Post by arod138 on Sept 20, 2017 8:48:14 GMT -6
Hello, could you add this incident that has a happy ending?
THE 146TH ASA LOSES ANOTHER PLANE – FEBRUARY 1969
On Sunday, 16 February 1969, 45 years ago today, the Pacific Edition of "Stars and Stripes" printed an Associated Press article at the top of page six. The article was date-lined “Saigon,” and the headline read: “Plane Shot Down Over Cambodia-4 Americans Aboard.”
On the previous Wednesday (2/12/69), an RU-1A Otter piloted by the commanding officer of the 146th Aviation Co. (RR), Major Querin Herlik, had been cruising along the border of Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam and the “Parrot’s Beak,” a chunk of Cambodia located at the southern end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Army Security Agency aircraft was less than 35 miles from its takeoff point at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon and was flying at 3,500 feet. Accompanying Maj. Herlik were his co-pilot, Warrant Officer 2 Laird Osburn, and the back-end team of Spc5 John “Jack” Fisher, a Morse intercept operator, and Spc5 Robert Pryor, a Viet voice intercept op. They had been locating and intercepting the communications of NVA and VC units that were known to be operating along the Cambodian border.
Suddenly there was a brilliant flash and the plane rocked violently. Smoke and flames began to pour back through the cowling into the cockpit, and the ungainly aircraft started to lose altitude. Herlik switched to the rear fuel tank as Osburn, the co-pilot, hit in the face, arm and side by shrapnel and burned by the flames, managed to shut off the fuel supply from the damaged forward tank and call “mayday” on the emergency channel. Herlik yelled for the back-enders to put on their chutes and began to look for a place to land, selecting a dry rice paddy as the nearest spot. The aircraft was going down fast.
As the four men exited the damaged plane, they began to hear gunfire. Enemy forces were closing in on all sides. Herlik first thought the crew might be in the middle of a fire fight, as the troops on one side seemed to be positioned in opposition to the troops on the other, but he soon realized both sides were zeroing in on them. Small arms fire began to hit all around them, and seemed to be mainly targeting the Otter. Each officer had a standard issue .38 caliber revolver in a pistol belt, and the two enlisted men each had an M-16 rifle and one bandoleer (seven magazines) of ammunition. That was their total armament. This was to have been an intelligence mission, not a combat mission, and they were not Marines.
Jack Fisher continues: “After Pryor and I got our M-16s out of the back of the plane, Warrant Officer Osburn took my weapon right out of my hands. I don’t know why; maybe he sensed some reluctance on my part, or his Green Beret training took over. Maybe he knew he had no chance with a handgun, plus he figured he would be better with the rifle than me. Then again, my face probably showed that I was scared nutsless, as we used to say back then. I was not cut out for infantry, although I had qualified ‘expert’ with the M-14 in basic training. I had never even fired an M-16, and there is a lot of difference between shooting at a target and shooting at a person, especially when they are shooting at you.” The four men split up in the hope that one or more of them might be able to escape. With no weapon, Fisher just tried to keep his head down.
The plane seemed to be the main target of the attack. The Americans assumed the attacking troops were NVA or VC, or a combination of both. The soldiers were firing mostly small arms, with a few rocket propelled grenades and soon had the aircraft ablaze.
The ensuing firefight lasted about twenty-to-thirty minutes. “Until we ran out of ammo,” says Robert Pryor. Pryor had removed all classified materials and their voice scrambler from the plane and taken it with him. The top-secret materials must not fall into enemy hands. When he saw they would not be rescued, he threw the heavy bag with the scrambler and other materials under the burning plane, making certain he was successful in his effort to destroy everything of value.
U.S. aircraft had heard the “mayday” call and were circling overhead, but there was little they could do. A barrage of ground fire kept them at bay and they could not fire back without the possibility of hitting the men they wanted to save. The embattled ASA crew was on its own. Fisher and Pryor were soon surrounded by a large number of very young-looking Vietnamese soldiers brandishing AK-47 rifles. The soldiers appeared to be fifteen or sixteen years old and moved in from all sides as the two young Americans raised their hands and awaited their fate. Herlik was soon brought in by another group of soldiers, bound with rope, but there was no sign of Laird Osburn. Considering the intensity of the fight they had just been through, the three survivors could only assume the worst.
(To be continued …)
[Based on “The Long Way Home,” Chapter 22, “Unlikely Warriors: The Army Security Agency’s Secret War in Vietnam 1961-1973”]
Photograph #1: RU-1A “Otter” in flight (Photographer unknown)
Photograph #2: The pilots of the 146th Aviation Co. (RR), ASA – 1968-1969 – Number six (from the left), seated in the center row, is Maj. Querin Herlik; Number eight (from the left), standing in the back row, is Warrant Officer 2 Laird Osburn. (Photo: U.S. Army via John Langwasser – John is number five (from the left), standing in the back row)
THE 146TH ASA LOSES ANOTHER PLANE – FEBRUARY 1969
On Sunday, 16 February 1969, 45 years ago today, the Pacific Edition of "Stars and Stripes" printed an Associated Press article at the top of page six. The article was date-lined “Saigon,” and the headline read: “Plane Shot Down Over Cambodia-4 Americans Aboard.”
