Tossing Hand Grenades from Huey
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I was sorry to see that Richard Quintas has passed away. Richard was someone I shared flight hours with in Vietnam, and what a great crew chief he was. I was so happy to see him attend the reunion in Kansas City, which I hosted back in 2006. I remember being at the registration desk when he came for his "packet," and immediately we stuck up a conversation. I mentioned something about an "incident" which happened one night. He and I both laughed and recalled how lucky we were to be alive. A very close call that would have been disaster and death, except for his quick thinking and reaction which he took. I don't know if he ever shared his experiences with his wife or friends. I know I have very seldom mentioned this to anyone. The incident goes something like this.
I was working in the service platoon and very often I would serve as a relief for crewmembers/gunners. This was before I had received orders of "flight status" and my flight hours seemed to be always given to someone else. I always liked flying with Richard. I can't remember who the pilot crew was, but they sure took exciting actions following what happened.
We were flying a "patrol" action over an area that was known, or at least suspected, to be friendly to VC who used the area for concealment and safe harbor. Although there were hooches and other buildings, they were abandoned and in pitiful condition. So, that night we (don't know who all "we" were) decided to attempt to destroy these shacks by setting them afire. So, as we passed over the area at somewhat a low level, we received enemy fire and started to return fire (with permission, of course). We came back with another sweep from a different direction, and as we were overhead, the crew started throwing out smoke grenades, etc., trying to ignite those dried out buildings. It was then that Richard decided to drop a frag grenade. Now, step back with me for just a moment. Our headsets in our helmets was set on "Hot Mic". (I think that is the right term.) In my memory of the "hot mic" situation, we could hear each other grunting or talking, yelling or screaming or even the firing of our machine guns.. Get the picture??
I had tossed out some things, and Richard did as well. All at once, I hear on my headset a groaning sound which I now think sounded like, "Oh No!!" There was a clanking sound following the groan, and what immediately followed was the whole sky lighting up from an explosion just behind and below us. You could hear and see fragments of whatever exploded hitting the aircraft and flying past us. The pilots immediately put their skills into evasive action and got the wounded aircraft under control, and asked us "What in the world happened"" and "are you guys okay?" Looking from our jump seats in the aircraft, Richard and I could lean out and see the fragmented damage to the tail boom, and we could hear a different whistling sound from the blades. That told us the blades also had holes in them. The pilots thought perhaps we had been hit by some sort of a missile from the enemy.
So, here is the ending to the story. Richard was tossing a grenade. He had pulled the pin, and when he tossed the grenade, the grenade struck the ammo feed belt, or the fixed gun mount and the grenade bounced back into his ammo can. He made a grab for the grenade as it bounced back into the aircraft, (the ammo can) but in the darkness couldn't; quite see it, so he administered his quick response and kicked the whole ammo can out of the helicopter. The grenade exploded and also the ammo and believe you me, it was quite the explosion. The pilots limped the aircraft back, and it got some patches, and new tail boom, drive shaft, main and tail rotor blades. I don't know if operations, or command, ever learned what really happened.