1. On the night of April 4, 1968, the Black Angels were called upon to supply suppressive fire for Charlie Company 1/505 Inf.

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2. Three Black Angel gunships took off just before dusk and made their way under a low ceiling to the embattled troops’ position northwest of Hue, Republic of Vietnam (RVN). It was dark when we found the village from which Charlie Company was receiving heavy automatic weapons, R.P.G., and mortar fire.

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3. Even though the smoke, haze, and fog made flying very hazardous, we were able to pinpoint the enemy location by observing friendly tracers and a flashlight held by the Company Commander. Close coordination was needed with the ground commander because the fire had to be directed very close to Charlie Company’s front line [and there were other units in the area].

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4. After each firing run, the Company Commander would call his correction so that the next ship could put his ordinance exactly where it was needed. The ground commander sounded extremely pleased with the firing during our attacks and stated that the enemy positions were silenced. He said that he could now recover the wounded from his front positions and regroup his forces.

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5. One of our wing ships that carried nothing but rockets had expended on the village and returned to base. We remained on station with the other wing ship to cover a medevac ship that would try to evacuate the wounded.

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6. This ship arrived about fifteen minutes later and was directed in by a means of a red light. The medevac ship lost sight of the light during its approach due to poor visibility and started to head too close to the enemy positions. Cpt Fry told him to turn and head out as fast as possible, but the enemy opened up on the ship. Immediately, the door gunner SP/4 Copeland returned fire, but the medevac ship had already taken numerous hits and had to return to his base to check out the damage.

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7. When informed that no further medevac ships would be available for at least another hour to get the critical cases to a hospital, Cpt Fry decided we would extract them ourselves.

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8. With the wing ship trying to fly cover, we made a lights-off approach to the red light. With the visibility dropping fast, this seemed to be the only way to extract the wounded that night.

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9. Once on the ground, SP/4 Bartlett and SP/4 Copeland, with complete disregard for their own safety, jumped from the aircraft in the face of the enemy fire and loaded the wounded. Five casualties were loaded in the aircraft, and the 7.62 mm door gun ammo was passed over to the ground troops for their own weapons.

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10. As soon as everyone was aboard, we started a very dangerous lights-off take-off over the rice paddy dikes and then over the trees. Under hazardous weather conditions, we made our way to LZ Sally and made a running landing because of the weight of the overloaded gunship.

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11. I noticed that the gunner was having trouble in the back with two of the wounded who appeared to be about to fall from the ship. SP/4 Bartlett and I came to his aid and helped pull them back in.

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12. The wing ship had to return to base because he was low on fuel. For this reason, the second lift had to be without gunship cover.

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13. Again, an approach was started without lights, but the visibility was so bad the aircraft search light had to be turned on periodically during the descent to obtain ground reference. This also provided enemy gunners with a target to aim at. The aircraft struck the ground in one of the blacked-out periods, causing SP/4 Bartlett to drop his M-16 that he was using as a door gun.

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14. When we finally made it to the pick-up site, more wounded were loaded aboard, as the crew chief and gunner again exposed themselves to enemy fire and unloaded long belts of mini-gun ammo to partially resupply Charlie Company gunners.

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15. Under the poorest flying conditions, we returned to LZ Sally aid station once again. The controller at Sally then requested that we transport two critical cases to the hospital at Phu Bai for special treatment because the weather had deteriorated, and the medevacs were unable to fly. With the door gunner holding plasma for one of the patients, the gunship made its last unorthodox flight of the night.