FLEMING HORACE HIGLEY III

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Name: MAJ Horace Higley Fleming III
Status: Body Not Recovered from an incident on 05/10/1968 while performing the duty of Pilot.
Declared dead on 11/28/1978.
Age at death: 27.0
Date of Birth: 05/13/1941
Home City: Pensacola, FL
Service: reserve component of the U.S. Marine Corps.
Unit: HMM-265
Service: U.S. Marine Corps.
The Wall location: 58E-006
Short Summary: Fell from the skids of a UH-1 trying to pick him up. See memo.
Aircraft: CH-46A tail number 151907
Country: South Vietnam
MOS: 7562 = Pilot CH-46 Qualified
Primary cause: SVN-BNR
"Official" listing: helicopter air casualty - pilot
Length of service: *
Location: Quang Tin Province I Corps.

Additional information about this casualty:
Horace Fleming ("Bud" in Lake's book) took heavy automatic weapons fire and had an oil line shot out so they had to make a forced landing. The rescue helicopter was hit by an RPG and exploded. The gunner was burned and the crew chief got bad shrapnel in his back, arm and legs. The crew chief ran many yards to a foxhole even though he had two broken legs. A third helicopter tried to extract all of the crew members but took so many hits that they had to return to a nearby airfield. They hoped to make some repairs on their own aircraft and go back to get the first two crews out but they were drawing mortar fire where they sat. The downed crews fought their way to a river. The enemy was so close that the crew was literally dodging hand grenades. Near the end of the day a Huey was able to hover over them just long enough to pick up some of the men. Some of the men climbed into the chopper but Fleming only managed to grab on to the skids as the Huey flew away under heavy fire. He either took a round or lost his grip and fell several hundred feet. The area was thoroughly searched the next day with no trace of Fleming. from the book "1500 Feet over Vietnam" by Bruce R. Lake

Reason: aircraft lost or crashed
Casualty type: Hostile - died while missing
single male U.S. citizen
Race: Caucasian
Religion: Baptist - other groups
Burial information: BARRANCAS NATIONAL CEMETERY, PENSACOLA FL (IMO)
This record was last updated on 09/20/1995

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Date posted on this site: 11/13/2023