Ed's First Tour of Vietnam--the Tet Offensive

Hong Kong & Tet

When Ed and his buddies went to Saigon to fly to Hong Kong on R & R in late January 1968, they stayed the night in a hotel there. That night as they walked around the streets, some kids bumped into them, and they later realized that they had been pickpockets and had stolen their watches and jewelry. Ed enjoyed his R & R in Hong Kong a great deal and found it very exciting. It was the Chinese New Year (or Tet) and there were many parades and holiday events.

Tet Offensive


Tet Holiday 1968 was when the Vietcong made a major surprise attack on 100 major towns and cities in Vietnam during the Tet holiday ceasefire; it was the main offensive of the Vietnam War up to that time. The main strike was January 30 and the Communists had hoped for the South Vietnamese populous to arise and support them but met heavy resistance instead.

However, the country was in a state of war and chaos for a matter of weeks. Ed was able to get back from Hong Kong but he couldn’t get into Saigon which was the center of the action, so he flew to Cam Rhan Bay where he waited three days for an aircraft to finally fly him back to Bien Hoa. I was very grateful that he’d missed the action, because his base was in the middle of things.


5 February 1967

"The big war has started to cool off over here. There for a while it was really going strong. But luckily, I missed out on the majority of it because I was in Hong Kong on R & R."

7 February 1967

"The VC are still causing trouble. They put over 200 mortar rounds on Dong Tam last night, but so far, Bearcat has been left alone. I really can’t figure it out. They have hit every place but here. I just hope they’re not waiting to hit us really big time.

"On my way back from R & R, I came through Bien Hoa, and it was really destroyed.

"Hundreds of places were burned down and it really looked bad. Also, there were bodies lying around all over. It’s really something."

8 February 1967

"There still isn’t a whole lot going on around here. The VC are still really brave, and for a change, they are finally staying and fighting. But that makes it a lot easier for us. But I’ll be happy if they leave us alone here.

"It sounds like there is really a good war brewing in the north. It is really costly. We had a company working with us today, and they had four ships shot down in a L. Z. (landing zone), so it is really active."

February 1967

"The action around here is still going on. They hit Saigon and Bein Hoa last night, and the Ammo Dump at Long Bien, plus bridges all over. When they hit the Ammo dump, I thought we were being hit here as it really made a roar. I had Staff Duty last night and had just gotten to bed (about 9:00), when it happened. I threw my covers ¾ of the way across the room and rolled out of bed to the floor. It can really shake a person up, even if it wasn’t an attack on us."

28 February 1967

"We had a little excitement around here. The VC finally decided to mortar Bearcat. They didn’t hit us hard at all, and no rounds even landed in our battalion area."

Ed's Experiences in Vietnam--First Tour

Flying OH23 Aircraft

Ed had several scary incidents flying OH23 helicopters. One time he was taking a military photographer over an area and the photographer kept asking him to go lower and lower until he was hovering about 10 to 20 feet off the ground. He was concerned because he didn't know how secure the area was, and later that week, they put in combat assault troops into that same area he'd flown over. It was full of a large group of Vietcong and they lost three or four choppers in the fight in the same area he'd flown over at tree-top level only days before.

Another time Ed flew someone in an OH23 out to a fire support base. He dropped them off, and was heading back to Tan Am. He was flying about 1500 feet when he started losing lift. He increased RPM, but he still couldn't maintain altitude. This was a serious problem; he should have landed the aircraft on the ground to see what was going on with the engine. However Ed felt uneasy; something told him to continue on to Tan Am.  He made a long, 15- mile, B52 approach, with full power applied, gradually losing altitude. Once his aircraft got over the runway and touched down, it couldn't be lifted up again, even with full power. 

Maintenance personnel couldn't believe that Ed had made it to the airfield or that the aircraft had landed because the clutch was totally gone from the transmission. The transmission had slowly been failing, and completely disintegrated when he set down.

Two weeks later, in the area where he would have landed the plane, they found a division-size Vietnamese unit embedded there. If Ed had gone down anywhere there—he would have landed in a NVA (North Vietnam) unit.  He didn't always recognize inspiration when it was happening, only realized later what it was.

Ed once flew a Thai general in his OH23 to observe some Thai troops. As they watched the Thai troops came under attack. The general insisted that Ed put him down among his men, and Ed set down. When he landed with the general, the soldiers on the ground put wounded men aboard his tiny chopper, and he took them to the hospital and then flew back to get more. He made three trips landed among ground fire to pick up wounded to transport to the hospital while a medevac helicopter flew overhead and wouldn't go in to pick up the Thai soldiers because there was ground fire. He received a Thai medal for his heroism.

One night flying his OH23 back from Saigon, Ed was half way to Bien Hoa when his lights flashed and then the generator failed, and all the lights on the chopper went out. He had no way to see any of his instruments to see how fast he was going, where he was, what he was doing. He listened carefully to the RPMs of the engine to make sure it stayed in a safe range—between 3100 and 3200 RPMs and adjusted it to maintain that speed. He could barely see the road below as a dark ribbon between the forest and he followed it toward Bien Hoa. Eventually he could see the lights on the airfield and landed safely.

Ed was injured only once during his tour; during a refueling stop at Dong Tarn, he climbed up a palm tree to get a coconut. He jumped down from it and sprained his ankle.