Ah, choppers!
Posted on 06/09/2002 4:00:28 AM PDT by jonefab
SARAH JACKSON THE OLYMPIAN 'Choppers of Vietnam' Resources
DUPONT -- Mike Brown had little reason to believe he would survive. No one on record had lived through such an attack.
Flying at 4,000 feet over An Loc in Vietnam -- where a fierce battle had been raging for weeks -- Brown's Cobra helicopter suffered a major hit.
The North Vietnamese who had the city under siege had sent an SA-7 missile his way and, before Brown knew it, the heat-seeking device had blown the tailboom right off his helicopter.
"I was already heading down when the missile hit," Brown said. "I felt the explosion."
Capt. Brown -- and his co-pilot Capt. Marco Cordon -- knew exactly what had happened when they saw the severed helicopter tail, frayed and falling.
Without control of the helicopter, they spun around and around in the remaining helicopter fuselage, like a heavy pinwheel headed for earth where the "bad guys" surely lurked.
Despite the odds, Brown -- who recently moved from Houston to DuPont to be closer to his daughter and grandchildren in Tacoma -- survived.
Brown will tell his story next Sunday in "Choppers of Vietnam" on the Fox News Channel's "War Stories with Oliver North."
Brown, who spent two hours interviewing with the retired colonel -- will be in good company on the show.
Olympia native Bruce Crandall, portrayed in the 2002 film "We Were Soldiers" -- along with Ret. Lt. Col. Hal Moore, the man who co-wrote the book on which the film is based -- also took part in "Choppers of Vietnam."
North's hourlong program starts with a look at helicopter history and chronicles how the flying machines became icons of the Vietnam War -- all through the eyes of numerous airmobile veterans.
Be it "Hueys" transporting food, water and weapons as well as the wounded and dead or assault helicopters like Brown's Cobra, the "Choppers of Vietnam" arguably paved the way for the Apache and Blackhawk helicopters commonly used today -- in war and in peace.
"The Army in the early 1960s really started to develop the helicopter as a real weapon of war," North said in a phone interview from Washington, D.C. "You sit down with one of these guys like Hal Moore or Mike Brokovich or Mike Brown and you just have an overwhelming sense of gratitude -- and I want that to show in each one of these documentaries."
North in his "War Stories" -- now in its second year -- has addressed topics from nurses and medics on the ground in "Bandages on the Battlefield" to hot topics such as "The Battle for Iwo Jima."
Ia Drang
"Choppers" first delves into the arduous Nov. 14, 1965, battle in the Ia Drang Valley in which nearly 500 American men clashed with 2,000 North Vietnamese troops.
That's the same battle portrayed in "We Were Soldiers," in which Mel Gibson plays Moore and actor Greg Kinnear plays Crandall, who not only consulted on the film but also played a vital role in the storyline.
So Crandall, a Huey-flying veteran today living in Manchester on Puget Sound, also plays a key role in "Choppers."
During Ia Drang, Crandall's helicopters evacuated casualties and dropped supplies during a flight day that lasted more than 16 risky and heroic hours.
"We made 22 flights into that landing zone that day and the enemy wasn't clever enough to set up and take us out," Crandall said in a phone interview. "They concentrated on the infantry. If they had gone after the aviation, that whole thing would have turned out different."
Crandall and other helicopter pilots supported troops in Vietnam, which, in 1968, surpassed 500,000 mark.
An Loc
Brown had served during that time as part of his first deployment in 1967-68.
But Brown's second one-year tour to Vietnam in 1971 came during a very different era.
Troops by then -- after American support for the war had fallen off hugely and after Vietnamization had taken effect -- numbered in the tens of thousands.
Few Americans, if any, served as ground troops at the time.
That's when An Loc about 60 miles north of Saigon became a target.
Instead of getting ready to go home like so many men before him had in recent years, Brown and the airmobile troops in his division were at the ready.
"The North Vietnamese pretty much saw their chance to make a quick strike and go for the kills," Brown said of An Loc. "We were aware something big was coming."
North Vietnamese forces were significantly weakened by the time Brown and his comrades were flying over An Loc, but there were other threats -- missiles.
