:01:36. > :01:42.16 helicopters took off, we went up to around 2000 feet and about five
:01:42. > :01:47.kilometres from being solitary we dropped to treetop level. We were
:01:47. > :01:56.almost clipping the tops of the trees as we came in, the birds were
:01:56. > :02:01.coming up out of the trees. 14th November, 1965, Colonel Hal Moore
:02:01. > :02:07.and his men are flying into combat. They are heading for the remote
:02:07. > :02:13.valley to have -- to destroy it Vietnamese forces. For the first
:02:13. > :02:17.time in history and army has come to fight in helicopters. For the
:02:17. > :02:27.next 10 years Vietnam would be the helicopter war and one helicopter
:02:27. > :02:48.
:02:48. > :02:58.-- Adam Wicheard. It will you are in deep trouble and you need
:02:58. > :03:23.
:03:23. > :03:30.reinforcements, food, water, The requirement for the Bell Huey
:03:30. > :03:39.and the sizing of it grew out of the experience where we were
:03:39. > :03:46.evacuating the wounded with stretchers attached to the size of
:03:46. > :03:49.these things. It was a long way from being ideal. They this was my
:03:49. > :03:53.first trip in a helicopter and they don't waste any time getting you
:03:53. > :04:02.bought one. It is a sort of flying ambulance. It can fly too fast for
:04:02. > :04:05.you. It was not long until more aggressive pilot started
:04:05. > :04:12.experimenting with machine guns strapped into the sides of the
:04:12. > :04:20.helicopter. I tied a couple of machine guns on to bobble
:04:20. > :04:27.helicopters and we had the machine gun on each in and string going
:04:27. > :04:32.from the skid to the stick. We did not know what would happen. I
:04:32. > :04:37.pulled the strings and his started this machine gun going, then I
:04:37. > :04:44.pulled this string, it started that machine gun going. And I learned on
:04:44. > :04:48.my own that it would work with a larger machine if it would work
:04:48. > :04:51.with a little helicopter. A 1950s the idea of a helicopter gunship
:04:51. > :04:54.seemed far-fetched. The American military just wanted a large
:04:54. > :05:03.machine that would carry more wounded, more men and more
:05:03. > :05:08.equipment. During May 1954 the US Air Force asked the Bell helicopter
:05:08. > :05:13.Corporation to participate in the design competition. In February of
:05:13. > :05:17.1955 it was announced Bell had won that competition. The prototype was
:05:18. > :05:22.first and foremost an air ambulance, like its Korean War predecessor,
:05:22. > :05:29.but with enough space to lay a stretcher across its width. And it
:05:29. > :05:34.was much more powerful thanks to its revolutionary new engine.
:05:34. > :05:40.technical advance was essentially the turbines engine. The piston
:05:40. > :05:46.engine, which was previously used, was bulky, took up a lot of the
:05:46. > :05:51.helicopter's frame. The turbines lay horizontally, took up less room,
:05:51. > :06:00.was much easier to maintain and the bottom line was the fact that this
:06:00. > :06:07.engine could lift three times more than the piston. The design of the
:06:08. > :06:13.cockpit was simplicity itself. Inside the cockpit of the Bell Huey
:06:13. > :06:16.will adopt our control sticks, one for each pilot. How the switch was
:06:16. > :06:19.wired up depended on the systems are carried on board the aircraft.
:06:19. > :06:22.Some of these buttons were for weapons systems, are there for
:06:22. > :06:32.release of the cargo look. Communication inside the aircraft
:06:32. > :06:34.
