Sometime between March and May 1970 I was the AC (can't remember tail #, it was not my normal bird) while supporting MACV out of Song Mau. We were flying a South Vietnamese Colonel to several locations in the field WNW of Phan Thiet during an offensive they were conducting. After dropping
the Colonel off back at Song Mau, I was doing resupply for some of those field sites we had been visiting or flying over earlier and now had an American Captain and a Vietnamese Lieutenant (may be reversed on rank of the PAC's). When departing a field site we took heavy small arms fire just after lift off at the RVN LZ and at about 100ft. I don't remember the exact number of hits that were
found but seems like it was around 60 entry holes (was counted after it was slung loaded back to base). We later learned that the S Vietnamese troops that we were supporting had been coerced to shoot us down by NVA insurgents that thought that the Colonel was still on board and they wanted him killed. After we were hit, I was trying to just get away and put some distance from the area we
had been hit at and we had several issues (master cautions) but she was still flying. Also due to heavy jungle there was no where to make a forced landing. When we were hit we developed an inflight fire that seemed like it was forever for the CE to get to the extinguisher on the floor beside the CP seat. He managed to control the fire that kept flaring back up (good Job CE). It turned out that one of the enemy rounds had hit a pen gun flare round that the crew chief had stored along with some rags he used to wipe down the deck with in one of the cubby holes in the frame strut/door support behind my seat). During all of this I now have a 20 minute fuel caution light that came on (just moments before prior to TO I had 600 lbs) I could see the needle continue to drop and knew I had to set it down. After locating a small hole of a clearing and while trying to decelerate and descend, I noticed I could see a rainbow of moisture in the vortices and noticed that my shoulder and arm and face shield was wet with fuel. I realized it must becoming from the evidently ruptured fuel bladder and that we had nearly lost 600 lbs in few minutes. The CE was still having to suppress the fire totally which kept relighting and now smoldering and filling the cockpit with smoke. Then on short final and at 75 ft and less than 30 knots I lost the engine. I did the best autorotation I could but still wrapped the skids around the fuselage and broke the tail boom. There was no logical reason why we did not explode with all the fuel around (more so when we slowed and going down, other than now it was mostly gone). I am sure others are still having back issues as I,due to that landing.
Mike Dean
Stallion 13
6/69 - 6/70
