Last Helicopter Lost In Vietnam
 

The evacuation of Saigon was a complex and confusing time....and the flying conditions for US Marine Helicopters flying from ships offshore was hectic for sure with great risk to the crews from fatigue, darkness, and escaping Vietnamese aircraft.

In the confusion, Eleven Marines from a Security Detachment were left behind and had to be rescued at great risk to the Helicopter Crew that retrieved them from the Embassy.

In the evacuation a CH-46 was lost and two Pilots killed and their bodies not recovered.

The Story of Yankee Tango 14

Thank you for sharing, hectic indeed.

Actually.....the Title more accurately should read "Last CH-46 Lost in Vietnam".

Probably the last helicopter lost was the Huey hit by a SA-7 Strella missile while flying the ICCS Mission after the end of the War.


https://www.vhpa.org/KIA/incident/73040710KIA.HTM

There was also the loss of the Jolly Greens in Cambodia during the Mayaguez Rescue attempt.

That was a very tragic ordeal for all involved.

https://www.airforcemag.com/article/0709Mayaguez/

Salute!

Thanks, SAS. I was in the Sluf at the time: Korat - 3rdTFS. Our primary Doc was CSAR - callsign Sandy, but we also trained for CAS and such.

So we covered the Frequent Wind operation at Saigon the day after I arrived in April 1975. Couldn't fly yet, as by then USAF had all kindsa checkouts and such for newbies. 'course, I had more combat time on two previous tours than anyone else in the 3rd, but "rules are rules", huh?. It's a surprise that we lost a chopper at Saigon. Nobody seemed to report that when all was over. We were the only CSAR competent unit in theater, helo escort was our bread and butter, but we were fragged as CAS. Ditto for Koh Tang two weeks later, and we always felt we could have saved many folks there.

I should have flown at Koh Tang, but one of my elltees was duty hog night before and kept phoning folks in our quarters every few minutes as orders were being changed all the time. So my boss told me to get down there and tell the young guy to go home, heh heh. So I was outta "crew rest", and couldn't get on the mission. Yeah, we had more rules than when in-country back in 1968.

Anyways, my roomie fired the smoke rocket that kept the Mayaguez anchored. As we still mainained our CSAR alert flight, they scrambled, and he led them down there first day and assessed the situation. When smoke belched from the boat's stacks, he told HHQ and they said stop the boat! By then a 'vaark from Korat arrived and had the low freq VHF that could reach out to HHQ. Later, a U-2 showed up and relayed stuff all the way back to the White House, so we were over supervised and that caused us heartache and losses. Before the sighting of potential prisoners, another guy in my flight sunk one of the Cambode gun boats with the rockets we had as part of our CSAR loadout - a mix of willie pete and HEI RX, plus various CBU and our 20mm gun.

The AF Mag has some of our units wrong. The F-4's and Slufs at Korat were in the 388th Fighter Wing - 34th TFS and 3rdTFS. We also had 'vaarks from the 347th at Korat until a month later. They nailed a gunboat, maybe two.

The storming of the island was a real goat rope. We had the only unit in theater trained for helo escort, and worked with the Knives for covert stuff and the Jolly Greens for SAR on a daily basis, with full blown exercises every two weeks. But they fragged us as CAS, and our first flight there saw the carnage. Least we helped a lot all thru rest of the day. Despite some words in the AF Mag article, the Knives were good at covert troop insertions and such. The Jollies? Nawww. Many mistakes at Koh Tang, and needless losses.

Gums sends...

No shortage of Goat Ropes back then....sadly!

I just finished "Into Cambodia" by Nolan....which brought back some memories of times best forgotten.

What the guys on the ground went through as they withdrew....having to use the same bush trials they made on the way in....cost far too many Lives.

Learning from History is not our strong suit it seems.

The more Stars involved in the Decision Making Chain....the worse the situation gets.