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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-07888 to 363-07891.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-07888 to 363-07891
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Title
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Article about helicopters in the Vietnam War
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Description
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Keever's title: "Helicoptering over Jungle Tree-tops", Article draft about helicopters in the Vietnam War, for the Associated Press
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Transcript
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- Page 1
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Bev Deepe
%. Associated Press
Rue Pasteur 158 D/3
Saigon, South Viet Nam
Page 1
Ban-llo-Thuot-It was only a two-hour helicopter ride. I thought I
was lucky to get on it--and luckier to get off.
For the first time in my four months' stay in South Viet Nam, I
REAL
had hitch-hiked a ride on a read "combat mission-carrying Vietnamese troops
into the densely jungled hillsides of the high plateau region north of
Saigon.
But in those two hours we had flitted at tree-top level for 120
rpt. 120 miles over heavily-infented Viet Cong a territory in the roughest
terrain in the small country.
the
The pilots battle started when they entered the cockpit. Mine began
before I even entered the chopper--a 45-minute verbal contest with the
American commender who hours later finally allowed me to go.
"But you're not going like that," Pilot Willie interjected, pointing
to my black skirt, sports blouse and tennis shoes.
small five-foot-seven pilot with bushy blond mustache,
Lt.
Arthur Arlington Williams was born in Delaware, raised in Cape May, New Jersey,
but considers Ft. Bregg, North Caroline his home. (address unavailable).
Of course, everyone calls him Willie.
I hurriedly scrounged a flight suit, a tired-blue shapeless,
pajama-styled affair, grabbed a drab green shoulder bag commonly called
a survival kit and a dilapidated bush hat, the Australian version of
Gene Autry's 10-galloner.
More More
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- Page 2
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deope
page 2
I trundled into the chopper ungracefully it wasn't built for women,
ape especially short-legged ones--behind sie nine stoel-helmeted Vietnamese
Derines wearing brown and green leopard-spotted oenouflage suits and carrying
large packs of ammunition, bedrolls, tents and long sticks of French bread.
I "eat" down on a too-small ledge near the radio equipment where I
could peer over the machine gun pool poised at the front door and into the
MANEUVERED
cockpit where Willis maneurvored the H-21 Sheimeo.
Sgt. Jospeh Joseph Sluus, of North Chathon, New York (Box 95) was huddled
at the front machine gun, Cheeing his carbines Crow Chief Harold E.
Rains, of Fayetteville, North Carolina (Route 6), stood alertly at the back
one, adjusting the intercomé / cord.
At the touch of Willie's hand, the helicopter bulldozed forward along
the red clay airstrip and then nosed upward. To absorb the sweat, he wore
HOLE
black kid gloves with a big hold in the right index finger used to press the
intercom button. His bage bushy mustache almost hid the mouthpiece.
Ban mo truot
The tin and tile roofs of the shops in bennethuet faded from my view
out the cockpit window; the French-omed rubber, tea and coffee plantations
jetted by.
"You're the sorriest looking gunnor I've ever seen with lipstick on,"
Willie said over the intercom.
"That's a good idea," said Co-pilot William E. McKenzie, chief warrant
officer from Fayetteville, North Carolina (722 Hilton Drive).
"Well, I'd getpretty worried if old Sluus started wearing lipstick,"
Willie countered.
"No, I monn having female gunners."
But the chit-chat ceased as we headed into the mountainous jungled terrein
so dense it looked like sprigs on a massive head of cauliflower. The chopper
rollicoastered along, flitting five to ten feet above the contours of the tree
tops and river beds.
More more
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- Page 3
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deepe
page 3
"Willie, why do you fly so low," I asked, wondering if he was playing
tree-top teg.
"Ah, we're collecting butterflies," he replied. (Foliage absorbs
roar of the engine.)
Sgt. Sluus was hunched over his machine gun, his head pointed out the
wind
door co that the win tossled his hair. From his chopper door, I
saw us
whiz by the long stilted houses of the Rhades, the primitive aborigines of
Viet Nam who live scattered throughout the jungle by burning the hillsides
and planting unirrigated rice. They are constantly horrassed by the Viet Cong.
Thirty miles from Benme Bang Ben-Mo-Thuot, Willie slowed down the chopper,
edged it into a small "clearing" littered with half-burned tree stumps,
pulled the ax craft's nose to within two yards of a stake and landed. The
nine marines scurried out, hiding behind bushes and rocks to secure the area.
On previous flights a dozen
These troops were lucky. We could land.
whirlybirds of the 8th Helicopter Co. had dumped Vietnamese troops-and
sometimes they jumped as the chopper hovered above the steep tangled hillsides.
And back we headed for another lift-load, buzzing across the countryside
at 100 rpt. 100 miles per hour.
Gunner Sluus pointed to five elephants bathing in a stream, but he was
more interested in spotting a tiger in this area once famous fro for big-geme
advised. A herd of water buffalo
hunting. Now only Viet Cong hunts are
stampeded when we buzzed over. Villagers stopped their rice paddy work; two
small boys weved.
But only
As soon as the chopper hit ground, my two feet did the same.
shortly. Another loed of troops piled in and we started on our second one-hour
mission.
"These dangerous missions must get kinde dull after awhile," I said
to one pilot.
"No, I'm scared all the time," he replied.
Yet, I was surprised-and relieved that the chopper-ites maintained
an air of calculated nonchalance about their death-cheating missions.
more more
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deepe
page 4
They take coffee-breaks between their breath-taking runs. Between
lift, while the choppers are being re-fueled, the mess officer brings
brings to the airstrip mid-morning coffee and cookies, served from the
hood of the jeep.
One of the crew laughed, telling about a pilot taking off from his
jungle landing-pad after unloading troops.
He slid over
"Bill didn't want to fly straight like the rest of us.
into the tea plantation. All I could see was the rotor blades
whirling around and a million white hats," he chuckled. "I bet those
cotton-pickin' ten-pickers are shook up today."
Another pilot reported beint beign being shot at, but missed, from a
hillside.
"Well, those holes are just drilled in during the rainy season to let
the water drain out," Willie explained.
Later, the crows learned that another helicopter in their company had
crashed and burned further north. "They must have wanted a veinter roast,"
one pilot said nervously.
"You only crash when you make sudden contact with the ground," Willie
observed.
But they all know it could happen to them somewhere over the
onomy-infested jungles of South Viet Nam.
30
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Date
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1962
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Tactics; United States. Air Force; United States. Army; Military helicopters; Air warfare
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Location
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Ban Me Thuot East Airfield, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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12.6658; 108.1177
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B1, F5
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections, University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries
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Language
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English
