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Experiences of a 68th AHC Pilot

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Chapter 02 by Kathy Hufford TAKE CARE OF THE HORSE AND TEAM

	Assault Helicopter, UH-1D troop carrying helicopter. Designed in the mid 1950’s for medical evacuation, they became the workhorse in Vietnam. Each carried two pilots, one crew chief, and one door gunner. Cargo could be 10 South Vietnamese Soldiers or 6 US Soldiers… or pigs and rice.
For a large view of this photo see Kent's Photos under the Mustang section of this site.

In Vietnam, the helicopter supplemented the truck and jeep to provide mobility to the battlefield. The unit I was in had 18 UH-1D troop lift helicopters and 7 UH1C helicopters that were fitted as “Gun Ships” to provide lots of firepower to support the lift helicopters. The lift helicopters were then, of course, called “slicks”. I was a “slick pilot” for my first six months in Vietnam.

A crew chief was assigned to each aircraft. He was a high school graduate that spent about 10 weeks in mechanic training. The crew chief is responsible for overseeing all the work performed on the aircraft. So his day starts at 3am, getting the aircraft ready for flight. He flies with it all day long, does the required repairs that night, gets a couple of hours of sleep, and it starts again at 3am. He answers to the pilots requests, and got encouragement from them too.

A door gunner was assigned to each aircraft. He was normally an infantry solider that extended to get to be a door gunner. His responsibilities included to take care of the two M-60 Machine Guns and the two rifles on the aircraft. He and the crew chief manned the Machine guns when airborne. Door gunners were an interesting group. They came with nicknames like “animal” or “tiger” or “airborne”. They were glad to be on the aircraft, and not on the ground. However, when we got shot at when airborne, they got more excited than the rest of us.

On a flight supporting an operation about my 3rd week in Vietnam, we took off with 6 US soldiers and a 81 mm mortar on board. About 300 feet in the air, the engine blew up and quit. I did a maneuver called an autorotation to get to the ground. When we hit the ground, we started sliding, which was good. But, we slid into a rice paddy dike and knocked the skids off the aircraft, then came to rest. The crew chief and door gunner got the soldiers out of the back. I shut down the power and such, pulled back my seat side panels then tried to open the door. I could not open my door because the door gunner was already there trying to pull on the same handles to get me out. Their other job is to keep the pilots alive. That was what he was trying to do. He pulled the emergency door release and we crawled away from the aircraft with low swinging slowing blades. We drank hard that nite.

American soldiers fight and die for each other in war. They don’t think about dying for the flag. We knew that…. So did the Viet Cong.

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Author information goes here. Copyright © 2004 68thahc.com. All rights reserved. Revised: June 29, 2012 .

Author information goes here.
Copyright © 2004 68thahc.com. All rights reserved.
Revised: June 29, 2012 .