RIP, EIGHT-ZERO-EIGHT.
Notice who their Platoon Leader was - CPT Ed 'Too Tall' Freeman of Ia Drang fame and CMH recipient.
Richard
A Note from The Virtual Wall
The Vietnam Helicopter Pilots' Association database contains the following statement from
Captain Ed Freeman, the platoon leader for this flight:
"On Dec. 27th, CWO Phelps was selected to fly from a base camp near Qui Nhon, about 20 miles north of An Khe, to the "golf course" at An Khe. The reason he was selected was because he was the most qualified to fly by instrumentation. The crew stayed the night at An Khe, so they could get a good night's rest and clean up. The next morning they departed from An Khe with a cargo of machine guns and hot food for the troops at the base camp near Qui Nhon. They radioed ahead to the forward camp that they were in the air and on the way. There was no contact after that. Within a short time of being overdue a search was ordered of a grid area that was determined to be where they could have run out of fuel, in all directions. The search went on by air for a period of 3 days. There was one spot that appeared to have had disturbance in the trees and a Chinook helicopter was brought in and troops did rappel into the area. They didn't find anything. A ground search was conducted in various areas, but some areas were not accessible, due to the jungle and swamp conditions."
UH-1D tail number 63-08808 of A Company, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion departed An Khe shortly before dawn on 28 December 1965. The planned flight route passed over mountainous terrain in the vicinity of the An Khe Pass.
The flight crew consisted of:
- CW2 Kenneth Leon Stancil, pilot
- CW2 Jesse Donald Phelps, copilot
- SP5 Donald C. Grella, crew chief
- SP4 Thomas Rice, Jr, gunner
About ten minutes after the 0555 take-off, CW2 Stancil contacted the A Company forward operating base to obtain current weather information. That was the last contact with the aircraft.
The aircraft was declared down at 0715 and search-and-rescue operations began at 0730. No trace of the aircraft or its crew was found. The four crewmen were declared to be Missing in Action.
During the first annual review of this incident, the Review Board concluded that all available evidence indicated that the four men had died in the crash of their helicopter and their status was changed on 29 Dec 1966 to "Died While Missing/Body not Recovered".
The crash site has not been located and the remains of the four crewmen have not been repatriated.
With the exception of WO Phelps, the men were previously assigned to the Aviation Company of the 7th Special Forces Group, which was then attached to the 229th Aviation Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division;
WO Phelps was from the 5th Special Forces Group and similary attached. "A" Company, 229th Avn Bn (C/S -
HACKSAW) was formed using personnel and equipment assets from these attachments.