D Troop's Aero Rifle Platoon's prepares to extract shot down gunship crew - Dale Dow

When the Centaur 40 gunship was shot down the Aero Rifle Platoon prepared to execute one of it's normal missions: air assault into the location of the downed helicopter, set up a perimeter, defend it while the downed crew was extracted - followed by the extraction or destruction of the helicopter or it's destruction in place.

Dale's story:

    The remembrances of a lowly AeroRifle Platoon Leader and Charlie’s unplanned landing in the middle of a bunch of bad guys.

    When the Troop Operations got word of Charlie Johnson and crew going down, the Rifles were scrambled to go out and “rescue” them.  The only info I had before takeoff was that Charlie had gone down.  I didn’t hear anything about the situation on the ground.  I think John Whitehead was in the right seat of the lead ship.  He didn’t know too much either.

   We were only a few minutes from the crash site when Whitehead waved at me and said we were going back to the Corral.  He said something about a tank going in and pulling Charlie and the crew out.

   Bruce said something about (deleted) arriving on site and trying to take command of everything.  I don’t know if he was trying to be the BMFIC or if he was trying to get things under control so that the Rifles could come in and land.  With all the fast movers and gunships in the area, it would have made for a somewhat crowded insertion.

   I don’t think it would have been a good day for the AeroRifles if we had gone in. After reading what has been written about this incident I think we could have lost some slicks and a whole bunch of Infantrymen - perhaps even worse than the horrific situation that Bill Mosenthal and the AeroRifle’s got into in the HoBo Woods on 29 Jan 68.

Dow

©2011 Dale Dow

Centaur Society

Added comment by Charlie Johnson:

I did not give any thought to the AeroRifles coming to our rescue when we were laying next to our broken aircraft in that rice paddy because the situation was so much bigger than our Rifle Platoon could have handled. I don't doubt for a minute that the AeroRifles would have done their best to help us get out of the desperate situation we were in. All Centaurs air crewmen knew what would happen when one of our aircraft made an 'unplanned off airport landing' - every flyable slick would have a load of Infantrymen on board, every flyable gunship would have pilots and gunners on board, and all of them would be enroute to the crash site within minutes. I'm glad the Aero Rifles were called back from the extraction mission. I am confident that the Aircraft Crewmen and the Infantrymen would have made every effort to help us but the most likely result would have been horrible losses for the Rifle Platoon.

Go to original Centaur 40 Shootdown story