Lost Brothers (KIA) Chronological Order

April 19, 1967

SP4 Joseph Leonard Colotti
(In-country training w/ 175th AHC)

Was wounded by shrapnel on April 17, 1967 and died 2 days later after developing pneumonia

July 7, 1967

UH-1D helicopter flown by Major Charles E. Sauer and Captain Thomas A. Derosier was reported missing Crews were scrambled immediately upon report of the missing Blackhawks, The aircraft was found in the vicinity of Minh Thanh and it had crashed and burned beyond recognition. No one knows the cause of the mysterious tragedy which took the lives of the four crew members aboard. Major Sauer, Captain Derosier, PFC Tatum and PFC Simon were the first members of the 187th Assault helicopter Company to die in the Republic of Vietnam.

September 20, 1967

Captain Billie Presson a flight platoon leader of the 187th was killed during the last extraction from what appeared to be a secure PZ. He had led the Blackhawk flight through out the day conducting Eagle Flights for the 25th Infantry Division in the Hobo woods. Four ships were hit by enemy ground fire throughout the mission but continued to fly. Captain Pressen died from a bullet wound in the head while sitting in the PZ as the troops loaded.

October 11. 1967

Captain Ellis M. Bailey died when his aircraft crashed into the water and sank with six people on board, while on operations south of Saigon with U.S. Navy Riverboats. Captain Bailey was the only person unable to get out of the aircraft, and it settled in 30 feet of water.

November 11, 1967

While engaged in a company sized operation north of Dau Tieng, aircraft 66-00925 was hit by small arms fire. Pilot MAJ Evart Eugene Robeson suffered a severe leg wound and the crew evacuated him immediately to medical facilities in Dau Tieng. He subsequently succumbed to shock two days later.

The 187th was engaged in a company size combat operation north of Dau Tieng on 22 NOV 67 (my birthday, it so happens).  Major Robeson was flying as co-pilot on A.C. 66-00925.  I don’t recall the exact details, but CPT Ron Cody was the Aircraft Commander.  The flight received some small arms fire, and Ron radioed that his co-pilot had been hit, and he was proceeding to Dau Tieng.  MAJ R later told us that the two crewmen pulled him out of his seat and worked to control his bleeding while Ron flew as fast as the ship would go, direct to the dustoff pad, having notified Dau Tieng of the emergency.  The arteries in his right knee were severed and bleeding was severe – the medical personnel at Dau Tieng said that he would have bled to death in minutes except for the crew’s response.  

This was not all that different than many other incidents the 187th experienced, but the strange part is what happened later. My co-pilot and I (I believe it was Kirk Nivens, but would have to verify with him) visited him in the Cu Chi hospital with on 25 Nov, along with another Blackhawk crew.  Apparently the other crew was that of the C.O., Maj Burns, based on another’s account. Major R was medically stabilized with his right leg encased in a plastic bag of sorts.  He smiled broadly when we teased him about going home early, and when we left he seemed in good spirits.  It seems that shortly after we left he was told that he would lose the leg at the knee. He went into shock and died suddenly.

Eric Mercer

December 7, 1967

On this day, W01 Charles Chester Wilcox was assigned to another unit (190th AHC) to provide training. WO1 Wilcox was reported as KIA. Official report states: WO1 Charles Chester Wilcox died of a gun shot to the head while inserting ARVN troops to a hot LZ near Phu Loi. UH-1D.

January 5, 1968

The Blackhawks became involved in a fierce battle with a large NVA force while on short final to an LZ, thirty five mikes northwest of Tay Ninh. Two helicopters were shot down by the heavy enemy automatic weapons fire. One crew member, SP5 Kenneth Scruton was killed. The three remaining crew, Warrant Officer Mercer, Warrant Officer Jordan and SP4 Seitz were down in an enemy infested area for two hours before they were rescued. The only weapon among them was one .45 caliber pistol. The Blackhawks continued the combat assault missions into the hostile area and later that afternoon, they returned for extractions. Again they received heavy enemy resistance. The flight was mortared while shut down at a nearby fire support base. Throughout the day, ten crew members were wounded and eleven aircraft sustained damage from the ballistic assault.

February 16, 1968

The Blackhawks conducted a combat assault mission in an area Five miles north of Saigon. The flight encountered enemy automatic weapons fire and Lieutenant Henry L Wyatt II escaped serious injury when a round penetrated the floor and lodged in a book under his seat entitled “The Source”. He wrote to the author, James Michener, about the incident. Within a week he received a letter from the author and an autographed copy of the novel. The Tay Ninh Base Camp was hit by an enemy rocket and mortar attack that night. Three helicopters were damaged by flying shrapnel. One crew member Sp4 Dennis J. Lulof was killed and eight other Blackhawks were wounded. The attack continued until 0400 in the morning .

