one experience where we and our samlor driver got drunk and we decided he was too
drunk to pedal. We threw him in the back and I hopped on to drive Do you have
any idea how hard those things are to pedal? They don’t turn worth a damn
either. Net result was that I turned us over in the ditch full of water (or
sewer from the way it smelled) beside the road and had to pull the driver out
to keep him from drowning.
One of the funny events that
occurred at the base while I was there involved a C-124 from the unit at Hickam
AFB. When it came in, they landed long and ran off the overrun at the south end
of the runway. This unit had flown a God-awful number of hour’s accident free
and some how they managed to classify it as an incident instead of an accident.
As I remember, it broke the nose gear scissors and bent up a couple of the props.
It was stuck in the mud on the overrun. We had to hire a couple of local “Caterpillars”
to drag him out of the mud and back on to the parking ramp. We tired to
convince them to write it off and let us keep it for a “club”, but instead they
decided to repair it. I guess they had no sense of adventure. I think it was
still setting there when I left in October. This picture is of me standing
beside the “stuck in the mud” C-124. Another time we were sending one of the
bigger trucks, I think it was a “duce and half”, out on a C-130. The C-130 had
lowered its ramp and we were pushing the “duce and half” which wasn’t running,
with one of the other trucks. We got it up to a pretty good speed to try and
roll it up the ramp and into the C-130. As this thing was lining up and headed
for the ramp, the person who was steering realized that when the engine was not
running it didn’t have any breaks. He
swerved just in time to miss going up the ramp. It was a darn good thing too,
because as fast as we had it going it most likely would have came through the
nose of the C-130 and out the front. This would not have been a good thing!
Anyway he made a few circles and the truck finally came to a stop. We then
slowly pushed him to the rear of the plane and the loadmaster winched it
inside.
I don’t believe any other aircraft were ever
stationed there while I was on this TDY, but we did have a few types stop by
for visits and would have the F-105 “Thuds” buzz us on their way back after
missions. We had no control tower, so the communication guys controlled
everything. The Thuds liked to come at us with out warning, low level, and from
all directions. They would clear in with the com guys, but the com guys
wouldn’t tell us they were coming. All of the sudden here would be Thuds coming
from all four directions, right on the deck, and what seemed like 500 or 600
miles per hour and scare the hell out of us. I remember one day, I was working
on the rotor head and they came over and almost scared the pants off of me.
Then they made another pass and I saw them coming this time. One of them was coming
up the runway and across the ramp right at my bird. He was so low that he had
to raise-up to miss me. This caused me to jump off the top of the bird to the
ramp and as he “mushed” over me he hit a tree at the edge of the ramp and
knocked a limb onto the roof of the new mess hall that was being constructed.
He climbed on out and I guess he made it home OK.
Another
item that might be of interest concerns some heavy earth moving equipment that
was apparently abandoned by the Seabees in 1963. The whole time I was there in
1964 there were several Thai locals digging in a big pit at the south end of
the field behind our shacks. I was told that there
were a couple of Caterpillar D-12’s or D-10’s and a large earth scraper that
was buried by the Seabees before they left. I seem to remember seeing part of
one of the Caterpillars before I left. When I came back to NKP in 1969, I was
told that the Thais had dug them all out and had them running in town.
Sometime in October 1964, my
first experience at NKP came to an end. I departed and headed back to
As I have re-read this little tail, it kind
of sounds like we were drunk all the time. That was not the case. We were “mission
ready” every single day I was there. We did take a few occasions to do a little
partying; O.K, O.K, A
I have another tail about getting to NKP from
Jim Burns, SMSgt, USAF (retired)
NKP 64 & 69-70
Note: As I was writing this story, I made contact with
*******************************************
HEROES
The
When
the Aircrews of DET9, 38th ARRS Pleiku were briefed on their upcoming mission,
little did they realize that their determination and bravery would be tested to
the limits. In the next 18 hours, the phrase “Those
Things I Do, That Others May Live” would be
demonstrated with tragic results.
It
was the evening of
At
It
was decided that Pedro 42 would be the first bird in. They would lower their PJ
A2C Alan Stanek to prepare the wounded and speed up
the evacuation. After Pedro 42 had received all the casualties they could
carry, they would be replaced by Pedro 56. As with most plans in a battle, fate
would deny its execution. Pedro 56
climbed to a high orbit at 4000 feet, while 42 hovered and lowered it’s PJ to
the jungle floor. Things seemed to be
progressing normally with three of the wounded taken aboard and a fourth being
prepared on the ground.
