More detail on this person: Both 2LT Reuben F.
Pettiford and 2LT William H. Shackleford were 69-8
classmates of mine at Ft. Wolters. We started
flight school in August of 1968. There were many
students in each class in those days but both LT
Pettiford and LT Shackleford stood out in my mind
immediately as being well spoken, fine gentlemen
and really good athletes. I remember Bill
Shackleford played quarterback on our class touch
football team and could really throw the ball. I
could run pretty well in those days and caught
quite a few passes from him. This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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Date posted on this site:
03/10/2024
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Most of the students in our class flew TH-55's. I
recall that we were on one of our early cross
country flight's without an IP on the date of the
accident in October 68. LT's Pettiford and
Shackleford were both flying together that day. I
remember some sort of radio call about a missing
aircraft late in the flight period and a little
while later another call came back that the
aircraft had been found in a field and both pilots
were deceased. I did not see the aircraft or crash
site but I remember an IP saying the TH-55 had an
engine failure, they had picked an appropriate
forced landing area but probably did not see the
wires in it until they were quite low and probably
tried to maneuver over them and had insufficient
rotor RPM to cushion the landing.
Most of our IERW class had not been to Vietnam
and had not experienced losing friends so
suddenly. It certainly brought home the fact that
flying could be as dangerous a business as others
had said even far from a combat area.
CH-34's were used for MEDEVAC at Ft. Wolters
when I was there and the sound of those aircraft
were very distinctive, especially to our wives. My
wife heard one launch during that flight period
and she knew I was flying at the time. Needless to
say there were many hugs and tears that night as
she knew both LT Pettiford and LT Shackleford as
well.
From: Bill Blaine, Class 69-8 and 69-10,
whb001@earthlink.net
I was looking through the VHPA Died After Tour
list to see if any of my former classmates or tour
mates had passed away and was doing a search on
my flight class 69-8 and was surprised to see your
report on Pettiford and Shackelford. All three of
us were stick buddies and had the same flight
instructor. I was originally scheduled to fly
with Bill Shakelford on the buddy
cross-country/round-robin flight but came down
with a bad cold and ended up swapping seats with
Pettiford who was scheduled to fly with our
instructor. I don't recall if they were ahead or
behind us but your recollection of the incident is
exactly correct. Strangely, a few weeks after the
accident, Bill's girlfriend (from St Louis, I
think) called me trying to get additional details
on the crash and seemed to be trying to assert
that the delay in anyone finding the wreckage that
day may have contributed to their deaths, though
as I recall one suffered a crushed skull and the
other a broken neck so her assertion was certainly
incorrect.
The accident was an ominous feeling for me
because I should have been on the flight with
Shack but I have a lot to be thankful to him.
When we finished phase one of the primary course
we both had blind dates from the American Airlines
Stewardess School in Fort Worth for our section
graduation party in Mineral Wells which we
attended together. I was extremely attracted to
his date and sought her out afterwards. We even
went out once with Frank Pettiford (I think that
was his middle name) before the fateful day of
their accident. Anyway, I continued to date this
beautiful young blonde even after she moved to
Manhattan. We were married shortly after I
returned from Nam and she remains my wife to this
date. After my return from Nam I pursued and
succeeded in receiving an inter-service transfer
to the Air Force where I flew F-4s and F-16s. I
never had trouble remembering the Air Force's
Birthday as it coincides with my wife's. Somehow
I haven't been able to instill that little detail
with my two boys who are both serving in the Air
Force. I retired from the Air Force in 1993 and
have been serving as a Federal Civilian since
1995.
Anyway, thanks for bring back some old memories.
From: Bruce Ianacone, Phoenix 36 (Army),
Rooster (Air Force)