:06:34. > :06:38.Whatever direction the move to the stick, the spinning rotor disc will
:06:38. > :06:42.follow that motion, if you tilt the stick forward the entire spinning
:06:42. > :06:47.disc will tilt forward, if you bring it back towards you the
:06:47. > :06:54.entire motor disc will go back essentially and back up. To the
:06:54. > :06:58.left of the pilots is the collective control lever. Raising
:06:58. > :07:02.up on that the changes the pitch in the rotor blades, it bites more air
:07:02. > :07:08.and gains more lift. Incorporated into the collectively there is a
:07:08. > :07:12.throttle control which determines the speed of the engine. There is a
:07:12. > :07:19.radio console between the two seats which incorporates radios and
:07:19. > :07:24.weapons systems controls. The US Army named all their planes and
:07:24. > :07:34.helicopters after American Indian tribes, or woodland animals. The
:07:34. > :07:36.
:07:36. > :07:46.hue is not remained that, it is The technical designation was the
:07:46. > :07:50.letter you stood for utility, the first model - one and we got Huey
:07:50. > :07:57.from the age you prefix. The do things in a big way in Texas, that
:07:57. > :08:02.includes helicopters. The 1960s the bell had -- Bell had gone into full
:08:02. > :08:08.production of the Bell Huey. They realise they could also carry
:08:08. > :08:13.troops into battle and even fire at the enemy directly. In 1963 a new
:08:13. > :08:20.army unit was formed to discover just what the helicopter could do.
:08:20. > :08:24.They were turning them out of the factory and we needed them. I set
:08:24. > :08:28.my pilots out there to pick them up at the factory door and fly them at
:08:28. > :08:35.that. It took us to 80800 days to get back, the second day we were in
:08:35. > :08:38.the unit, the third day we were using them for training. With more
:08:38. > :08:46.than 30 helicopters involved, it is the greatest number of army
:08:46. > :08:51.aircraft of any type delivered in one day since World War II. I had
:08:51. > :08:55.not flown any of these until I was signed in 1963. It was the greatest
:08:55. > :09:04.pleasure I have ever had in a helicopter because I had never
:09:04. > :09:08.flown one with the power, response or fluid smoothness as there Hewie.
:09:08. > :09:12.-- as the Bell Huey. Everything else you had to work both hands,
:09:12. > :09:16.your mind, your feet, sometimes you had to work on the outside
:09:16. > :09:23.influences and pray it would keep going. So the Bell Huey was a great
:09:23. > :09:27.experience for me. Pilots who had been trained to do little more than
:09:27. > :09:34.take off and land suddenly had to take on a lot of the expertise of
:09:34. > :09:39.They had to learn a whole new series of flying techniques, one of
:09:39. > :09:49.which was how you create air formations. It took a particular
:09:49. > :09:54.
:09:54. > :09:58.It was realised very early on that it was no good flying into any
:09:58. > :10:05.operation at an altitude or speed which would alert the enemy, so
:10:05. > :10:08.American pilots began to be trained early on a more we now call going
:10:08. > :10:16.low, hugging the condors, popping up suddenly from behind obstacles
:10:16. > :10:20.and then going into the landing zone. In the air assault we
:10:20. > :10:26.practised moving great distances rapidly with soldiers on board and
:10:26. > :10:29.put people on the ground. The element of surprise, you are on top
:10:30. > :10:35.of them before they can be about it. This was the concept of a nobility,
:10:35. > :10:39.squads of men carry directly into battle. Unlike the old parachute
:10:39. > :10:43.regiments they would be able to hit the ground. Above them, gunships
:10:43. > :10:48.would pull machine and fire rockets on to the enemy. Behind them would
:10:48. > :10:58.be more Bell Hueys, ready to bring in reinforcements or take out the
:10:58. > :11:01.
:11:01. > :11:11.This was the concept of air mobility - squads of men carried
:11:11. > :11:12.
