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Post by Jim Visel on Jun 22, 2010 10:14:15 GMT -5
Will,
Here’s the detail of 091’s last flight as I remember it, and I remember it pretty well. It’s kind of like remembering where you were when President Kennedy was shot—the experience stays with you.
091 joined the Robin Hoods as a replacement ship for an aircraft that was shot down during Operation Attleboro, a major battle north of Tay Ninh during Oct and Nov, 1966. On the day 091 was lost, the crewchief was Jim Visel, one of the finest men I have had the privilege to serve with.
Jan 7, 1967 the Robin Hoods were supporting the 9th Infantry Division south of Bear Cat in a marshy area used as supply bases by the Viet Cong for their offenses on nearby Saigon.
We picked up troops at their base camp and were inserting them in a combat assault to conduct search and destroy missions in the area to disrupt enemy supply lines. The first lift into the LZ was preceded with a fire into the tree lines by the Crossbows, our company gun ships.
A flight of ten ships led by Howard Malone, 2nd Platoon leader, made an uneventful descent into the LZ at about 8AM, in a staggered trail formation (5 ships in each of 2 close rows) 091 was number 4 on the right side. I was flying the aircraft. As soon as the troops were on the ground, the lead ship lifted off, with the remaining ships following.
As the formation gained altitude and airspeed, I saw rounds hitting the water in front of the formation, coming from a tree line directly in front of us. I watched as 4 rounds splashed the water below us, first at about 50 feet out, then 40 feet out, then 30 feet out, then 20 feet out. It looked like we were going to get hit.
The aircraft was at full power and in a nose low attitude, attempting to gain the maximum airspeed and altitude and to stay with the formation. A warning light-illuminated at about the same time as the controls stiffened and it became apparent that we had lost hydraulics.
At this point we were at about 20 knots of airspeed and 15-20 feet above the ground. I attempted to level the nose to gain better control. At this time the RPM warning light was flashing, and an audible beep, beep, beep was going off in my ears.
We were losing RPM and thus control, rapidly. I heard the trail ship call the lead ship with a message that the formation had a ship going down, and remember thinking “that’s me they’re talking about.”
My attempt to reduce power was ineffective—the collective did not budge. Meanwhile the rotor RPM drained down, and 091, headed directly into the tree line to our front, began a spin to the right as tail rotor lost it’s effectiveness.
Rolling off the throttle to stop the spin was considered, but the drop from the 15-20 feet that would then occur was not very appealing, especially in light of the inability to use the collective to cushion the landing. But something had to give, as 091 was clearly on its last legs.
We were running out of airspeed, altitude, RPM, and ideas simultaneously. The cyclic control was still effective, and I decided to complete a controlled ditching rather than continue to fly until all control was lost. As 091 headed into the tree line, slightly below the top at about 15 feet, I applied full aft cyclic, and 091 settled into the marsh, tail first.
After some pretty ugly noises 091 rolled upside down and the rotor stopped turning as it contacted the water. I remember releasing my shoulder harness and seat belt and then falling on my head. The crew quickly gathered the weapons that were on board for what we assumed would be phase 2 of this battle. We had no sooner cleared the aircraft when Major Malone swooped in and plucked us up.
That’s the details of 091’s final Flight in Viet Nam. Why the aircraft did not fly with the hydraulics out, as it should have, I do not know for sure, but I believe the round that took out the hydraulics lodged in the transmission, and I think that is what caused the rapid, irreversible decline in RPM, and the subsequent loss of control.. I have had other hydraulic failures without experiencing loss of RPM and control.
Sincerely,
Gene Howe
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Post by Jim Visel on Jun 22, 2010 10:32:12 GMT -5
ROBINHOOD 091 IS DOWN!
UH-1H #65-10091
By James W. Visel
Copyright
TINS 091 as I remember it (CRS). Early January, 1967, near the abandon French fort at Phouc Hiep, about 4 clicks East of Saigon, South Vietnam. The American 9th Infantry Division was on search-and-destroy operations looking for units of 271st and 9th VC Regiments that were believed to have made their way from the west down the Little Saigon River, South around the Capital, and up the Big Saigon River, to establish an operating presence South and South East of Bien Hoa.
Both of these units were recovering and recruiting after sustaining serious losses in western III Corps area in October and November of 1966. They had tangled with the American 1st Infantry Division’s 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry, a month earlier during Operation Attleboro (Battlecreek.) On November 8th, near Ap Cha Do, units of the 9th VC, and 101st NVA attacked the 1st of the 28th’s night defensive position (NDP) in early morning in “human wave” assaults. In what became hand-to-hand fighting, they were repeatedly turned back. The enemy lost 484 battle dead left behind in that single battle, and the monthly total was even grimmer for them. In the Tay Nihn AO, they lost a total of 845 to the United States’ 1st Infantry Division alone in that month.
