This page contains some short and very short stories recalled by various old Centaurs - Collected in October 2009 

Larry Patterson

    While taking our dog for her daily constitutional today...I watched as one of the helicopters from the VERY nearby Univ. of Mississippi Medical Center was approaching to deliver someone that needed their help. I got to thinking.....what was MY favorite maneuver as a helicopter pilot????

     To me, it was landing........picking the right spot (although sometimes there was only ONE spot, right?) ha! making the approach, lowering the collective, pulling back on the cyclic.......nursing that baby down until the skids just kissed the ground and the person(s) in the back asking..."Are we on the ground?"

Larry D. Patterson

Pat Eastes

    Rolling in on a gun run, punching off a bunch of rockets, and hearing those mini-guns roar.

Charles "Juaquin' Eastes

Smokey Burgess

    Mine was taking off from a hot LZ and I wasn't even the pilot. Bill Gold had that role. It was the day I got the crap blown out of us in my OH-23 and crashed right in the middle of what we had been shooting at all morning. There were three of us on board and this was to have been our last pass. I took a round that shattered the bone in my upper right arm. Knighton had taken a round through the knee and had passed out. Swienski was unhurt.

    After getting out of the a/c we had to do some E&E (Escape and Evasion) down a trail and out into an old abandoned rice field. We had exchanged fire with troops on the ground. It didn't look like we were going to get out of there. We had said the Lord's Prayer and settled down to wait the final verdict. Just when about all hope was gone someone spotted us and reported our position which was a good distance from the shot up helicopter. I was told that the OIC (Officer In Charge) had given orders that no one was to land as he had already lost one aircraft and didn't want to lose another.

    Then, out of the blue comes Bill Gold. He landed his a/c between us and the tree line we had left. The crew jumped out and dragged us on board. Gold pulled pitch and made a hard left turn out of that LZ (Landing Zone) en route to 12th Evac Hospital.

    Absolutely my favorite maneuver in a helicopter. Bill Gold will always be my hero...always.

Leland H. Burgess, Jr.

Terry Vaughn

    I think the most  interesting maneuver I was involved in was as follows....

    1st Lt Joe Bridges was the AC (Aircraft Commander), WO Mike Siegel was the Peter Pilot, Buzz was the Doorgunner and I was the CE (Crew Chief) on my slick. We had been flying ash and trash missions all day and were headed back to Cu Chi, when we were diverted. Seems that someone in the radio unit on top of Nui Ba Dinh was going home and needed a ride to Cu Chi. 

    We made the approach and settled on the pad then five guys came running to my side of the helicopter, loaded a 1.5 kw  generator, a 2ft tall stone Budda statue into the cargo area then they jumped in with duffle bags.  I told Lt Bridges we were ready to go and felt him pulling pitch....and heard  the blades biting into the air...and we started lifting, but slowly...we started moving forward...but WAY too slow...then I heard the rotor rpm warning going off in my headset.....and was thinking "this isn’t good" when all of a sudden....the AC (Bridges) rolled the helicopter to the right....then he kicked the nose right....and we went right down the side of Nui Ba Dinh at tree top level.....It was like a roller-coaster ride....when we hit about 70 knots he pulled out and left my stomach back on the mountain.....WHAT A RIDE....would LOVE to do it again!

Terry Vaughn

Pat Eastes

     Terry,  if you like roller coaster rides, you would have loved taking off in a loaded gunship from Dau Tieng. It was quite an adventure, trying to get over the rubber plantation at the end of the runway.

     Speaking of Vindicators, (John) Kelly used to fly with me on occasion as a door gunner and as I recall he actually hit a target now and then. He  might have even called in some accurate artillery from time to time.

Charles "Juaquin' Eastes

John Kelly

    HEY! I resemble those remarks! Don't forget, I am the only one (that I know of) who suspended from a cable into the woods to pick up documents, only to be dragged thru the trees as we received fire. Damn near lost all my clothes. Who was flying that thing?!

John Kelly - Vindicator 32

Pat Eastes

    As I recall, it was the Sieg; I was flying gun cover, and wondering what kind of idiot would hang on that hoist.

Charles "Juaquin' Eastes

Jeffrey 'Doc' Halliday

     I remember a lot of us, me included, would ride the hoist, drink Coke that we purchased from Toe, our pet Gook at CP 178, when we pulled Highway 1 standby. Eat too many C rations and heat the Ham & Beans with JP4....

