Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
7:00 | After the intense and costly battle at Fire Base Ripcord, Huey pilot Fred Behrens was thinking he may not survive the tour. He was transferred to a different unit where he flew a smaller helicopter, the Loach, which he liked. The unit was dysfunctional, however, and he managed to make another move to Eagle Dust Off, a medical evacuation unit.
Keywords : Fred Behrens helicopter (chopper) pilot Vietnam Fire Support Base Ripcord Waylon Norris Chuck Norris Bob Kalsu Boeing CH-47 Chinook 2nd Brigade Combat Team 1st Cavalry Division Hughes OH-6 Cayuse (Loach) Eagle Dust Off Jungle Penetrator medic Bell UH-1 Iroquois (Huey) Dust Off Medical Evacuation (Medevac)
He was an aviation nut when he was a a kid, so when it came time to choose a branch, it was the Army for Fred Behrens. They offered the quickest route to the sky. He could be trained as a helicopter pilot rather quickly and that's what he did. In his mind, he still had a romantic and heroic notion of what war was like thanks to Hollywood.
The plane had to circle Tan Son Nhut airport because of incoming rocket fire. That's how Fred Behrens was welcomed to Vietnam. He was assigned to the Kingsmen, an assault helicopter company with the 101st Airborne. He received his baptism of fire at the battle of Fire Base Ripcord, where he took a piece of shrapnel and ignored it.
Operation Lam Son 719 was a sprawling and disastrous ARVN operation into Laos that resulted in great loss of life for the Vietnamese soldiers and for American pilots and crew members. Fred Behrens brought his Huey and his crew through it intact and uninjured. They were a little loopy when they got back to their base, though.
There was a hospital ship offshore that was a regular stop for Medevac pilot Fred Behrens. On one of these flights to the ship, his crew chief said there was a Major in the back just sitting there. Who was this guy?
He was already over his allotted hours so he wasn't even supposed to be flying. But when there was a ground unit under siege and all the other choppers were already there, Medevac pilot Fred Behrens offered to get an additional ship aloft. When he got to the site, the others were just circling overhead. He was puzzled at that but went right in, anyway, and picked up his first load of wounded. Part 1 of 2.
Fred Behrens was extracting a wounded man with a hoist up through the forest canopy and it was time to turn on the lights so the other chopper pilots could see him. That meant the NVA could see him, too, and as the tracers flew he got out of there quick. After dropping off the wounded and refueling, he returned to the site of the battle where he got a second load of wounded and watched as an RPG bounced off one of the skids. Part 2 of 2.
Some Rangers were getting shot up at a bad LZ and the Eagle Dust Off ships were on the way. Two choppers had already been shot down but Fred Behrens was not fazed. He sat his Huey down and picked up the injured squad leader. They got him to safety and returned but, during the second approach, he was shot through the ankle. As he struggled to control his aircraft, it received heavy fire and began to go down. Part 1 of 3.
At first light, downed Dust Off pilot Fred Behrens found himself in even more trouble. He took three rounds from a Cobra gunship and one from a sniper. He had already been shot while still in his chopper. The next day, the Rangers he had set out to evacuate took off and he was nearly hit with more friendly fire from a Phantom jet. Finally he saw the right uniforms heading toward him. Part 2 of 3.
Word back at the Eagle Dust Off base was that Fred Behrens was dead. Shot down and hit with five bullets, he survived two nights in the bush and was airlifted out when he was found by some Rangers. It was a long recovery with sometimes indifferent treatment by the Army. Part 3 of 3.
The Army showed him the door even though he was still in a wheelchair. Helicopter pilot Fred Behrens survived a crash and five bullet wounds and now he had to leave the Army he loved. He has some definite opinions on what went wrong in Vietnam and doesn't mind telling you about it.