Suddenly,
the crew of Pedro 56 observed three strings of deadly tracers reach out from
different directions and converge on Pedro 42. As everyone watched in the
moonlight, the doomed Huskie faltered and settled into the jungle canopy. On
the ground, A2C Stanek watched in horror as Pedro 42
tumbled 150 ft through the trees and came to rest and on fire. He rushed to the
aid of his fallen comrades and with the help of some Infantrymen, pulled the
two Pilots Capt Vermeys and 1/Lt “Spike” Bonnel to safety. Unfortunately, the fire consuming the
aircraft was so intense that the Flight Engineer A2C “Dave” Rice and the three
wounded could not be rescued.
The
downing of Pedro 42 was coordinated with a fresh attack on the besieged 4th
Division soldiers. Due to the intensity of the ground fire, Pedro 56 was unable
to assist their fallen brothers. Five-six continued to orbit until fuel was
running low and was then “ORDERED” to return to Pleiku, refuel and await a
break in the fighting. The fighting continued throughout the night.
At
dawn on the morning of the 29th, Pedro 56 launched to retrieve their
friends and crewmates. Arriving back at the battle area, the two injured pilots
and A2C Stanek were hoisted aboard and rushed to the
18th
After
refueling and changing crews, Pedro 56 launched at
A
U.S. Army UH-1 Gunship orbiting near by, observed Pedro Five-Six’s plight and
made several firing passes on the perimeter of the old camp, reducing the
incoming ground fire before landing and extracting the crew. Of everyone on 56,
only the initial patient and the Co-Pilot Capt Fredrik Bergold
were wounded.
After
Pedro 56 (62-4525) was salvaged, the repair crew counted 15 bullet holes in the
fuselage and another 4 in the blades. Although eventually repaired, 4525 was
again shot down and destroyed near Kontum on
For
his bravery on that last flight,
Bert
Brundridge has also been awarded the Distinguished
Flying Cross, Airman’s Medal and the Air Medal with numerous clusters. Bert is
a veteran of both
********************************************************
FINAL
FLIGHT
MSgt Bernard”Ray”Munn, USAF(ret) took
his final Flight on
***********************************************************
The SAR Pattern
If you have
knowledge of anyone listed, email the searcher to help assist in reuniting
friends and crew mates.
The following abbreviations are utilized below:
P = Pilot, FE = Flight Engineer
ABR = Airborne
Rescueman/Firefighter,
MT = Flight
Medic, PJ = Para-Rescueman
HM =
Helicopter Mechanic,
EM = Engine Mechanic, ADM = Admin
Grant Mackie gfmackie@sbcglobal.net is looking for:
CMSGt Irving K. Samuels (Maint Chief) Moody AFB 1963
SSGt Arlie P. Stalvey (ABR) Moody AFB 1963
A1C Ken Norton (ABR) Moody AFB 1963
Tony Desmond afdesmond@hotmail.com is
looking for:
MSGt
Jack Anderson (FE)
TSGt
Arthur Krumm (FE)
RAF
TSGt
Kendall R. Higgs (FE) RAF
TSGt
Evert Thorp (FE)
SSGt
William Gamble (FE)
SSGt
George S. Edwards (FE)
SSGt
Archie B. Holloway (FE)
SSGt
Carlos”Chuck”Joiner (FE)
RAF
SSGt
Jay Hughes (FE) RAF
SSGt Robert Kennedy (ABR)
SSGt Meade J. Barnette (ABR) RAF
SSGt Johnny Ray (ABR)
SSGt Juan Aquino
(ABR)
SGt Paul Procter (ABR) RAF
SGt David Butera
(ABR) RAF
SGt Gary D. More (ABR) RAF
SGt Larry Mc Kee (ABR) RAF
A2C Daniel L. Lange (ABR)
MSGt Henry Jones (MT) RAF
TSGt George N. Edwards (MT) RAF
TSGt Joseph L. LaNata (MT)
SSGt Curtis V. Hickey (MT) RAF
SSGt Glenville L. Bush (MT)
SSGt Robert K. Schmeig (MT) RAF
SSGt James L. Lewis (MT) RAF
SSGt George J. Boll Jr. (MT) RAF
SGt Travis Watson (MT)
SSGt Knoblach
(MT)
A2C Arthur Castelones
(MT)
SSGt Roger Sprague (EM) RAF
SSGt Mack McIver (HM) RAF
SSGt Edwin Hill (EM) RAF
SSGt George P. Wheatstine (HM) RAF
A1C John “SKI” Zelezinski (HM) RAF
***************************************************
Charles”Chuck”Severns versa@cts.com is looking for:
Maj
Dale L. Potter(P) DET5 42ARRS Edwards AFB, CA Aug 1970
Capt Keith H. Ricks(