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) damn near 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 Rucker I think about him occasionally and remember that he and Beardsly were responsible for bailing my miserable ass out of that ambush.--at the cost of their lives. from Frank Ziebert, Sep. 97.
Please raise a glass with me
- Thread starter Stinger
- Start date
I'll tell you what man... I've never met you, but from what I do know, you've lived a long and storied life. While the raw reality of stories like this hits a nerve with me, I really like to hear stories like this. I appreciate that you continue to tell stories like this so that they can get passed on, heard by others, and Billy (among others) won't be forgotten anytime soon.
He sounds like a real hero to me!
He sounds like a real hero to me!
He and Breadsely were and are. Thanks Chris!
I raise my glass for Billy....what a "Hero".
Helicopter pilots to me are Hero's. To this day, every time I hear the popping of helicopter blades, it throws me right back to the day we were up the river and ran out of ammo. It was weird. All of a sudden it was quiet....we were out of ammo! How could that happen!? Our helicopter spotter radioed to us to get the hell out of there, that the VC were almost on us. Well, that thing wasn't built for speed, it was built for fire power. As we were turning around and getting out of there, he kept them off of us by standing that helicopter on its nose and laying it over on the door gunner's side, laying down as much fire power as they could while we got the hell out of there. Hero's!
Helicopter pilots to me are Hero's. To this day, every time I hear the popping of helicopter blades, it throws me right back to the day we were up the river and ran out of ammo. It was weird. All of a sudden it was quiet....we were out of ammo! How could that happen!? Our helicopter spotter radioed to us to get the hell out of there, that the VC were almost on us. Well, that thing wasn't built for speed, it was built for fire power. As we were turning around and getting out of there, he kept them off of us by standing that helicopter on its nose and laying it over on the door gunner's side, laying down as much fire power as they could while we got the hell out of there. Hero's!
jplyfe
New Member
Stinger,
My son is a Marine and I pray everyday for his safety. These stories are chilling to the bone every time I hear one. I can't tell you how proud I am of the work that is done over in the "badland". Stay strong man, and thanks for work you do!
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Glass raised, toast made, prayer said. Those good men are beyond our help, but not beyond our respect or thoughts. Thanks for sharing, Frank.
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