April 12, 1968

A sad day for the Crusaders. While flying support for 3rd BDE. 25th Inf. Div., a Rat Pack gun ship received 6 to 7 .51 cal hits to the rear of the engine compartment. The ship went down and resulting in 3 KIA’s and 1 WIA.
A/C – WO1 Stephen John Eckle – KIA
Pilot – WO1 John Francis Fitzgerald – KIA
Crew Chief – SP5 Harold Allen Tharp Jr. – KIA
Door Gunner – John L. Wilcox – WIA
The Area of operation was North East of Dau Tieng at the Northern tip of the Michelin Rubber Plantation. The flight flew 351 sorties, carried 695 passengers and logged a total of 89.6 hours.

November 27, 1968

The day before Thanksgiving started out bad for the Crusaders and ended the same way. On one of the first insertions the enemy were waiting in the LZ for the flight to come in. They opened up with heavy small arms and anti-aircraft fire while the flight was on short final. The trail ship was hit by an RPG and went down in flames killing one crewmember and seriously wounding the rest of the crew. The ship that came back in to pick up the downed crew received so many hits that it too went down about one mile out of the LZ. No one was injured in this forced landing. Total casualties for the one LZ were one KIA, and 10 WIA’s. Out of the flight of 10 ships only one or two escaped without taking hits. Two ships had too many hits to even try and count them. Although hit hard, the Crusaders lived up to their reputation and continued to fly support for the ground unit until late that night when the second tragedy struck.
The Crusader flare ship, UH-1H #65-09620 went down in flames killing all five people on board. When the flight finally came home, there were only five ships left in it.

Battle Reports – Thanksgiving 1968

4/9 Report

December 28, 1968

28 Dec 1968 – Another sad day for the Crusaders. “Smokey” a UH-1C smoke ship was shot down while on a run putting down a smoke screen so the Command and Control aircraft could land in and take off from the LZ safely. Two of the smoke ship’s crew, SP4 Stephen C. Ponty Jr. and WO1 Gerald David Markland were killed and Aircraft Commander WO Roger Howell, Crusader “25” and Sp5 Marshall were wounded. Another Rat Pack ship was shot down at the same time resulting in the pilot and aircraft commander receiving slight wounds.

April 13, 1969

13 Apr 69 – Indirect fire attacks are all too frequent in Tay Ninh. This particular one found its mark in hootch number six, killing SP4 Michael G. Porter and SP4 Ricardo I. Romero.  It also wounded five others. A sad day for the Crusaders.

May 21, 1969

21 May 69 – Another sad day at the 187th. The smoke ship, piloted by Warrant Officer Al North and Warrant Officer Henry Domingus, experienced a tail rotor failure, probably due to enemy fire, while in route to Tay Ninh to refuel and re-smoke.  The aircraft crashed and burned.   Warrant Officer North suffered burns and back injuries.  Warrant Officer Domingus suffered burns and later returned to Tay Ninh.  SP4 Moreno, the gunner, suffered multiple fractures to his arm and was evacuated to the states, as was WO North.   The crew chief, SP5 Clyde Sampson Evans, was killed in action.

September 2, 1969

2 Sep 69 – A sad day for the Crusaders, as we lost one of our best.  CPT Don Kilpatrick, while being checked out as flight lead, received a 51 caliber wound to the head.  He died in route to the hospital.  This occurred just to the west of Nui Ba Den.

November 24, 1969

24 Nov 69 – While on a DCS mission near Ben Cao, aircraft UH-1H # 68-15564 crashed into the river. SP4 James Randall Jones Jr. (Crewchief) and SP4 Laurence Atwood Young (Gunner) were killed in the accident.   Warrant Officer Ronald R. Heier, the aircraft commander, escaped with minor cuts and lacerations, as did the two passengers.  The co-pilot CW2 Howard Brisbane Comer, died and the body was subsequently recovered and identified in 2001.

Corrected information from Jeff Thomason, Lt. Col, US Army (Retired)

“I was the aviation safety officer and the S3 of the 269th Aviation Battalion from Oct 69 – May 70. (Parent battalion of the 187th at that time)

Re: your entry 24 Nov 69 AC UH-1H 68-15564. I investigated the accident. 
Warrant Officer Ronald Heir was the only survivor, the rest of the crew and all passengers were killed.”

