Name: CW2 Ralph William Bigelow (posthumously promoted)
Status: Killed In Action from an incident on 05/22/1970 while performing the duty of Pilot.
Age at death: 21.4
Date of Birth: 12/15/1948
Home City: Delevan, NY
Service: AV branch of the reserve component of the U.S. Army.
Unit: HHC 198 BDE 23 INF
Prior Unit: 176 AHC
Major organization: 198th Light Infantry Brigade
Flight class: 69-13
Service: AV branch of the U.S. Army.
The Wall location: 10W-078
Short Summary: Received 10 to 20 rounds of small arms fire, crashed and burned.
Aircraft: OH-6A tail number 68-17354
Service number: W3164659
Country: South Vietnam
MOS: 100B = Utility/Observation Helicopter Pilot
Primary cause: Hostile Fire
Major attributing cause: aircraft connected not at sea
Compliment cause: fire or burns
Vehicle involved: helicopter
Position in vehicle: pilot
Started Tour: 07/23/1969
"Official" listing: helicopter air casualty - pilot
Length of service: *
Location: Quang Ngai Province I Corps.
Reason: aircraft lost or crashed
Casualty type: Hostile - killed
single male U.S. citizen
Race: Caucasian
Religion: Roman Catholic
Burial information: DELEVAN CEM, DELEVAN, NY
The following information secondary, but may help in explaining this incident.
Category of casualty as defined by the Army: battle dead Category of personnel: active duty Army Military class: warrant officer
This record was last updated on 04/26/2002
This information is available on CD-ROM.
Additional information is available on KIAs at http://www.coffeltdatabase.org
Please send additions or corrections to: The VHPA Webmaster Gary Roush.
KIA statistics
Return to the Helicopter Pilot KIA name list
Return to the KIA panel date index
Date posted on this site: 10/25/2024
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association