OH-23 Down
William "Bill" Whitmoyer Jan 67 to Jan 68
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During my tour I was assigned as the crew chief of an OH-23 helicopter. My primary pilots were Walter Baum and Larry Patterson.
Shortly after my arriving in country, a decision was made to convert the OH-23’s to include a skid gun controlled by the pilot, a door gunner with a M-60 on one side and another individual on the opposite side with a M-79 grenade launcher. Prior to the conversion, the aircraft was armed only with the personal weapon of each of the flight crew.
While the additional armament provided us a much greater defensive posture, it probably gave us a false sense of security for getting involved; we did however on many occasions and were able to find ways to draw the bad guys out of their cover.
One day while flying over Hobo Woods or Iron Triangle (don’t recall which) we took heavy ground fire. I do not remember the exact date of this event but 1LT Larry Patterson was the pilot of the aircraft and I the door gunner; I do not recall the individual in the 3rd seat. After seeing a man in the woods urinating in a piss tube, I immediately kicked smoke and announced the sighting. As we circled back, we began to observe a number of other individuals scrambling for cover; it was then that all hell broke loose and we began to take heavy ground fire.
1LT Patterson immediately broadcast that we were taking fire and we began to engage, as did a backup OH-23 flying with us.
We quickly realized that at least one of the rounds had hit something critical when our oil pressure dropped to zero. With the chance of no oil, we knew it was only minutes before the engine would seize and we would be at the mercy of the trees and the VC below. 1LT Paterson decided the best approach was to fly the aircraft as far away from the action as possible and set it down before the engine seized. We therefore landed in the rice patties a short distance beyond the edge of the wooded area where the action occurred. The backup OH–23 continued to engage while flying cover for us on the ground.
It seemed like it was only minutes before a response team of Huey’s, including a couple of Cobras showed up. I most of all remember a Cobra rounding a small tree line, probably not much more than 10 feet over my head and opening fire on the area beyond us – I could feel the heat of the rockets as they were fired; Wow, what a feeling. Kind of like getting into a fight with someone bigger than you but then having your big brother show up and kicking the shit out of them.
Once the ground troops landed, we boarded a Huey and headed back to basecamp…all breathing a sigh of relief.
When a sweep of the area was completed, it was determined that we had stumbled onto a large unit of VC.
Upon inspection of the aircraft after it was brought back to camp, in addition to several bullet holes in the aircraft, one of the rounds had severed the oil line going from the oil tank to the engine....... Bill