More detail on this person: story: Date:
04/07/1971, Unit: C/7/1 CAV
My husband Richard (Rick) Prosser passed away
Oct 1st 2004. As I was sorting through his papers
I found a handwritten account of an incident in
VietNam which I'm sure he had planned to share. I
will try to write it just as he did but please
excuse any mistakes as it IS handwritten. The
story reads as follows: Regarding Billy Joe
Wilson, CW2, died Apr 7, 1971. (p172 1994
membership directory), Billie was a Cobra pilot
assigned to C Troop, 7th sqdn, 1st Air Cavalry. He
had volunteered to fly as co-pilot on the C&C
bird, piloted by then CPT "Skip" Murrow (last seen
as on A.D LTC in FRG). Billlie Joe was getting
close to DEROS and was to go to Alaska after his
tour was over, and wanted to get some Huey stick
time "day off" from flying guns.
We were in the area known as the "Hump", South
of RachGia on the RVN West coast, along the
"Anti-American" canal. (The Western edge of the U
Minh Forest). The Lead scout was shot down, and
the wing man bugged, with some of the most
intense fire seen in that area chasing him off.
The C&C bird spotted the scout Pilot and his Oscar
climbing out of the wreckage, and immediately
swung down to pick them up. While in the P.Z.,
only light fire was received, but the CE and
gunner were suppressing anyway. The Chicken Shit
US, RVN Backseats and RVN ARTY F.O. sucked
canvas up their butts, and so Billy Joe jumped out
to pull the LOH crew to safety, unbeknownst to
Skip, who kept calling over UHF "Is everyone on
board?" to the CE and everyone else with a radio.
The CE also did not know Billy had un-assed to
help out the scout crew, and gave an up to Skip,
who promptly pulled pitch and got the hell out of
there. When Skip noted the empty Right seat, he
called to the CE to get Mr. Wilson back up front.
That was when the CE noted Billie's absence from
the bird. When told Skip did an immediate turn
back to the crash site, announced to the guns (CPT
Jim Drury, then LT Dave Merriam) that he was
returning to pick up Mr. Wilson. On short final,
Skip told me, he spotted Billy standing on top of
the LOH, waving and grinning. Then the tree lines
erupted. Multiple hits were taken by the C&C bird,
but the fatal shot took out the tail rotor. The
Huey, at high torque, rolled left, and the Main
Rotor blades took Billy down to waist height. The
PIC of the scout was trapped, with his helmet
squeezed between the top of the door frame and the
ground. Skip, in one of the bravest acts of
heroism I ever witnessed, evacuated all the other
PAX and crew, and grabbing the still cherry red
M-60 barrel, shoved it in the gap in front of the
scout pilot's face and began to heave. Fuel and
oil streamed inches from the LOH pilot's face, and
then burst into flames. Skip beat it out with his
bare hands, and then proceeded to extract the LOH
pilot. In the meantime, my flight of 3, loaded
with Ruff-Puffs (regional forces / popular forces)
dropped down to the tri-corner fort the RF/PF's
called home, because we knew by their prior rep
that the only way that they would get off a Huey
under fire would be on the far side of a near
death experience. Lady Samantha (67-17761, last
flown by me at Ft. Rucker, Al in 1982) was
screaming that day. The CE, "Fat Albert" and I had
done a good engine flush on her the night before.
"Nico" Nicholson, an 11 month CAV vet was
checking me out on how a Comanche lead was
expected to operate. I was lift platoon leader a
Captain at 22, on my second RVN tour. Both of us
knew that we were next. We looked each other in
the eyes, Nico pulled his visor down, flicked his
mike boom aside, wiped the sweat from his
scraggly, sorry excuse for a stache, nodded, and I
called the guns and arranged for cover. We dropped
down, low, lower than the tops of the paddy dikes,
screaming inbound to the crash sites, I led by
roiling black smoke from the burning Huey. As we
slowed down to look for a landing spot, the tree
lines all around the crash site erupted with
ground fire, but what kept us from landing there
was the tracers cooking off on the Huey stove like
Orville Redenbackers best. We found a hover hole
about 75-100 meters Southeast of the 2 crashed
birds.
Ground fire was continuous from all sides, but
sporadic, as Jim and Dave kept the VCs heads
down with some great shooting. Meanwhile, Skip
had marshalled his crew and PAX to move to the
sound of our rotor blades. It was a hard fight.
