Allied soldiers onboard or getting onboard the helicopter

Allied soldiers onboard or getting onboard the helicopter

1. 
   The aircrews providing statements during 2009 and 2010 and the 2009/2010 BBC film entitled “Vietnam Firefight,” clearly state that numerous allied soldiers were killed on the aircraft while they were boarding the helicopters or already had boarded.
   
2. 
   SF Medic Dopp along with many of the crew members describes through statements and the film “Vietnam Firefight, seeing many allied soldiers shot as they tried to reach the helicopter flown by Baca and Liss during the medical evacuation that immediately preceded the rescue of the allied unit.
   

3. 
   There is no mention in the award citations and orders of the allied soldiers being killed during the extraction from the Landing Zone. There is actually no mention of wounded or dead, since no one was ever interviewed.
   
4. 
   Nor is there mention of allied soldiers being shot as they tried to reach the Baca-Liss helicopter during the medical evacuation.
   

Although new in country and new to the team, MSG Lloyd insisted on taking his turn on the next operation and was joined by the most experienced NCO on the team SFC Hughes. They walked into a large ambush. The survivors were regrouping and radioing for assistance. The vegetation in the area was extremely dense with short visibility and few remarkable features that would make it impossible to identify their location from earlier reports they had sent in. We were over very thick vegetation not far from the Song Be River. There was no clear area near these men where a helicopter could set down or even hover safely. Despite the potential danger Major Ronnie Mendoza ordered his pilot to go in closer. The he started to tie a rope around my waist, telling me he wanted me on the ground as quickly as possible to help SFC Hughes. The helicopter began taking small arms fire. To keep me from being exposed too long he asked his pilot to move down as close as he could get. Then the rear tail rotor clipped a tree and the helicopter started to wobble erratically. The pilot said he thought we were going down. He managed to keep us in the air for several minutes then set us down on a road.

The Major was able to get several other helicopters (Liss/Baca and Swickard/Dolan) sent to pick us up and start the extraction of the entire CIDG Company. In as much as one helicopter had already been forced down it took extreme courage for these pilots to return to the area with neither active air support nor a ground element to suppress anti-aircraft fire.

Our other team medic SGT Wm. Gallagher went on the next extraction. He reported that the small arms fire intensified more with each trip as the enemy force was able to close in on the evacuation site as the number of defenders dwindled.

It was determined later by the 1^st IN Div that the force encountered by the helicopter crews was Battalion size or greater.

With the exception of the protracted engagement of the Special Forces Camp Loc Ninh in October 1967, the level of fire was the most intense I encountered during the war. What was most remarkable was the willingness of the helicopter pilots to work in an area with such dense cover and poor landing conditions and so much concentrated fire power. On other occasions I experienced having pilots decline to even set us down in areas far less hostile.

He was an Avionics Engineer. He was required to be sure the ability to talk from “helicopter to other helicopter, ground combat forces and air traffic control. These absolute requirements make the Signal Detachment an essential part of the overall team within the Assault Helicopter Co.

A door gunner is a crewman tasked with firing and maintaining manually directed armament aboard a helicopter. The actual role will vary depending on the task given on a particular mission...

ILT Croteau volunteered on this mission to be the acting door gunner a duty which he was not trained for.

1. 
   “When we hit the ground troops appeared I left the craft and started to load the ship with wounded and dead.
   
2. 
   Whenever we landed, soldiers rushed both ships to get on. At times they had to be removed or prevented from boarding otherwise the ship would have been extremely overloaded even more so then they were. It was only through courage and extra ordinary skill of both PICS that the helicopters ever took off.
   
3. 
   “We took in the load, the dead bodies were piling up, one guy lost his head and I grabbed his carbine and put it next to me.
   
4. 
   Al remembers holding people off, making sure nobody else got on”. “You could see the fear there, but there wasn’t panic. There weren’t people pushing and shoving; they were trying to get on, but it was a politeness to it”. “They were disciplined”.
   
5. 
   When the Huey chopped its way to the ground, Al remembers it as a whirlwind.”
   
6. 
   “It was an absolutely devastating noise. It was almost like a tornado type of noise. My mind was just picturing those rotor blades> I thought “He’s just destroying this aircraft>” It was just horrifying: it was horrifying. The noise was tremendous. And the debris was flying everywhere.”
   
7. 
   Though Al’s M-60 machine gun has jammed as the Huey approached the South Vietnamese soldiers, Jack thought it was still operating. I remember telling Jack, “the gun has jammed; my M-60’s were jammed…”.
   
8. 
   “When I was on the ground, I never fired. Once we landed, I never fired. I emptied ,my .45 and put it back in the holster, and once we landed, I never used a weapon again.”
   

The pilots, Baca, Liss, Swickard and Dolan managed to fly 5 or 6 sorties each while extracting our entire CIDG Company and two USSF soldiers. Each time that they returned, the pilot flying that particular sortie had to again, use his rotor blades to make more room to maneuver to get close enough to our remaining forces. The enemy force that our folks encountered that Sunday afternoon was much larger and more determined than any another VC/NVA force we had met on previous missions. The pilots and crew members of those two helicopters were extremely brave and demonstrated extraordinary heroism by flying a non-MEDEVAC and unarmed helicopter into the midst of an intense fire fight that resulted in saving 80 or more lives with no fire support from gunships, artillery or A-IE aircraft support.”