This day, the 173rd Assault Helicopter Company “Robinhood” slicks, and “Crossbow” gun-ships were working with several companies of the American 9th Infantry Division on another smaller operation. I believe that the “Hornet” gun-ships out of Cu Chi were assisting. The first insertion had Major Howard Malone (Mississippi) flying C & C (Command & Control) with the Grunt commanders overhead. Two flights of five were to land simultaneously in staggered trail right formation. I do not remember who Chalk One was at the time, but since Major Malone overhead was 2/6 (Second Platoon Commander) it was probably Major Pim, the CO. My ship’s position was Chalk 4.
It must have been early morning, for on short final to the landing zone (LZ) I could smell nouc-mam. What ketchup and mustard, and Tabasco sauce was to American food, the fermented fish-sauce was to the Vietnamese. No Vietnamese considered the meal complete without it. Since there were no villages nearby, or farm-houses, the outside door-gunners were scheduled to suppress the area right and left on short final, so this pungent odor had to be Viet Cong at breakfast!
On a calm day, nouc-mam could be smelt as much as a mile away in a helicopter. Early morning columns of smoke usually marked a breakfast fire for gunships or GIs to investigate. The VC lived in the woods, usually, and “taxed” any nearby villages for food supplies.
I don’t know about other units, but in the Robinhoods, we were meticulous about never shooting at locals or villages. Usually, depending on who was flying, the pilot would take the effort to fly around and not over them. I remembered where early one morning, several months before, we had inserted some grunts and medics into an area several miles south-west of Cu Chi. The company of medics went in to minister to any and all locals of a particular village, no questions were asked concerning any wound or sickness, as it was sort of a Psy-Ops or local pacification mission. At the end of the day, on the last load out (the grunt security force,) the whole village came out to see us off.
They came out of their huts with BARs, AK-47s, Chinese-Communist rifles, and shotguns. I watched an old papa-san with a white beard point an American made BAR up at us, and ripped off half a dozen rounds at the ship in front of mine. The recoil from the big automatic rifle kicked him back into the hooch, and the rounds passed harmlessly overhead. How can you shoot a 70-year-old man?
A little boy 7 or 8 years old came out of one of the thatched-roofed hooch’s lugging an American pump-shotgun. He wasn’t big enough to hold it properly, so he set the butt-plate in the dirt, pointed it directly at me, pulled the trigger, shucked it and pulled again. The recoil from the second round knocked him off balance as well. I pointed my gun at them, but just could not—would not—shoot! A pregnant mama-san was holding a Chicom rifle pointed in our general direction, but she was crying, and didn’t even have her finger on the trigger!
All up and down the length of the village, the towns-people appeared with various weapons and shot up at us. Not anyone in our company fired a round in return! How could we? These weren’t VC, they were just old rice-farmers, women, and kids! Later we heard that the NVA (North Vietnamese Army came into the village afterwards, cut off arms and hands of any of those who were sporting an American bandage! Curiously, not one of our helicopters were hit by the ground-fire.
My wandering mind was suddenly focused by exploding rocket-fire, flex-guns, and a peppering of the door-gunners’ M-60 machine-guns bracketed the tree-lines on either side of our new landing zone, supplied by the Crossbow Gun-ships alongside and behind our formation.
“Alright Robinhoods, outside gunners only, commence firing!” Red tracers licked out from the flight of ten slicks (troop-carrying Hueys)—to the tree-lines at grass level where the enemy was wont to hide. Flying a straight-in approach marked a deviation from the usual “Robin-hood approach” to an LZ in heavy tree-cover, which often felt more like a free-fall from altitude—in formation. The landing zone today was a bit of a river-delta mud field with tree-lines on both sides, and a creek and hedge-row in front. Landing west-to-east, a yellow smoke that the lead gun-ship had dropped marked the first ship’s touchdown point.
“Cease fire, Robinhoods!” While the infantry unloaded, we had to be careful not to fire again until we were clear and back in the air, and then only at identified targets.
The grunts were experienced this time, already moving before the skids touched down. Three seconds and they were gone and on their own. Mr. Howe pulled pitch, nosed down, we were through translational lift, and flying. All is well…….!!!!!!