    I am proud to have been there and know each and every one of you.

Jeffrey D. Halliday - Centaur 23 ('Doc')

Terry Vaughn

     Some more random memories....Cooking the c-rats...with C4,  Who was the FIRST idiot that thought of THAT? 

    Using a can of Ham n Lima beans on the side of the M-60 as a feeder instead of that aluminum feed tray...as you were shooting...when you started smelling the ham cooking...it was time to change cans!  

    Losing an M-16 coming out of a MedEvac....and being grilled by Army CID.....

    Flying with "Slick" the pooch in my fatigue pocket (was just a small pup at that point)

Terry Vaughn

Tom Fleming

 Re the story about John Kelly being dragged through the trees.

     Bill Wilde was the pilot and I was over head in my perch.  When you wandered off into the bush tethered to the UH-1 there were a few tense moments during which there was a dialogue on the radio about the mental state of the guy who wandered off into the bush picking up papers. 

Thomas Fleming - Centaur 6

Tom Fleming

 Re the story about Terry Vaughn losing the M-16.

          I was the pilot when your rifle fell out of the aircraft during a MedEvac extraction (I think you know why I would not go back and get it).

Thomas Fleming - Centaur 6

Larry Patterson

     Here's a memory I could well forget.....when one of the LRRPs would say on the radio..."our position has been compromised"...knowing that meant that 'Crazy Bruce' Powell would be firing off some rockets to help with the hot extraction.

Larry D. Patterson

Norm Clark

      I have a good story to tell about Doug Olsen, Crew Chief of HOG #513, during the 1968 Tet Offensive. We were flying at night probably Feb. 1st or 2nd, 1968 in the Cu Chi area when everything on the ground was a target and every known and unknown gunship was swarming and the radio chatter was mostly unintelligible with its urgency. We received heavy auto weapons fire from a brick building that had a tall smokestack. We made a few gun runs trying to lob rockets into the window openings, with little success. This is where Doug came to the rescue when he told the pilot (Lt. Johnson?) that he had one of his homebrew bombs on board and would like to try it out.

     You see, Doug liked to take a 7.62 ammo can, drill a hole in the side, then fill it with C4 and screw in the cap from a hand grenade. He asked the pilot to hover just to the right of the factory smokestack and the first reply was, "Olsen, we will be sitting ducks!" Didn't matter to Doug; the pilot finally agreed (took about 2 seconds because of the tracers streaming up all around us) maneuvered #513 into position, and Doug pulled the grenade pin, dropped the bomb down the stack and hollered, "Let's get the hell out of here!"

     There was a huge explosion as we circled back around and this time there was no more enemy fire coming from that building, and all was quiet for a few moments...then, it was on to the next target, which wasn't far away and seemed to pick us rather than the other way around!

Norm Clark - Door Gunner HOG #513

Tom Fleming

     Does anyone remember the story of the door gunner Christianson(?) who took a round in his helmet that entered the visor, exited the back and knocked him out.  Maj Vinson (then Cpt Vinson, Scout Plt. Ldr.) saw him slumped over, saw the entrance and exit holes and presumed he was KIA. Vinson continued the gun runs on a target in the Ho Bo north of the Saigon River in support of the Aero Rifle Platoon.  On his next pass he looked back and Christianson was up and firing. He had a gash on his scalp and a headache. 

Needless to say he got to keep the helmet as a souvenir. If you remember this and can write the full story we all would enjoy seeing it.

Thomas Fleming - Centaur 6

Tom Fleming

     Another story that needs to be told is about the Light Scout team that passed over the Free Fire Zone North East of Trang Bang at low level on its return from scouting the area and got zapped by an emplaced .30 cal MG (Machine Gun) in a hedge row bunker.  The door gunner was shot in the bicep and the pilot lost a thumb on one finger.  The OH-23G took it in the bubble, belly and fuel tank and went up  in flames,  A courier UH-1 from the 3/17th was traversing the Route 1 corridor and saw the OH-23 go down in flames. 

