Information on U.S. Army helicopter AH-1G tail number 67-15718
The Army purchased this helicopter 0868
Total flight hours at this point: 00002640
Date: 06/20/1972
Incident number: 72062010.KIA
Unit: H/16 CAV 1 CAV
This helicopter was LOST TO INVENTORY
South Vietnam
UTM grid coordinates: XT769770 (To see this location on a map, go to https://legallandconverter.com/p50.html and search on Grid Reference 48PXT769770)
Original source(s) and document(s) from which the incident was created or updated: Defense Intelligence Agency Helicopter Loss database. Also: OPERA, GOLDBOOK (Operations Report. )
Summary: Shot down by an SA-7 missile over An Loc.
Loss to Inventory
Crew Members:
AC 1LT BREUER LOUIS KARL IV KIA
P CW2 TOWNSEND BURDETTE D JR KIA
War Story:
I can't add much to it as I was in Saigon just returning from R & R the day Lt Brewer and MR Townsend were shot down. I can tell you that our unit F Troop 9th Cav added the Strella missile alert to our SOP after they were shot down. Some wiz kid in the ivory palace came up with this one. If we saw a missile launched at us we were supposed to do the following: depress the intercom switch and announce "Strella, Strella, Strella, Missile, Missile, Missile and then give the clock direction it was coming from." Now given that we were flying usually anywhere from treetop level to 1,500 feet and given that the missile could go about 1.5 mach, it did not take a rocket scientist to figure we were not going to be able to get all that announcement out before we would be impacted by the missile. My AC, (Captain Bailey), told me and my gunner to just yell "Missle," and he could figure out the fact that it was a Strella and that it was coming from somewhere behind us. The Army quickly outfitted our slick with something that looked like a toilet bowl to the back section of our engine. It was a scoop like thing that vented our exhaust up into the main rotor. It was supposed to defuse the exhaust enough that the Strella could not get a lock on us. I don't know if it really worked or if it was just eye candy to help our morale. We really did not have any faith in it. We just did our job and hoped for the best.
Losing Lt. Brewer was like losing the quarterback from the football team in the fourth quarter of the Superbowl. He was everybody's hero. He was physically a big man. It was told to me that he played college football for some school in Texas. He was out going and very likable. You have to remember I was a crewchief at the time and not an officer. Us enlisted men looked at officers differently than they saw themselves. I didn't know any soldier who thought Lt Brewer was the kind of guy to look down his nose at a man just because he was enlisted. He was well liked and admired throughout the whole unit. If he was flying cover for us with a heavy pink team, we knew he would put it on the line to protect us and on many occasions he did just that. After he was killed all of us felt a little more vulnerable.
I did not know Mr. Townsend as well except to say he was a solid pilot. He was a quiet kind of guy, solid and reliable. He had brass ones and would watch your back when things were going bad.
Bruce. LSTarget50@aol.com
This record was last updated on 05/25/2003
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 KIA panel date index
Date posted on this site: 10/25/2024
Copyright © 1998 - 2024 Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association