Cobra Saves LOH Crew - Oct 1969
by Ray Kenneth Clark - also see Cobra Saves LOH Crew TLN
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The war story "Cobra Saves LOH" Tropic Lightning News Story of 3 Nov 1969 and in Ray Clarks book "Just Let Me Walk Away" page 235. Now a Centaur War Story page on our legacy website,
I was CO of D Troop when that happened so I remember it well. Some background: I wrote about this story in my book, "Just Let Me Walk Away", copyright 2011, on Amazon. The book is still available on Amazon.
When the shoot-down occurred (Oct 1968) both CPT Wayne A. White and CPT Thomas D. Sinclair were captains and platoon leaders. Both were so outstanding and well-known in the troop that they had nick-names and were almost always referred to in the troop by those nick-names and seldom by their rank and proper names. CPT Sinclair had red hair, was huge and grossly overweight. He was known in the troop as "Buddha." CPT White had very dark hair, a mustache, and was quite thin in build. His adopted name was "Snidely T. Whiplash".
Snidely and Buddha were great friends. Both were really good officers and leaders. Before he was shot, Buddha had 106 KIA's. Snidely was always (in good nature) giving Buddha hell about the number of KIA's he had reported.
It was SOP that two platoon leaders never flew together. You did not want to risk losing two top leaders in one crash. Anyway, unknown to me, the two of them scheduled themselves in a LOH one day. Of course, that was the day they were shot up. They flew low level into an NVA position and were quickly shot down, the LOH landing on its left side, with the huge Buddha on top of the diminutive Snidely. Buddha was hit in the calf and Snidely in the ankle. SP5 Vierra, the crew chief, was unhurt. The conversation went like this:
...Snidely: "Buddha, you son-of-a-bitch, get off of me!"
...Buddha: "I can't, goddammit, I'm shot!"
...Snidely: Well, goddammit, so am I! Now get the fuck off of me!"
SP5 Charles D. Vierra pulled them both from the wreckage, then set up his machine gun and went to work on the NVA position. CPT William E. Malinovsky fired on the enemy position from his Cobra until he had expended all his rockets and ammunition. He then landed between the LOH and the NVA. WO1 Larry E. Bruce jumped out and removed the ammunition trays from the Cobra. WO Bruce and SP5 Vierra helped Snidely and Buddha into the open space left in the Cobra by removing the ammunition trays. SP5 Vierra crawled in beside them. WO Bruce got back into his seat in the Cobra and they flew away, the Cobra with several bullet holes.
Two days later in Buddha and Snidely"s hospital room, the Commanding General presented five Distinguished Flying Crosses, one each to CPT Wayne A. White (Snidely), CPT Thomas D. Sinclair (Buddha), CPT Malinovsky, WO1 Larry Bruce, and SP5 Charles D. Vierra. I made the recommendations for the awards and read the citations as they were presented.