Enemy small-arms fire sounds like popcorn popping, and when it hits the ship, there is a scything, snap—snap as bullets pass through helicopter sheet-metal. Both sounded simultaneously! When the rounds pass close, it sounds like angry hornets. If the range was from close, they "snapped" or "cracked" as they passed. This time it cracked, and the enemy fire had an almost immediate effect on the heartbeat of the ship.
Warrant Officer Gene Howe (Alabama?), the Aircraft Commander, was well-versed in combat flying. As a matter of fact, so was Lt. Richard Diesing (Texas), the newest of the crewmembers. Little John Atkinson, had replaced the badly wounded Chevez earlier as left-door gunner during Operation Attleboro. I had gone down in unfriendly territory three times already, but had a sense of confidence with this crew. We all made useful and necessary input into a good team, and had all been there before, but now were there again!
Anybody could shoot an M-60 machine-gun, but effectively returning enemy fire from a helicopter was a learned skill. When flying low-and-fast, it was rare that ever a muzzle-flash or tracer was seen to return fire to. We learned to look through the jungle, not at it, and to shoot at sound. When you got real good at it, you could point-shoot the sound and have enemy pinned to the ground by the time they popped their third cap. Either that—or you (and your crew) didn’t survive.
Gene and I had crashed twice together already, now we all had our hands full again! And I could not locate the enemy fire! My effective base of fire was from 12:30 fore to 5:30 aft. It was not coming from my sector, or from the opposite side of the ship. Too late, we were already hit! It was coming from the blind spot at 12:00 O’clock low!
The whine of the big Lycoming engine, and the steady beat of the main rotor were the systolic and diastolic monitors of the Huey. Every crew-chief became a nervous sensor, a living complex of monitoring equipment. It was a personal thing. In flying a helicopter, if ever it came a time when everything was going right, you learned the hard way in Vietnam that that moment was just before everything was about to go wrong. Keeping all of the pieces of the Huey together so the whole pile could be flown in the same direction was in a large part the crew-chief’s responsibility. But it took all four crew-members to make flying it in combat happen. Things could go to pot in a hurry.
The enemy rounds had hit from dead ahead, and something was simultaneously wrong with the rotor-head controls, the transmission, and the hydraulics! Lights started flashing on the “Christmas tree,” and the engine RPM needle dipped suddenly. An audible warning beep sounded as flight-control dissolved. Just ahead loomed a tree-lined hedge-row, and Mr. Howe had the choice of plowing through or going over it. He pulled aft cyclic, and all control was just about gone. As we went nearly vertical, he pulled in full pitch(?).
The now-vertical tail-boom passed between two trees and I remember looking down as we settled backwards into the scrub—tail-first. It buckled as the laws of aero-dynamics faded, forward movement stopped, and gravity took over. The entire weight of the Huey rested momentarily on the tail-rotor (which disappeared) then on the tail, and then sounded a horrible protesting of buckling sheet-metal as it broke under the unnatural down pressure.
I marveled at Mr. Howe’s skill as a pilot. Once again he had used every option he had to help us survive! Then it seemed everything went into slow motion as we rolled in over on the right side. I watched fascinated as the main-rotor broke off in 2-foot sections in the grey mud. Reality set in, but it too ached into the gray delta slime. A huge elephant-ear leaf, bright Kelly-green, settled in my near vision, and a brilliant splat of crimson, about the size of a silver-dollar appeared in the center of the emerald green. Something hit me in the back of the head. Every thing darkened—then went black.
When I came to, it was strangely quiet. Somebody had a-hold of me, and roughly. I thought it was the VC. With the sinking feeling of a drowning man, I realized I was totally blind— and absolutely unable to breathe! Someone jerked my flight-helmet off my head; there were hands on my face. I thought the Viet-Cong had me.
Struggling back, I shook off the hands on me, and felt something wipe across my face. I choked, gagging, and with all I had left, choked mud out of my nose and mouth. These many years later I can still taste it. Through a muddy mist and paroxysm of coughing, I looked up into the worried eyes of Little John Atkinson, the gunner. The ship was overturned. I had been underneath, until he pulled me out. “Visel are you OK man?”
Mr. Howe had one of the M-14’s and seemed to be swapping lead with someone on the other side of the field. The butt-stock was broken. Everything whirled as I lurched back into the cargo hold. I looked for my M-60, which was buried in the mud somewhere under the ship. Looking up, Little John’s door-gun was bent 45 degrees, and useless. Lt. Diesing picked up the other M-14, and I crawled back in my transmission well looking for the M-79 "Thump-gun." I found it and half a dozen rounds still in a bag.
