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Late in the afternoon of the last day covering the Cambodian incursion as a still photographer I boarded a Chinook helicopter for the flight back to Pleiku.\u00a0 Also aboard the chopper were an Associated Press reporter, AP photographer Henri Huet, and an Army platoon.\u00a0 On our way back to Pleiku our Chinook made an unscheduled landing in a desolate area of small trees and shrubs a few miles outside of Pleiku.\u00a0 As we circled the landing site I couldn\u2019t see any lights and didn’t understand why we were landing.\u00a0 The platoon was told to form a defensive perimeter around the Chinook.\u00a0 The AP reporter, Henri Huet and myself were told to walk forward to where a helicopter had crashed, a distance of about 200 feet.\u00a0 The chopper engine was white hot and glowing in the twilight. \u00a0It was bright enough to illuminate the crash scene. \u00a0From my observation this ship could never have flown again.\u00a0 Certainly the engine was not operable.\u00a0 (My account is contrary to the official report <\/a>of the downing of Helicopter UH-1D tail number 65-10079, GhostRiders 079.\u00a0 The report states, \u201cThe helicopter made a Forced Landing. Aircraft was capable of one time flight.\u201d)<\/p>\n I don\u2019t remember removing anyone from inside the chopper.\u00a0 The bodies were spilled out and laying on the ground near the wreckage.\u00a0 I immediately noticed several aluminum 35mm film canisters scattered on the ground.\u00a0 I also found a badly dented 35mm camera.\u00a0 On the second trip back to the chopper I noticed that the soldiers who perished were wearing the same unit patch that I wore\u2014221st Signal Company.\u00a0 I knew who they were.\u00a0 I had last seen them only three days earlier in Pleiku on the day we left for Cambodia.\u00a0 In addition to the four crew members from the 189th Assault Helicopter Company, the five US Army combat photographers were, Larry Clayton Young; Christopher J. Childs, III; Ronald Sidney Lowe; Douglas John Itri; and Raymond Louis Paradis.\u00a0 The photographers were on their way back to Pleiku after covering the Cambodian incursion.\u00a0 I had last seen them boarding a Deuce and a Half in front of\u00a0the 221st Signal Company detachment office in Pleiku three days earlier.<\/p>\n We had gathered outside the detachment office for the ride\u00a0to the Pleiku airstrip.\u00a0 Seeing little space on the Deuce and a Half and not recognizing any of the men, I boarded a Jeep with SP5 James Beck, who\u00a0I knew from when I was assigned to the Pleiku detachment.<\/p>\n While covering the Cambodian incursion, the five 221 Signal Company\u00a0photographers were\u00a0given priority access to a chopper by a high ranking unit commander.<\/p>\n A brief description of the crash can be found at the 221st Website, \u201cOn May 9, 1970 five 221st combat photographers were killed in the downing of a UH-1D Huey of the 189th Assault Helicopter Company, GhostRiders 079.<\/a> The shootdown occurred near Pleiku as the men were taking part in the Cambodian incursion then underway. The exact circumstances may never be known but it is evident that the chopper was flying low enough to be hit by enemy small arms fire.\u201d\u00a0 An alternative description of the crash circulating at the time claimed that the NVA had recently placed radar controlled anti-aircraft guns in the area.\u00a0 The incident was reported erroneously in the book\u00a0Vietnam:\u00a0 Images from Combat Photographers<\/span> (Starwood Publishing, 1991) it read, \u201cDuring the Cambodian invasion, the 221st was badly shaken by the loss of an entire five-man team.\u00a0 Someone sent them into a hot LZ on the first wave of an assault, and their helicopter went down with no survivors.\u201d\u00a0 Arriving just a few minutes after the crash, I can say that the area\u00a0was not under fire.\u00a0 I saw no evidence of small arms fire and there was no blood.\u00a0 Blunt impact killed the occupants of GhostRiders 079.<\/p>\n After picking up the remains and again boarding the Chinook, the AP reporter asked me questions about the men from my unit.\u00a0 After answering his questions those of us sitting at\u00a0the rear of the chopper near the fallen soldiers were silent\u00a0until we arrived at the 71 Medevac Hospital in Pleiku. \u00a0After the bodies were taken off the Chinook by hospital personnel\u00a0the AP reporter, Henri Huet, and myself walked a few hundred yards to\u00a0the nearby Army compound where the II Corps Press Camp was located.\u00a0 When we got to the press camp\u00a0the AP reporter immediately filled his\u00a0story with\u00a0the AP Saigon news bureau from a telephone on the back wall in\u00a0the lobby.\u00a0 Back home, my wife heard about the crash on the CBS evening news\u2014five Army combat photographers perish in a crash on their way back from covering the Cambodian incursion. \u00a0She was only\u00a0put at ease the next morning when I called her\u00a0from a public telephone at the Pleiku airbase.\u00a0 A few days later in Long Binh I turned in the 35 mm camera found at the crash site to the 221st supply sergeant.\u00a0 A tribute to the photographers lost that day on GhostRiders 079 can be found at the 221st Signal Company Website http:\/\/221stsignalcompany.webplus.net\/page16.html<\/a><\/p>\n A few days later, back in Saigon, I met up with Henri Huet.\u00a0 I gave him a 35mm negative that I took of him helping recover the bodies.\u00a0 (The only picture taken at the crash site.)\u00a0 Tragically, Huet was killed when his helicopter was shot down covering South Vietnam\u2019s invasion of southern Laos in 1971.\u00a0 Three additional civilian photographers lost their lives in that crash\u2014Larry Burrows of Life Magazine; Kent Potter a UPI photographer; and Keisaburo Shimamoto on assignment for Newsweek Magazine.\u00a0 The story of their ill-fated flight into Laos and the recovery of their remains some thirty-five years later, can be found in Lost Over Laos<\/span>, by Richard Pyle and Horst Fass.\u00a0 See Google Books to download the online copy:\u00a0 https:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/Lost_Over_Laos.html?id=0PP5plSDbPwC<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Late in the afternoon of the last day covering the Cambodian incursion as a still photographer I boarded a Chinook helicopter for the flight back to Pleiku.\u00a0 Also aboard the chopper were an Associated Press reporter, AP photographer Henri Huet, and an Army platoon.\u00a0 On our way back to Pleiku our Chinook made an unscheduled … Continue reading GhostRiders 079 Crash<\/span> ![\"Pleiku](\"https:\/\/vietnamportfolio.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/09\/pleiku-detachment-221-sig-co.jpg?w=300&resize=300%2C300\")
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