RSSEmergency Recon Extract
Semper Fi Parents | January 28, 2011
Stories from the USMC Combat Helicopter Association
11 June 1968, HMM-262, Quang Tri, VN:
I’d been in country about three weeks when I was scheduled for my 1st “1R9”, Recon Insert & Extract mission. I thought that I’d already seen a lot. On my 1st day of combat flying we’d moved a battalion of grunts from Khe Sahn to the Laotian Salient area. Our section leader, Rich “The Ugly American” Herberg, had been shot down and we’d picked up the crew. Nine US aircraft had been lost in Northern I Corps that day. I remember thinking that I only had 389 more days to go. By this time I knew the slapping sound of rounds going through the thin fuselage skin of the H-46 and the “Whoomp” of mortar rounds in the landing zone. One of the veteran HAC’s had calmly demonstrated how to drop external loads in the Khe Sahn LSA when NVA artillery rounds from Co Roc were impacting in the LSA every 11 seconds. I’d returned from a day of flying MedEvac and deplaned on a cabin deck slick with the blood of dead and wounded Marines. I was a fully functioning copilot. That is, I could raise and lower the ramp and the FM antennae at the appropriate times. But, I was still a FNG about to embark on my 1st “1R9”.
My HAC and the section leader was Clay “Snoopy” Snear. Snoopy was one of the quiet, confident veteran HAC’s of whom I was in total awe. These guys had flown through the siege of Khe Sahn and the Tet Offensive. Our VMO-6 Huey gunship escort section was led by Cal Croom. Cal had the reputation of being a great shot and was totally fearless. After briefing in the line shack, we took off and repositioned at the 3d Recon pad on the west side of Quang Tri Combat Base. The HAC’s walked to the Recon Ops hootch for the mission briefs. The copilots and crews stayed with the aircraft. It was my 1st introduction to the Recon Marines. They looked quite different from the regular grunts who I had previously hauled. They gathered in their four man teams. Each seemed to have a different camouflaged uniform. None wore a helmet or a flak jacket. They carried a variety of weapons rather than all carrying M-16’s. All had their faces completely painted with camouflage paint. They were quiet and confident.
When the HAC’s returned, we launched from the Recon pad and flew west to LZ Stud (later Vandergrift Combat Base). There we dropped the recon teams to be insert off on the runway and proceeded to extract a couple of teams. The first extract was northwest of the Razorback. The pick-up zone wasn’t a zone at all, but a bomb crater on the side of an elephant grass covered mountain. Snoopy hovered with the nose to the valley and the ramp to the edge of the bomb crater while the crew chief made sure that the aft rotors stayed clear of the elephant grass rising with slope behind us. Great flying and it makes a great picture. We returned to LZ Stud and picked up our first Recon team for insertion.
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