In memory of my friends. 45 years ago and each March 20th my heart breaks all over.
On March 20, 1971 CW2 Billy Royal and SP4 Beardsley were flying as my wing ship on a "sneaky Pete". One of those missions that the scouts flew fast and straight in really bad guy country only stopping if we found something of real significance. While flying along a canal bank I found a village with people in it that didn't belong there. This was a free fire zone and supposedly all friendlies had been pulled out. When we spotted the people scattering, I swung back around to get a better look and told Billy to stay back until we could determine what was what. When I came back over the village my CE (sorry but I can't for the life of me remember who that was) were caught in an aerial ambush. We were low and slow and VC/NVA opened up with what seemed like the whole world. I called taking fire and shoved the nose extremely over. Billy ignoring my advice to stay clear came roaring in to draw the fire off of us. The last thing I saw was his aircraft erupt in a huge ball of fire and exploding. The explosion combined with the attitude of our aircraft (full lateral cyclic along with full opposite pedal so the gunner could still shoot below us) nearly pushed us into the water. We recovered with the skids in the canal at about 50 knots. Every time a scout went down the other one stayed right on top of him to cover while C&C attempted rescue. This time it was glaringly obvious that there was no one left to recover. We went to altitude and waited while the guns pounded the area. I never did get a lot of feed back about the insertion that followed or the condition of the bodies. Speculation was that he took a B40 rocket in the belly --fuel tank-- and along with the 40 lbs or so of C4 they were carrying caused that aircraft to explode so violently. I down deep didn't want to know, I just wanted to remember Billy as he was. A good friend. Billy was roommates with CW2? Wisser and CW2 Bob Parsons. Billy was the kind of guy that everyone liked and his death got under my skin pretty deeply. Even without the reminders of news letters and seeing his name on the "Wall" at Fort Rucker.
I think about him occasionally and remember that he was responsible for bailing me out of that ambush.--at the cost of their lives.
On March 20, 1971 CW2 Billy Royal and SP4 Beardsley were flying as my wing ship on a "sneaky Pete". One of those missions that the scouts flew fast and straight in really bad guy country only stopping if we found something of real significance. While flying along a canal bank I found a village with people in it that didn't belong there. This was a free fire zone and supposedly all friendlies had been pulled out. When we spotted the people scattering, I swung back around to get a better look and told Billy to stay back until we could determine what was what. When I came back over the village my CE (sorry but I can't for the life of me remember who that was) were caught in an aerial ambush. We were low and slow and VC/NVA opened up with what seemed like the whole world. I called taking fire and shoved the nose extremely over. Billy ignoring my advice to stay clear came roaring in to draw the fire off of us. The last thing I saw was his aircraft erupt in a huge ball of fire and exploding. The explosion combined with the attitude of our aircraft (full lateral cyclic along with full opposite pedal so the gunner could still shoot below us) nearly pushed us into the water. We recovered with the skids in the canal at about 50 knots. Every time a scout went down the other one stayed right on top of him to cover while C&C attempted rescue. This time it was glaringly obvious that there was no one left to recover. We went to altitude and waited while the guns pounded the area. I never did get a lot of feed back about the insertion that followed or the condition of the bodies. Speculation was that he took a B40 rocket in the belly --fuel tank-- and along with the 40 lbs or so of C4 they were carrying caused that aircraft to explode so violently. I down deep didn't want to know, I just wanted to remember Billy as he was. A good friend. Billy was roommates with CW2? Wisser and CW2 Bob Parsons. Billy was the kind of guy that everyone liked and his death got under my skin pretty deeply. Even without the reminders of news letters and seeing his name on the "Wall" at Fort Rucker.
I think about him occasionally and remember that he was responsible for bailing me out of that ambush.--at the cost of their lives.