The VC were excited, and threw several grenades
that were tossed back by Skip's forces before
exploding. I was told that for sure seven VC were
KAKIDAU by pistol or knife in short distance. It
seemed like forever that we sat there, waiting for
our PAX. SP4 Armstrong, our door gunner, took one
in the leg from the tree line to our A.E., so Jim
and Dave hit that area with nails. We kept taking
fire from all quadrants, but could not shoot to
the N.W., as that was where our friendlies were
coming from. Nico kept flicking his mike boom
away from his mouth, rubbing the sweat from his
moustache, and then carefully pulling the mike
back into place. The sounds of bullets hitting
sounded like sledge hammer blows to a 55 gallon
drum and shrapnel from the Close Air Support (CAS
sounded like a handful of gravel thrown down a
rain pipe. (I had to stop for a while, here, for I
became kerklept.)
I believe Rick had more to write but never got
around to doing so. This may have been when his
door gunner was killed. Seldom did Rick talk
about this, but he did tell me once that HIS
recurring nightmare was that of the blood of his
doorgunner covering the windshield and flying into
his face while he was flying back to base camp. I
hope this helps, as I know Rick had planned to
share this with you.
From: Iva Prosser
EDITOR'S NOTE: It is believed that Armstrong was
the gunner on Prosser's rescue helicopter, not on
this one that crashed.
I AM JIM (SHORTY) GROTH C-TROOP 7/1
AIR.CAV AERO SCOUT, NOVEMBER
70-NOVEMBER 71. I REMEMBER APR 7 1971
VERY WELL, BECAUSE I WAS THE FLYING AS
THE OBSERVER ON THE LOH (67-16360) WITH
CWO THOMAS HICKS, WHEN WE GOT SHOT
DOWN. I CAN STLL REMEMBER MR. HICKS
CALLING ON THE RADIO, "TAKING FIRE,
RECEIVING HITS, GOING DOWN!", BY THEN WE
WERE IN THE TREES. WHEN THE LOH FINALLY
STOPPED WE JUST LOOKED AT EACH OTHER
AND ASKED EACH OTHER IF WE WERE OK.
BOTH OF US, SAID YES. THEN NEXT WE SAW A
SLICK COMING INTO PICK US UP, WE CLIMBED
INTO THE PILOT SIDE, THEN WE STARTED TO
TAKE OFF THEN THERE WAS A BIG CAMOTION,
AND WE TURNED AROUND AND HEADED BACK
TOWARDS THE LOH, AND STARTED TO HOVER
THEN IT STARTED TO GET REALLY BAD WHEN
THE SLICK STARTED TO SPIN AND TWIST TO
THE LEFT, THEN THE CRASH.
THAT WAS WHEN C. W. WILSON BILLIE JOE
WAS KIA. THEN I LOOKED FOR MR. HICKS (MY
LOH PILOT) THE ONLY OTHER PERSON THAT I
KNEW PERSONALLY. I WAS REALLY FREAKED
OUT WHEN I SAW HIS HEAD BETWEEN THE
TOP OF THE SLICK DOOR FRAME AND THE
GROUND, I STARTED TO GO TO HELP HIM
WHEN SOMEBODY GRABBED ME AND THREW
ME OUT OF THE SLICK, WHICH WAS ALREADY
ON FIRE. AFTER I GOT OFF THE GROUND
SOMEBODY SAID FOLLOW THAT GUY AND
THERE WERE LOT OF PEOPLE HEADING FOR
THE SECOND SLICK. FINALLY EVERYONE GOT
ON SLICK #2 AND TOOK OFF, WE WERE
ALMOST OUT OF RANGE WHEN SP4
ARMSTRONG JOSEPH WAS KIA. THIS IS ONE
OF MY REOCURRING NIGHTMARES. THOSE
SLICKS SURE CRASH HARD, A LOT HARDER
THAN LOH S. THAT WAS MY FIRST (2) OF (4)
TIMES BEING SHOT DOWN, 3 LOH S & 1 SLICK.
I AM AND ALWAYS BE VERY GREATFUL FOR
EVERYONE THAT HELPED US THAT DAY, IT
WAS THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE. P.S. THE
ONLY THING THAT WAS OFF IN THE STORY IS
THAT WE WERE THE WING, NOT THE LEAD
SCOUT SHIP.
FROM: JAMES GROTH (SHORTY)
This information was last updated 05/18/2016
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