“Intrepidity” a point of comparison at Cau Song Be and by Dakota Meyer in Afghanistan a recent MOH recipient regarding returning to rescue soldiers not once but five times during the battlefield

CDR David Williams observing for Congressman Pearce said this about Cau Song Be on 16 Sept 2008“It is one thing to do a heroic act instinctively in a moment of danger; it is quite another to have time to think about it, do it once and see the danger up close and personal, and then do it several more times knowing the danger is mounting with each mission. You could have chosen at any time to not go back and no one would have faulted you.  But you kept going back for as long as there was hope for more rescues.

Bing West, a Marine combat veteran of the Vietnam War and former assistant secretary of defense, wrote about Meyer in his book, “The Wrong War,” saying: “For a man to charge into fire once requires grit that is instinctive in few men ... to go in a fourth time is to know you will die; to go in a fifth time is beyond comprehension.

The attached photos are “clips” from the National Geographic Documentary
“Helicopter Wars-Vietnam Firefight 2009 and were taken in Vietnam in 2008 at the landing zone and are representative of the conditions that existed at the time. One photo is a computerized enhancement of the act of descending down through the same vegetation.







7. Clarification of the Act of Uncommon Valor demonstrated by CPT Liss and sworn to by WO Tom Baca by exiting the aircraft defending the troops while speeding their evacuation.

WO Tom Baca had 10 days left in country. He was the CMD Pilot and was the eyewitness who attested to the actions of CPT Liss. Both WO Baca and CPT Liss were awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for Valor.

I refer now to two documents, the affidavit dated 22 July 2010 and the narrative from the National Geographic Documentary as it pertains to the actions of CPT Liss.

Excerpts from affidavit dated 22 July 2010.

1. 
   Upon being asked to volunteer to go and rescue the besieged soldiers, “I remember thinking…no machine guns, no medics, only a crew chief and no gunner. We had an active firefight on the ground and no gunship support. I had only a few weeks remaining before I headed home.”
   

2. 
   Upon arriving at the landing site…””it was a narrow trail covered by 30”’ high bamboo forest that extended away from the trail for several thousand meters. I descend down through on the first extraction. CPT Liss assessed the situation tactically staying close to the controls. His valuable call outs of obstacles, etc during the approach and landing allowed me to complete the initial landing without disastrous failure”.
   

3. 
   “After the first return we received a call to be prepared to evacuate the entire force. CPTL Liss flew the third and fifth trips. Due to friendly troop’s movement, he had to cut through new bamboo in order to land close to them inside the shrinking perimeter.”
   

4. 
   “I witnessed CPT Liss, in total disregard for his own well-being and safety exit the aircraft on the fifth and six landings with his personal weapons to assist in rallying the troops left on the ground. He was totally exposed to small arms fire on both of these courageous initiatives. They were outside of his normal duties of a pilot, but showed bravery beyond the call of duty.”
   

5. 
   “During the last extraction we were overloaded with CIDG Forces, with some on the skids. On take-off CPT Liss virtually held onto two troops standing on the skids while staying close to the controls…”
   
6. 
   The active participation of CPT Lawrence Liss resulted in the rescue of over 80 allied troops and one US Special Forces Advisor. His ground tactical experience and knowledge, plus his aviation expertise were invaluable to the successful outcome of the mission.
   
7. 
   In my opinion, CPT Liss’ courage, aggressiveness, determination nd leadership under extreme conditions warrants an upgrade from the Distinguished Flying Cross to the Medal of Honor. Had the details of the mission been known at the IIFF Headquarters, such a recommendation would probably been made at the time.
   
8. 
   The Special Forces personnel involved did not have the administrative mechanism to fully present the nature of the mission to higher authorities. Just recently participants in the mission have been contacted to solicit their recollections of that day. CPT Johnson and SP/5 Dopp have provided supporting witness statements for this unselfish act of heroism by CPT Liss. Recognition and upgrade are overdue.
   

The Chain of Command consisted of two…and one more…CPT Wallace Johnson (on the ground and an eye witness) who assumed command the moment the helicopters volunteered their aircraft for this mission.

1. 
   General Weyand was Commander of II Field Force
   

1. 
   General Weyand as former commander of IIFF signed his letter on 10 July 2009 and was sent a DD Form 638 on CPT Liss’ action on 14 April 2009
   

2. 
   Major Harry Drotor was CDR IIFF Flight Detachment and died in 1973.
   

3. 
   The Flight Detachment had no XO, CPT John Green was the second in command writing to LTC Stephenson on 23 Sept 2010 as his staff S-3 offering an apology for his part in adverse command influence that existed at the time.
   

4. 
   CPT Wallace Johnson, CDR 5^th Special Forces Detachment A-333
   

1. 
   CPT Wallace Johnson affidavit 29 May 2009, DD Form 638 on CPT Liss’ action as well as proposed MOH citation