Out of 12 Cobras in Brown's unit, 8 pilots were lost, six of them reportedly because of missile attacks.
"We were told there were no missiles," Brown said. "It was almost like nobody would believe us."
On June 21, 1972, Brown found himself escorting five Huey helicopters -- flying at the tree-top level with two other Cobras -- preparing to pick up wounded and dead South Vietnamese soldiers.
Brown -- nearly a mile in the air -- was flying higher.
"My job was to look out for anything over the whole general area," Brown said. "The bad guys feared the Cobra. It was able to get really close and really mix it up."
Hit
Cruising along, Brown -- a 1966 West Point graduate -- heard a sudden and urgent radio call from below: "Missile! Missile! Missile!"
"I looked down. I saw this white smoke trail," Brown said. "I said: I'm the only one up here. That's probably coming for me."
But instead of being rocked by the missile's impact, Brown felt a popping blast -- a "proximity explosion," meaning the shoulder-launched missile detonated just before hitting Brown's helicopter directly.
Still, it was a force strong enough to blow off the aircraft's tail.
Brown and his co-pilot, Cordon, began to rock from side to side and front to back.
They found themselves without radio contact and unable to discharge weapons and rockets to reduce the helicopter's weight. Those controls, powered by a battery in the helicopter's AWOL tailboom, were obviously gone.
"There was no emergency procedure for this because nobody had ever survived this," Brown said. "We were front heavy."
Falling
Brown and Cordon spent the next three minutes falling in an uncontrolled decent as Brown -- using what little control remained -- clutched the helicopter's cyclic to his chest to keep the nose from diving.
Brown believes many factors -- most of all luck -- helped him survive.
Brown's Cobra was carrying only a half-full fuel tank, which meant less weight during their descent.
Plus, as the men approached the ground, their fall was broken by a thin stand of tropical hardwoods as well as a bed of bamboo.
"The fuselage slammed up against the trunk of a tree and it chopped the rotor blades off," Brown said. "The tree branches kind of cushioned us."
Surviving
Mike Sloniker, a historian with the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association who is also interviewed on the show, coordinated a re-creation of Brown's missile experience with eyewitnesses and California aviation artist Joe Kline, a Vietnam veteran who was a Huey crewman.
"On any given day," Sloniker said, "They were the boldest people you'd ever see in your entire life. You just were real glad they were on your side."
Sloniker said Brown's experience is one of many among helicopter pilots -- more than 2,000 of which were killed while serving in Vietnam.
Few days go by when Brown doesn't remember the day he could have died.
"It gives you a different view if you've never faced death before," Brown said. "I wasn't panic-struck. I thought: 'It looks like this is the end of it.'
"This whole thing is about not giving up. It's about using what you've got."
Sarah Jackson writes for The Olympian and can be reached at 360-704-6871 or sajackso@olympia.gannett.com.
- Catch "Choppers of Vietnam" on the Fox News Channel's "War Stories with Oliver North" at 5 and 11 p.m. June 16.
- "War Stories with Oliver North": www.foxnews.com/ warstories.
Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association
- See "Missile! Missile! Missile!" Joe Kline's depiction of Mike Brown's near-death helicopter combat experience: www.vhfcn.org/missle.htm.
WORWAC 66-11
One of our baby sitters who took care of us ended up flying helicopters in Nam. His chopper was hit, and he was lost.
I flew in the hueys stateside while in the service in the late 70's. I've never found better pilots.
A braver bunch of men, going into hot LZ's takes incredible courage.
God Bless those boys!
Another story involving a Cobra: III Corps, 1969, two members of a Long Range Patrol (LRP) became isolated and surrounded during a night operation - they were able to guide a Cobra to their location. The Cobra landed and the two soldiers stood on the skids and clung to the side while it flew to Bien Hoa. Whatta ride!
Hurry before they bring out the Cheerleaders!
Archy thank you for pinging me to this and also for your post.
I love the Huey so much.I rode in them each time in Nam and so they have a special place in my heart and the pilots that flew them.
Thank you again so much!!!
God bless all that have served and our serving now.
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