:11:12. > :11:14.into battle. They trained for every terrain, also post-nuclear
:11:14. > :11:17.battlefields envisaged by the Cold War planners. By 1965, the
:11:17. > :11:19.Communist threat in South-East Asia worried the Americans most. In June,
:11:19. > :11:22.Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, announced that the time
:11:22. > :11:25.for war games was over. The Air Mobile Division began preparing for
:11:25. > :11:29.the real thing. The 11th Air Assault took up the colours of the
:11:29. > :11:33.old 1st Cavalry. I asked the army to organise a new division, the Air
:11:33. > :11:38.Mobile Division. Its introduction will greatly increase our
:11:38. > :11:45.capability to meet all kinds of threats. The army is on the
:11:45. > :11:47.threshold of a new approach to land warfare. 'At a ceremony at Fort
:11:47. > :11:50.Benning, aptly symbolising the replacement of the horse by the
:11:50. > :12:00.helicopter, 'the new air mobile concept formally became a part of
:12:00. > :12:10.
:12:10. > :12:15.The 1st Cavalry went back as far as General Custer. It was the most
:12:15. > :12:17.romantic and gung-ho branch of the US Army. The cavalry spirit,
:12:17. > :12:20.regalia and regimental songs were revived most eagerly by Colonel
:12:20. > :12:30.John B Stockton, who later became the model for the character of
:12:30. > :12:35.
:12:35. > :12:43.John B Stockton came on board and he brought in this macho type of
:12:43. > :12:48.attitude. The black stetson was the trademark of the Cav guys. This is
:12:48. > :12:53.mine - not the original. My original's got bullet holes in and
:12:53. > :13:00.it's kinda moth-eaten. Colonel Stockton believed in the cavalry
:13:00. > :13:04.tradition and it included the spurs and the black stetson. You want
:13:04. > :13:10.every member to start believing that he's in the best unit in the
:13:10. > :13:19.whole US Army. We're different, cos we're better. These are the visible
:13:20. > :13:26.signs of that. If you don't believe The force had the attitude and the
:13:26. > :13:35.machine. All they needed was a war. By late 1965, the situation in
:13:35. > :13:41.The army of the Communist North was on the march. They had won
:13:41. > :13:45.independence from the French. Now they wanted the South. Air mobility
:13:45. > :13:53.seemed the ideal way to stop them. The 1st Cavalry took their Hueys to
:13:53. > :14:03.This was probably the finest force that America has fielded from the
:14:03. > :14:05.
:14:05. > :14:07.training grounds at home to a They had great confidence in their
:14:07. > :14:15.leadership, terrific equipment, and absolute confidence that they were
:14:15. > :14:25.gonna win. "Just show us where they are, "anywhere in the world, and
:14:25. > :14:27.
:14:27. > :14:31.we'll beat them!" It was that spirit. Their destination was a
:14:31. > :14:41.vast, purpose-built airbase carved out of the jungle at An Khe in the
:14:41. > :14:45.
:14:45. > :14:47.The 1st Cavalry Division was sent into the central highlands of South
:14:47. > :14:56.Vietnam because the old principle in South Vietnam is, "He who
:14:56. > :15:06.controls the central highlands controls South Vietnam." So the 1st
:15:06. > :15:06.
:15:07. > :15:10.Cav was sent in to deny it to the North Vietnamese and the Viet Cong.
:15:10. > :15:17.Three North Vietnamese regiments had crossed from Cambodia. Their
:15:17. > :15:21.plan was to drive eastwards and split the country in two. The US
:15:21. > :15:24.waited for them to make their move. It came at Plei Me. For six days,
:15:24. > :15:34.the NVA besieged the American base, before vanishing back into the
:15:34. > :15:37.
