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.