Chapter 03
by Kathy Hufford
TAKE CARE.. DAVE
For a large view of this photo see Kent's Photos under the Mustang section of this site.
As
a slick pilot, in an assault company, we did as many as 10 assaults a day.
Many were done while receiving ground fire. We picked up the ground troops
in areas called Pickup Zones (PZs) and we dropped them on in Landing Zones
(LZs).
Dangers
in PZ were mostly not running into another helicopter and not getting lost
in the dust and hitting another aircraft or the troops on the ground. The
danger in the LZ was not running into another helicopter, not getting lost
in the dust, not hitting a tree, not shooting another aircraft, not
getting YOUR aircraft shot, and trying to not land on a mine put there by
the enemy.
On
my 4th week in country, we were flying combat assaults for the 1st
Infantry Division in an area called the Iron Triangle. Normally, an
LZ is prepared by hitting it with lots of artillery from a distance, then
the helicopter gunship strike it with rockets and mniguns just before the
troop ships land in the LZ. This one was called LZ GOLD, was not to
be prepped, but we would fly into it "unannounced" and surprise
the enemy. I was flying in the first 5 aircraft into the LZ. We
dropped off our troops, got a little ground fire, and flew out. The next 5
aircraft were right behind us. When they touched down, the enemy set off a
command detonated 500 lb mine that destroyed the 5 helicopters, killing
many of the soldiers that were on the ground, and most of the crews from
the 5 helicopters.. My hooch mate, Dave was
flying one of the second 5. When we flew back with another load of troops,
on final approach in, it looked like a junk yard. We had to hover around
to find a spot to set down to let off the troops we had, and to load on
the wounded and later the dead from the second flight. Dave had his arm
broken, but he was alive. The rest of his crew died in the blast. He went
on sick leave to Vung Tau, a rest center on the
In the following weeks and months, we landed in more LZs getting shot at, LZs that later were found out to be mined. By the time 6 months had come, I had enough of landing in hot LZs, I wanted to be a gunship pilot. Because the political decision was made to not have the VN war have a big impact, the military had a 12 month rotation policy. That meant that you only stayed in war for one year, which also meant that what you learned, left after 12 months. “Lessons Learned” did not get passed on, like always preparing LZs with artillery before landing in them. We knew that and relearned that many times …. The Viet Cong did not have a rotation policy, and learned their lessons once.