:15:37. > :15:45.The 1st Cavalry now went on the offensive. They combed the jungle
:15:45. > :15:48.for the North Vietnamese. Division Commander, Harry Kinnard, finally
:15:48. > :15:54.pinpointed the enemy base on the remote Chu Pong mountain in the
:15:54. > :16:02.valley of the Ia Drang. The task of flushing them out fell to Lt Col
:16:03. > :16:09.On 13th November, the Brigade Commander met with me and told me
:16:09. > :16:15.that I was to air assault into the Ia Drang valley the next morning. I
:16:15. > :16:20.would have 16 Huey helicopters. I would go out there for three or
:16:20. > :16:26.four days to find and destroy the enemy. Col Moore chose a clearing,
:16:26. > :16:34.Landing Zone X-Ray, for his air assault. He went in with 160 men in
:16:34. > :16:37.an operation timed to the second. - - 175. The air assault itself is a
:16:37. > :16:42.lot like a ballet. It's so well- planned. The timing of it is so
:16:42. > :16:52.important. The curtain-raiser was a barrage of fire on LZ X-Ray from
:16:52. > :16:52.
:16:52. > :16:56.As soon as the artillery was going, I got off the ground with the Hueys
:16:56. > :17:03.and I had to land within 30 seconds of the last round getting into the
:17:03. > :17:10.landing zone. If you're early, the artillery's coming in. If you're
:17:10. > :17:16.late, the enemy's shooting at you. The formation was made up entirely
:17:16. > :17:22.of Hueys. The Aerial Rocket Artillery, the ARA, cleared the way.
:17:22. > :17:26.The gunships behind them covered the troop carriers. We had two
:17:26. > :17:33.Aerial Rocket Artillery ships that flew next to the lead aircraft. The
:17:33. > :17:38.artillery would cut off and the flight leader said, "ARA, sprint."
:17:38. > :17:41.We would pull every last ounce of power we could and lope in. We
:17:41. > :17:50.started at the approach end, and each one of us - there'd be two of
:17:50. > :17:53.us - would start the rockets around the perimeter of the landing zone.
:17:53. > :18:03.We'd shoot half our load and then we would break off and circle
:18:03. > :18:08.
:18:08. > :18:11.overhead. As we broke off, the gunships behind us took up the fire
:18:11. > :18:16.with their machine guns and they continued to circle at low level.
:18:16. > :18:19.The troop carriers touched down. The Hueys were now vulnerable.
:18:19. > :18:23.Pilots could only remain on the ground for a few seconds. We would
:18:23. > :18:31.count, "One, two, three..." and I'd start rolling it. A lot of times
:18:31. > :18:34.two and three were unnecessary. The guys had gone. No-one is more
:18:34. > :18:40.motivated to get out of a helicopter than the infantry when
:18:40. > :18:43.they're being shot at. They really move fast. On the ground, they're
:18:43. > :18:46.not a target. The air assault went perfectly. The North Vietnamese
:18:46. > :18:55.that Moore expected were not at LZ X-Ray, but they were close and in
:18:55. > :19:02.large numbers. Soon after we landed, my troops captured a prisoner. I
:19:03. > :19:05.quickly hurried to the spot with a Vietnamese interpreter I had. He
:19:05. > :19:12.said there were three battalions of North Vietnamese on the mountain
:19:12. > :19:17.who wanted to kill Americans but could not find any. I pushed out
:19:17. > :19:20.towards the mountain. Within minutes, we were struck by 250-300
:19:20. > :19:30.North Vietnamese pouring off that mountain, and it was very apparent
:19:30. > :19:31.
:19:31. > :19:37.to me that this enemy was out to kill us all. He'd found 'em and
:19:37. > :19:40.they'd found him. He'd landed below the regiment and the commander
:19:41. > :19:43.ordered an assault. It fleetingly crossed my mind that an illustrious
:19:44. > :19:52.predecessor of mine named George Armstrong Custer was in a fix like
:19:52. > :20:00.this at the Little Bighorn. I had one thing he did not have. I had
:20:00. > :20:02.fire support. I pulled the chain on everything I could. We started
:20:02. > :20:10.flying continuous fire support, non-stop, just, er...until
:20:10. > :20:17.approximately 1800 hours that night. We had fired in excess of 2,000
:20:17. > :20:23.rockets, which for seven aircraft, er...is a bunch. Moore defended the
:20:23. > :20:27.landing zone brilliantly. He could've been wiped out the first
:20:27. > :20:33.day if he hadn't manoeuvred so well, sent men up the ridge to keep the
:20:33. > :20:41.Vietnamese away. If not, they would have gotten up, preventing the
:20:41. > :20:46.helicopters from coming in. For two days and nights, the Vietnamese
:20:46. > :20:52.attacked. Moore called in artillery to help beat back the enemy, but
:20:52. > :20:58.his real lifeline was the steady convoy of Hueys. In LZ X-Ray, there
:20:58. > :21:03.were many things that the Hueys did. They flew the soldiers in. They
:21:03. > :21:09.flew in support facilities. They flew in medics and staff people
:21:09. > :21:15.that they needed. They flew in reinforcements, took out wounded.
