Information on U.S. Army helicopter UH-1H tail number
Date: 11/26/1968
Incident number: 68112666.KIA
Unit: 15 MED BN 1 CAV
South Vietnam
UTM grid coordinates: XT445872 (To see this location on a map, go to https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html and search on Grid Reference 48PXT445872)
Original source(s) and document(s) from which the incident was created or updated: War Story as related by a witness. Also: Art Jacobs ()
Summary: Shot down by 50 cal near Quan Loi. All killed
Loss to Inventory
Crew Members:
P CW2 DORAN JAMES DONALD KIA
P 1LT BEALS STEPHEN CARL KIA
CE SP4 ALLING JOHN STEPHEN JR KIA
MD SP5 GREGG JOHNNY GLEN KIA
MD CPL JONES ROBERT ERNEST KIA
Passengers and/or other participants:
PFC ALGIRE ROGER DEAN, AR, PX, KIA
SP4 EBEL WILLIAM MICHAEL, AR, PX, KIA
PFC PERKINS BOBBY JAMES, AR, PX, KIA
SP4 PICONI PIETRO, AR, PX, KIA
SP4 RAINER CURTIS HALL, AR, PX, KIA
SP4 SMITH PATRICK EDWARD JR, AR, PX, KIA
War Story:
Doran and I were in flight school class 67-17 and attended the Air Rescue School at Fort Sam Houston after graduation from Fort Rucker. Beals was my co-pilot for one month when the Cav was still in I Corps earlier that year.
The aircraft went down NNW of LZ Rita, 3km south of the Cambodian border. They had flown out of Quan Loi.
The unconfirmed story is that when an infantry unit got to the crash site two days later they found 12 bodies (11 burned in the aircraft) and one partially burned on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds and an empty M-16. The conjecture was that he survived the crash and was killed by enemy soldiers on the ground. No one can recall if he was separately identified.
From: Art Jacobs
There were six wounded plus one dead soldier (Lloyd A. Chess) loaded on medevac 18, in addition to the crew members (five crew), that left our location that morning. The medevac reportedly received heavy ground fire about one mile from our position and crashed about two miles SW of our location, roughly three miles south of the Cambodian border. (The initial report indicated the crash site was to our WNW, about one mile from the border; subsequently the location coordinates were corrected.) Lloyd A. Chess was killed earlier that morning .
At the time of the shootdown, all companies in the vicinity had received orders to move south, or southwest, in a hurry to clear the area for an impending Arc Light strike.
Two rifle companies were airlifted back to the location of the downed medevac. On the 28th of November (Thanksgiving Day) they located the wreckage and the bodies, confirmed the fatalities and called for recovery assistance. All the bodies were recovered and airlifted back to (Quan Loi).
From: Leif Aamot, A/5/7 Cav, 68-69
This record was last updated on 10/16/2014
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Date posted on this site:
11/13/2023
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