    The 3/17th Huey pilot landed nearby and the Chew Chief from the far side got out and ran to the burning OH-23 while the UH-1door gunner suppressed the .30 cal.  Our pilot and the OH-23 Crew Chief scooted to the UH-I and hopped in. The pilot asked “Do we have every one” and our guys nodded Yes.  He took off and left the UH-1 Crew Chief on the ground. The second OH-23 of our Light Scout team saw what was happening, landed and picked up the Crew Chief.  He had no one to suppress the .30 cal and it hammered away at him while the extraction was going on, putting holes in the blades and amazingly, putting a round through the tail rotor one inch drive. The OH-23 made it out of the PZ and back to Cu Chi.  A noisy ride though. 

Thomas Fleming - Centaur 6

Pat Eastes

     Talking about -23s, remember the infamous flight of  one of my classmates in WORWAC 67-11. He had, I believe, the Squadron XO on board when he had a frozen throttle on his OH-23?

He planted it on the runway at Cu Chi, and the passenger exited quickly, shouting "Good landing, Good landing!" Don't remember what happened to the pilot, and I don't know if the passenger ever flew again.

Charles "Juaquin' Eastes

Larry Patterson

     And then, almost immediately after that, my ship ran out of fuel on final to Cu Chi. After my ship was recovered...it was placed beside Festus’s wrecked OH-23......!!!!

Larry D. Patterson

Tom Fleming

     That OH-23 with the frozen throttle is another story that needs to be told with the pilots name withdrawn least we defame the challenged.  

     The two passengers were LTC Shea the Squadron commander and MAJ Ed Kelly the Squadron S-3.  The pilot was assigned to administrative flights by the Lt Sct Leader in accordance with his demonstrated performance on scouting missions. On that fateful day his mission was to pick up the Squadron Commander and S-3 from a Troop logger area that turned to be somewhat confined. On takeoff he performed a text book maximum performance takeoff twisting the throttle full on (maybe a bit too hard).  Upon clearing the obstacle he lowered the nose and reduced the collective only to find the throttle jammed full on resulting in increased airspeed to near V&E (87 mph if I remember correctly). In an attempt to keep the air speed down he continued to climb and called Centaur Flight Operations declaring that he was soon going to become  an “angel.” 

     The OH-23 IP, Cpt Ernie Sanders was called for and he talked to the pilot attempting to calm him down and to fly at V&E allowing for a gradual climb and to proceed to Cu Chi airfield to perform an autorotation. CPT Sanders talked the pilot through the autorotation procedures and made the pilot acknowledge the instructions. When the pilot entered the airport environment he was at 3000 feet and was advised that the glide path would be a little long because of the altitude and not to overshoot the runway. As reported by LTC Shea later, the pilot was quite nervous and when he crossed the base camp wire asked LTC Shea to turn off the magnetos which he did. As soon as the decent was set up it was obvious that the helicopter was going to land short which in fact it did.  It careened off the top of E Company, 725th maintenance hangar with its blades well coned up and fell into their maintenance storage area for wrecked OH-23s (all from D Troop) and slammed to a stop in perfect line with the other three wrecked OH-23Gs, skids flattened and tail boom cut off.  The passengers and pilot emerged from the flattened helicopter a bit shaken but none the worse for wear. The pilot in question had just completed his last flight as a Centaur.

Thomas Fleming - Centaur 6

Mike Vaughn

     I will always remember this funny story about Mike Young.

     He was one of the gunners on a helicopter that landed to allow a small group of Infantrymen to check out a small hooch for VC and/or weapons.  As soon as the Infantrymen approached the hooch they began to receive fire from inside the hooch.  All the action was on Mike’s side of the chopper so he began to return fire on the VC inside the hooch. One of the infantrymen had been wounded in the early moments of the firefight & was quickly returned to the chopper for Medivac back to base camp.

     After the mission I ask Mike if he had hit any of the VC he was firing at. He said he wasn’t sure about the VC… but he definitely killed their dog. There had been a large dog just outside of the hooch during the firefight. We all got a huge laugh out of his story.

     Some of the gunship crews would paint small coolie hats on the side of their choppers to signify a confirmed kill for each VC they were credited with. I painted a small figure of a dog on the side of Mike’s ship. He thought that was so funny. It was meant as a joke…so I was going to remove it after he saw it.  He wouldn’t let me…he said that was his first confirmed kill. When other people would see that little dog figure on the side of his chopper they would have to ask what it was about. And Mike would get to tell the story in his usual humorous way. We had a lot of fun out of it.

Mike Vaughn