:21:15. > :21:20.They brought in food and water. They brought in explosives, the
:21:20. > :21:24.helicopters did. Everything that the troops needed on the ground was
:21:25. > :21:29.brought in by air. At the end, we extracted them from the landing
:21:29. > :21:39.zone. We took them and got them into trouble and we continually got
:21:39. > :21:40.
:21:40. > :21:48.On the 16th, the North Vietnamese withdrew. Moore and his men were
:21:48. > :21:53.airlifted the same day. They took with them 79 dead American soldiers.
:21:53. > :21:56.They left behind over 1,000 dead Vietnamese. A small US force was
:21:57. > :22:06.left at X-Ray. Just how crucial the Huey had been became clear the next
:22:07. > :22:07.
:22:07. > :22:10.day when they set off on foot for a nearby landing zone called Albany.
:22:10. > :22:20.What happened at Albany was, this battalion was marching through the
:22:20. > :22:23.
:22:23. > :22:28.rainforest from LZ X-Ray to another landing zone called Albany. The
:22:28. > :22:31.Vietnamese commander launched a hasty ambush. He didn't realise
:22:31. > :22:33.until the moment occurred that he could ambush this column. He used
:22:33. > :22:36.natural cover well, manoeuvred his troops well, he struck the
:22:36. > :22:44.Americans at their most vulnerable and wiped 'em out - a portent of
:22:44. > :22:53.what was to come. Despite this disaster, the Americans saw Ia
:22:53. > :22:56.Drang as a decisive victory. They had killed nearly 2,000 enemy
:22:56. > :22:59.against 304 dead on their own side. The Huey and air mobility proved
:22:59. > :23:05.their worth. It seemed that the Americans had a winning strategy
:23:05. > :23:13.for the war. It was the first time a US unit had had a knock-down,
:23:13. > :23:17.dragged-out fight with a North Vietnamese army unit. It was a very
:23:17. > :23:25.tough fight and we lost a lot of good men, but for one of ours, they
:23:25. > :23:28.lost 10. We captured countless weapons of all types. When Mr
:23:28. > :23:37.McNamara came over and we could show him all these weapons, tell
:23:37. > :23:40.him how many people we'd killed, he Ia Drang was a painful defeat for
:23:40. > :23:47.the North Vietnamese, but also a valuable lesson. They were soon
:23:47. > :23:50.devising ways of beating the Americans and their Hueys. The main
:23:50. > :24:00.thing they wanted to do, and they learnt this from Ia Drang, was to
:24:00. > :24:03.grab us by the belt buckle. That was the phrase they used. If you
:24:03. > :24:11.got close to the Americans, hugging them during the fire fight, it
:24:11. > :24:13.would be difficult to call in fire support without damaging themselves.
:24:13. > :24:23.The helicopter crew would be unable to distinguish between friendly
:24:23. > :24:24.
:24:24. > :24:27.forces and enemy forces, because The North Vietnamese took away
:24:27. > :24:32.another key advantage the Americans thought the helicopter gave them -
:24:32. > :24:38.the ability to decide when and where to fight. The Vietnamese
:24:38. > :24:46.initiated actions 95% of the time. Americans thought they carried the
:24:46. > :24:49.battle to the enemy. In fact, they were lured on the enemy's terms.