Little John, now having no weapon at all, drew a machete off the back of the pilot’s seat. Diesing threw him his pistol. I staggered out, and just then heard the welcome cackle of M-60 door-guns from gun-ships overhead. There was a deep, throaty roar, as mini-guns opened up. Things were still in slow motion, I turned to identify sound and peripheral motion.
The door-gun rounds impacted about 20 feet and away from my once-powerful ship, and then the entire hedge-row disappeared in a fog of mud, bits of leaves, tooth-picks and stuff. The gun-ships, firing mini-guns at 1700 rounds per minute, landed at least one bullet in every square foot of that tree-line for the next 100 yards. “Jesus Christ!” I breathed. We prayed often and fervently, at least to the extent that we knew how. With all senses on overload, sometimes it sounded like cussing. Sometimes it was. This situation was a curious juxtaposition of things heavenly, and things directly from hell. Being still alive was the heavenly part.
Turning to see what Howe was shooting at, I snapped an M-79 round in that direction—OH GOD! My round passed directly in front of Major Malone’s Huey, the C & C ship, who had dropped in to rescue us. The grenade burst in the tree-line several hundred feet away. I never did tell him about that grenade round, knowing I’d get a real butt-chewing. I don’t know what I’d have done if it had hit him. But things worked out and there was no further fire from that area, and we piled on his ship, which was now stuck in the muck!
Malone pulled some pitch and coned the main rotor right, then left, then fore, and aft, and with a “swoosh,” the mud finally released its grip on the skids. Finally airborne, he circled the wreck several times reaching for altitude, and called for “Pipesmoke” to recover the downed Huey. I remember looking down at the pitiful remains of my ship, and spit more of the grey mud. Having forgotten to reload my M-79, I slipped in another round. But for us, the day was over. Soon enough we were back in Lai Khe being checked over by the medics.
24 hours later, Mr. Howe (Alabama?) and Lt. Diesing (San Antonio, TX?), came and got myself and Little John, and with several other Robinhood pilots, and we went down to the “Boneyard” in Phu Loi. We were to recover anything possible from the remains of 091, and the pilots were to “investigate the crash.” I soon learned that from somewhere had come the rumor that one of the gun-ships had shot us down. They had a three-foot long wood dowel to stick in possible bullet-holes, and spent quite a bit of time in the engine compartment looking for them. The transmission, main rotor system, and tail boom were completely gone.
When they were done, I pointed to the holes in the roof of the ship, just aft of the “green-house.” Two thirty caliber holes were visible in the grey padding, which I unsnapped. Little John took the dowel, and inserted it into the hole in the sheet-metal. There was a matching pair in the transmission well, just about a foot to the right of center. I took pictures and still have them. We had been shot down from directly in front as we took off from the LZ.
“Hey Jim!” It was a battalion crew-chief based in Phu Loi that I had met twice already. His Huey was the chase-ship with the “Pipesmoke” crew. Made up of a big CH-47 Chinook helicopter and a Huey chase, their job was to recover downed Hueys. “Jim, we got to stop meeting like this!”
The pilots walked off to find a cold beer at the Officer’s Club. Bill had recovered my first ship when during Operation Attleboro. We had been shot down while re-supplying the 1st of the 28th Infantry during their early morning hiatus (accounted above.) There were 78 entry holes where rounds impacted the ship, Lt. Goldschmidt, and Sp/4 Chevez had been badly wounded that day. Capt Jochetz had flown us back and landed at “Dustoff” at Tay Nihn with no hydrolics. Major Malone had been driving the second of those three ships on that re-supply operation as well. His ship was shot up as well, but they had only minor injuries.
Bill had also recovered the Huey where Mr. Howe, Little-John, and I crash-landed at the soccer-field by the Special Forces camp at An Loc. He had rebuilt my first ship with new engine, transmission, hydraulics, and drive train. It was now the Huey chase and recovery ship. “I just thought you might want to know, Jim, this is the only M-60 that was recoverable. It was under the ship in the mud—you know all about that?” He grinned. “Something else—you might also want to know—there were two dead VC under your ship, and their machine-gun. You landed on them tail-first!” I remembered the blood on the big elephant-ear leaf with a cold chill.
“As for this old girl,” he patted 091, “she is done here, and she’s going home to America to get rebuilt!” He toed the skids. “These things are for landing on, you know. The tail is for something else. How many does that make for you, three?”
“No, this is the fourth.”
“You don’t fly worth a damn!" he grinned, " You better find something else to do, you know. Magnet-ass!”
JWV (May 1972)
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