CHAPTER IV

The Pilot At Work

From 1965 to 1970 the U.S. Army in Vietnam perfected techniques of aeromedical evacuation that helped save the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese, both friend and foe, both soldiers and civilians. Many of the techniques had been worked out in the early years of U.S. involvement in Vietnam, from 1962 to 1965, when only the 57th and 82d Medical Detachments offered air ambulance service to the U.S. and South Vietnamese Armies. After the buildup of American forces began in 1965, the helicopters, procedures, and rescue equipment were improved and sometimes tested on mass casualties. Refinements of the system were made after the Tet offensive in 1968, and Army air ambulances evacuated more patients in 1969 than in any other year of the war. Then, as it began to withdraw its forces from Vietnam, the U.S. Army set up a training program to pass on its skills in air ambulance work to the South Vietnamese Army and Air Force. Assisting the development of the helicopters and rescue equipment and acquiring the skills needed to use them demanded exceptional imagination, dedication, and compassion, both of U.S. Army medical personnel and the South Vietnamese who learned from them.

The UH-1 Iroquois ('Huey')

When it entered the Vietnam War the U.S. Army lacked a satisfactory aircraft for medical evacuation. As early as 1953 the Aviation Section of the Surgeon General's Office had specified the desirable characteristics of an Army air ambulance. It was to be highly maneuverable for use in combat zones, of low profile, and capable of landing in a small area. It was to carry a crew of four and at least four litter patients, yet be easily loaded with litters by just two people. It had to be able to hover with a full patient load even in high altitude areas, and to cruise at least ninety knots per hour fully loaded. But in 1962 the Army's basic utility aircraft, the UH-1B made by Bell Aircraft Corporation, still did not meet these standards. It was, however, a small craft with a low profile, and the Army's MSC pilots could console themselves with the fact that the Huey was a far better air ambulance than the one their predecessors had flown in the Korean War. It had nearly twice the speed and endurance of the H-13 Sioux, and it