:24:49. > :24:58.The helicopter helps the illusion of bringing the battle to the enemy,
:24:58. > :25:03.The fundamental flaw in the American strategy was the idea of a
:25:03. > :25:07.body count. If they killed more than they lost, the Americans felt
:25:07. > :25:14.sure of victory. This didn't reckon for an enemy who'd fight whatever
:25:14. > :25:18.the cost, nor for changing views at home. Headquarters felt if we
:25:18. > :25:27.killed North Vietnamese like we did at LZ X-Ray, they could not sustain
:25:27. > :25:29.that and we would win the war. problem was, losses inflicted on
:25:30. > :25:34.the North Vietnamese could be absorbed. The North Vietnamese
:25:34. > :25:40.weren't even aware of how many people were killed. US casualties
:25:40. > :25:45.were reported. Every casualty came home - if dead, in a body bag. That
:25:45. > :25:53.began to have its impact. Despite the promise of the Huey and
:25:53. > :25:56.air mobility, it was becoming clear that this was an unwinnable war.
:25:56. > :25:59.After three years there, I rethought the whole thing. I
:25:59. > :26:08.realised we wouldn't wear the Vietnamese down. They'd wear us
:26:08. > :26:12.down. I began to see the fallacies in what we were doing. What we were
:26:12. > :26:19.doing was terrible to the Vietnamese. It's really hurting
:26:19. > :26:22.that country. We were hurting ourselves, too. We tore our country
:26:22. > :26:32.apart at home, thousands were getting killed in Vietnam, and it
:26:32. > :26:36.
:26:37. > :26:43.was ALL to no end. It was wrong and Ironically, the Huey assisted in
:26:43. > :26:45.the wider change of attitude to the war now sweeping America. Alongside
:26:45. > :26:52.soldiers and munitions, helicopters carried journalists and camera
:26:52. > :26:57.crews to the battlefront who became the eyes of the world. The
:26:57. > :27:01.helicopters affected the coverage of Vietnam. It made it much more
:27:01. > :27:06.immediate and vivid, much more real, because we could get in and out of
:27:06. > :27:14.a battle very quickly. We could go back, file our story, get back the
:27:14. > :27:24.next morning and be in there again. Then, as the television guys got
:27:24. > :27:24.
:27:24. > :27:31.The Huey had seemed to be the key to victory in Vietnam, but by 1975,
:27:31. > :27:37.the war was clearly lost. Just before the fall of Saigon, South
:27:37. > :27:46.Vietnamese pilots used their Hueys to flee to US aircraft carriers.
:27:46. > :27:56.The situation grew chaotic and the decks became crowded. Finally, the
:27:56. > :28:00.
:28:00. > :28:03.American sailors were left with no To me, it was terribly sad. What a
:28:03. > :28:07.terrible waste... ..of good machines. Those were very sad
:28:07. > :28:11.moments. A quarter of a million had died on the Saigon side. We had
:28:11. > :28:20.lost 58,000. We put in all this treasure, all this mechanical
:28:20. > :28:25.ingenuity, and that machine! It was a symbol of the waste of it. They
:28:25. > :28:35.were pitched over the side. There was no room for them on the ship
:28:35. > :28:37.
:28:37. > :28:42.The Huey helicopter won its battles, but North Vietnam won the war. The
:28:42. > :28:45.1st Cavalry Division gave up on air mobility. It has reverted to land
:28:45. > :28:53.vehicles, but the Huey proved one thing - the helicopter had gone to
:28:53. > :28:58.war and was there to stay. Nobody looked to Vietnam and said the
:28:58. > :29:04.helicopter was no use. They saw there was potential that may not
:29:04. > :29:12.have been realised in Vietnam. With extra technology, extra thought,