On the previous Wednesday (2/12/69), an RU-1A Otter piloted by the commanding officer of the 146th Aviation Co. (RR), Major Querin Herlik, had been cruising along the border of Tay Ninh Province, South Vietnam and the “Parrot’s Beak,” a chunk of Cambodia located at the southern end of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Army Security Agency aircraft was less than 35 miles from its takeoff point at Tan Son Nhut Air Base near Saigon and was flying at 3,500 feet. Accompanying Maj. Herlik were his co-pilot, Warrant Officer 2 Laird Osburn, and the back-end team of Spc5 John “Jack” Fisher, a Morse intercept operator, and Spc5 Robert Pryor, a Viet voice intercept op. They had been locating and intercepting the communications of NVA and VC units that were known to be operating along the Cambodian border.
Suddenly there was a brilliant flash and the plane rocked violently. Smoke and flames began to pour back through the cowling into the cockpit, and the ungainly aircraft started to lose altitude. Herlik switched to the rear fuel tank as Osburn, the co-pilot, hit in the face, arm and side by shrapnel and burned by the flames, managed to shut off the fuel supply from the damaged forward tank and call “mayday” on the emergency channel. Herlik yelled for the back-enders to put on their chutes and began to look for a place to land, selecting a dry rice paddy as the nearest spot. The aircraft was going down fast.
As the four men exited the damaged plane, they began to hear gunfire. Enemy forces were closing in on all sides. Herlik first thought the crew might be in the middle of a fire fight, as the troops on one side seemed to be positioned in opposition to the troops on the other, but he soon realized both sides were zeroing in on them. Small arms fire began to hit all around them, and seemed to be mainly targeting the Otter. Each officer had a standard issue .38 caliber revolver in a pistol belt, and the two enlisted men each had an M-16 rifle and one bandoleer (seven magazines) of ammunition. That was their total armament. This was to have been an intelligence mission, not a combat mission, and they were not Marines.
Jack Fisher continues: “After Pryor and I got our M-16s out of the back of the plane, Warrant Officer Osburn took my weapon right out of my hands. I don’t know why; maybe he sensed some reluctance on my part, or his Green Beret training took over. Maybe he knew he had no chance with a handgun, plus he figured he would be better with the rifle than me. Then again, my face probably showed that I was scared nutsless, as we used to say back then. I was not cut out for infantry, although I had qualified ‘expert’ with the M-14 in basic training. I had never even fired an M-16, and there is a lot of difference between shooting at a target and shooting at a person, especially when they are shooting at you.” The four men split up in the hope that one or more of them might be able to escape. With no weapon, Fisher just tried to keep his head down.
The plane seemed to be the main target of the attack. The Americans assumed the attacking troops were NVA or VC, or a combination of both. The soldiers were firing mostly small arms, with a few rocket propelled grenades and soon had the aircraft ablaze.
The ensuing firefight lasted about twenty-to-thirty minutes. “Until we ran out of ammo,” says Robert Pryor. Pryor had removed all classified materials and their voice scrambler from the plane and taken it with him. The top-secret materials must not fall into enemy hands. When he saw they would not be rescued, he threw the heavy bag with the scrambler and other materials under the burning plane, making certain he was successful in his effort to destroy everything of value.
U.S. aircraft had heard the “mayday” call and were circling overhead, but there was little they could do. A barrage of ground fire kept them at bay and they could not fire back without the possibility of hitting the men they wanted to save. The embattled ASA crew was on its own. Fisher and Pryor were soon surrounded by a large number of very young-looking Vietnamese soldiers brandishing AK-47 rifles. The soldiers appeared to be fifteen or sixteen years old and moved in from all sides as the two young Americans raised their hands and awaited their fate. Herlik was soon brought in by another group of soldiers, bound with rope, but there was no sign of Laird Osburn. Considering the intensity of the fight they had just been through, the three survivors could only assume the worst.
(To be continued …)
[Based on “The Long Way Home,” Chapter 22, “Unlikely Warriors: The Army Security Agency’s Secret War in Vietnam 1961-1973”]
Photograph #1: RU-1A “Otter” in flight (Photographer unknown)
Photograph #2: The pilots of the 146th Aviation Co. (RR), ASA – 1968-1969 – Number six (from the left), seated in the center row, is Maj. Querin Herlik; Number eight (from the left), standing in the back row, is Warrant Officer 2 Laird Osburn. (Photo: U.S. Army via John Langwasser – John is number five (from the left), standing in the back row)