Pitsenbarger had five oak leaf clusters to his Air Medal, each representing 25 flights over hostile territory, and more clusters were pending. Search-and-rescue missions did not happen every day, but when they did, the choppers often flew multiple sorties, searching the jungles or shuttling between battle zones, bases, and field hospitals. He had applied to Arizona State, where he hoped to study to become a nurse. He planned to leave the Air Force when his hitch was up. He had also been to Air Force “tree jump” school, training that included three parachute jumps into a forest, wearing tree jumping suits. Benning, Ga., and qualified by the Navy as a scuba diver. He had been through Army jump school at Ft. As a PJ, he was both a medic and a survival specialist. He had not yet completed his first enlistment in the Air Force. “I don’t have a good feeling about this one.” “There’s about a million VC in the area,” he said. Pitsenbarger told him they were going to help an Army company in trouble. He spoke briefly with A2C Roy Boudreaux, one of the three airmen with whom he shared a cubicle in a Quonset hut. He would be the PJ-the Pararescue Jumper-on the second crew. Pitsenbarger was in the alert trailer when the call came in.
With that many wounded to bring out, two helicopters would go.Ī1C William H. The Army was reporting at least six casualties. The Air Force’s HH-43 helicopters could lower a hoist to the jungle floor.Īt 3:07 p.m., Bien Hoa got the call to go from the search-and-rescue control center in Saigon. 6, 38th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron, at Bien Hoa, 20 miles northeast of Saigon. The nearest clearing where the Army could land a Huey medevac helicopter was four miles away, so as the casualties began to mount, a call went to Det. Of the 134 men who went into the jungle that day, all except 28 would be either wounded or killed before the battle was over. The VC sprang the trap, and the fighting grew desperate. Libs, who in 1966 was a first lieutenant leading C Company’s 2nd Platoon.īy mid-afternoon, D-800 had Charlie Company isolated and encircled. “What we didn’t know on Monday, April 11, was that we were walking straight into D-800’s base camp, and that the undergrowth was so utterly dense in this part of the jungle that we couldn’t be reinforced easily,” said John W.
The mismatch was of little concern, since the soldiers expected to be reinforced if they encountered the enemy in strength. The Americans knew from intelligence reports that D-800 was a first-line battalion with 400 troops and a backup force of women and children. As the day wore on, the unevenness of the terrain led Charlie Company away from the other two.Įarly that afternoon, Charlie Company flushed a Viet Cong platoon, killed several VC, and pursued the others deeper into the jungle. Three rifle companies–Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie–of the 2nd Battalion of the 16th Infantry Regiment were conducting the search near the village of Cam My.
The US 1st Infantry Division was pushing through the dense jungle east of Saigon in search of the Viet Cong battalion known as D-800.