Addendum: In contradiction to the above information.
The two E7 passengers did indeed survive as they are not listed on the wall.
Their  names are listed on the virtual wall page incident report as survivor list as originally stated.

• E7 J Picht, Passenger – survived
• E7 G Fredette, Passenger – survived

May 14, 1970

14 May 70 – A bad day for the “Crusaders”. Aircraft #767 (UH-1H) was on single ship mission in Cambodia. During a storm the ship crashed killing all four of the crew, and three passengers.

Killed in this incident were:
CPT Thomas John Larkin II – Aircraft Commander
WO1 Raymond Henry Krug Jr. – Pilot
SP4 Kent Childs Taylor – Gunner
PFC Charles Douglas Blair – Crew Chief

Earlier in the day aircraft #857 (UH-1H) experienced an engine failure returning from a PZ and landed near FSB Wood North. No one was injured although the aircraft was damaged. (Pilots: Scudder and ? )

December 27, 1970

HIT IN FLIGHT DURING CBT ASLT, PARROTS BEAK AREA 19701227

Individual was killed while the door gunner of a military aircraft on a combat operation when fired on by hostile ground force. The aircraft did not crash or burn.

Coffelt Database

February 12, 1971

12 Feb. 71 – Aircraft #297 (AH-1G) lost its tail rotor while on a special mission in Cambodia and the pilot AC/ 1LT. Rodney Woods performed a near perfect autorotation.  The only damage to the aircraft was a broken left skid.  After the aircraft came to rest very near to the enemy positions, the front seat pilot/gunner (Cpt. James Garland Siddons) jumped from the aircraft and ran for the C&C ship.  Cpt. Siddons was struck by the rotor blade and killed instantly.  The crew chief of the C&C ship (SP5 William John Johnson) in an effort to retrieve the body of Cpt. Siddons was also hit by the still spinning rotor blade and was also killed. The downed Cobra was later recovered.

From Official Report: Siddons, James Garland.  Class 70-14,   Cause: Ground Casualty.  How Died: Shot down.  Received ground fire after autorotation.  Siddons ran upsloap to suppress enemy fire with pistol, hit by rotor blade.

September 27, 1971

Incident Report

27 Sep 71 – Aircraft # 67-17371, UH-1H. Tragedy struck the “Holy Land” on this day. On the return trip from Song Be to Di An a flight of 8 Crusader ships ran into dense IFR weather. Aircraft 67-17371 went inadvertent IFR and crashed into the ground killing all aboard. The crew consisted of:

WO1 Steven D. Karnehm,
CPT John J. Kintaro,
SP4 Luis H. Campos
SGT. Edwin A. Kudlacek.

November 15, 1971

15 Nov 71 – Tragedy again struck the “Holy Land”.   The Crusaders were working an eight ship mission in Cambodia. C&C was being flown by Cpt. Skip Davis, (Rat Pack 36).  Two of the slicks were released from the flight to refuel in Tay Ninh. On the way to Tay Ninh, flying in a close staggered right formation, the trail ship with Aircraft Commander Ken Bennet, Pilot Frank Kanauka, Sp5 Nettleton and PFC Callahan, impacted the main rotors of the lead ship.  Post impact gyrations severed most of the trail ship’s tail boom and tearing the rotor blades completely off the lead ship.

The lead ship crashed killing the entire crew which consisted of:
Aircraft Commander – WO1 Thomas Joe Puff
Pilot -WO1 Vincent Patrick Martin, Jr.
Sp4 John Andrew Charnaplosky
Sp4 Daniel Scanlon Brooker
Captain Davis was first on the ground and reports all that was left of the lead ship was a two foot high pile of molten metal.

The trail ship, with Aircraft Commander Ken Bennet, and without a tail boom, managed to hit the ground in a level attitude.  Everyone aboard survived but suffered severe compression fractures from the impact.

Ken Bennet’s (Crusader “94) account of the landing as told to Bill Gray (Crusader “11”) at the hospital.

“I was flying straight and level at 1500 feet AGL and the next thing I knew I was looking directly at the ground and heading there rapidly.  I had the cyclic embedded in my stomach to no avail and suddenly at about 100 feet the UH-1H flattened out and we had a very hard landing.”

Bill Gray comments, “My observation is that this had to be divine intervention because a UH-1H will not flatten out with no tail boom and this bird had no tail boom.  I saw it.”