0:02 Why were medevac helicopters in Vietnam
0:04 over three times more likely to get shot
0:06 down? Why did one out of every three
0:08 crew members become a casualty even
0:09 though in theory they were
0:11 non-combatants? This is the story of
0:13 Dust and why it turned into one of the
0:15 hardest and most dangerous roles of the
0:19 entire war. The Vietnam War was unlike
0:21 any other war the United States was in.
0:22 Yes, they saw jungle warfare during the
0:24 Second World War in the Pacific, and
0:26 they did have similar experience from
0:27 the Korean War, but Vietnam was still
0:29 something new in terms of terrain, and
0:31 especially the scale and intensity of
0:33 combat. Thick, triple canopy jungles,
0:36 marshy plains, and steep mountains were
0:38 simply impossible for any vehicle. And
0:39 where there were some roads, it was hard
0:41 to protect them from enemy ambushes.
0:43 They still were far from the patrols or
0:44 bases where casualties were most likely
0:46 to happen. Because of that, helicopters
0:48 were the most suitable tool for waging
0:50 war there. And of course, the best way
0:51 to quickly fly out wounded soldiers
0:54 directly to the evacuation hospitals.
0:55 This concept was first tried out in
0:57 Korea, but Vietnam would be remembered
0:59 for it, and you'll soon understand why.
1:01 In April 1962, the 57th Medical
1:03 Detachment was deployed to Vietnam with
1:06 five UH1 Huey helicopter ambulances, and
1:08 they were about to be tested on a new
1:09 scale. They soon got their famous
1:11 nickname dust off. Coined because
1:13 helicopters approaching to pick up the
1:14 wounded would touch down for a brief
1:16 moment while casualties were loaded and
1:18 the rotor wash would kick up clouds of
1:20 dust. At first it was just informal, but
1:22 it was then officially accepted as a
1:24 call sign. Each dust off helicopter was
1:26 manned by a crew of four consisting of
1:28 the pilot and co-pilot and then in the
1:30 back a medic and a crew chief. Most of
1:32 them were in their early 20s, many
1:33 barely out of training before being
1:35 thrown into daily combat rescues. So
1:37 they had to learn almost everything on
1:39 the go. Pilots had to use challenging
1:41 tactics to avoid fire, like low-level
1:42 flying, corkcrew descents into hot
1:44 landing zones, or one skid landings on
1:46 slopes or rice patties, and of course,
1:48 flying at night with flares. Major
1:50 Patrick Brady, for example, once pulled
1:52 a clever trick when a unit with many
1:54 casualties was pinned down in a valley
1:56 and under heavy mortar fire. He ordered
1:58 them to prepare the wounded on the north
1:59 end of the strip and have them ready to
2:01 be loaded. He then landed on the south
2:02 end and waited until the enemy could
2:04 zero the mortars on him. When they
2:06 started firing, he scooted to the other
2:08 end, picked up the wounded, and got out.
2:10 Early in the war, American ground
2:12 presence was still small, and the
2:13 majority of heavy fighting was done by
2:15 the South Vietnamese army supported by
2:17 the United States. So, most of the
2:20 patients at first were ARVN troops or
2:22 even civilians caught in crossfire. But
2:23 this soon changed as American ground
2:26 units arrived and the war intensified.
2:27 Tactics and procedures were still being
2:29 tested and worked out, but the concept
2:31 was more than promising. A soldier could
2:33 be on the operating table in under 30
2:35 minutes after being wounded, which was
2:37 unheard of and set a completely new
2:39 standard in war history. Before this,
2:41 evacuation was done mostly by ambulance
2:42 cars and before that on horsedrawn
2:44 carts. Now being flown out to the
2:46 hospital was something entirely new.
2:48 Actually, statistics say that dust offs
2:51 on average delivered the patient in 33
2:53 minutes from injury to hospital and the
2:55 chance of survival of those delivered in
2:58 that time was 99%. During the Vietnam
3:00 War, the concept of the golden hour was
3:01 born, which became the goal medevac
3:03 crews aimed for, as within this time
3:05 window, the chances of survival were the
3:07 best. However, it would not be all nice
3:08 and easy, and dust off crews paid for
3:10 that survival rate with a far higher
3:12 chance of being shot down, especially
3:14 when the enemy decided not to respect
3:16 the big red cross that was supposed to
3:18 mark helicopters as non-combatant. Here,
3:20 we have to mention Major Charles Kelly,
3:21 who largely shaped the dust off units
3:24 and himself became a dust off legend. He
3:26 was determined never to leave casualties
3:27 behind, no matter how great the danger
3:29 was for them. He had several extreme
3:31 close calls in his missions where he did
3:33 everything to save the wounded and
3:35 completely disregarded his own safety
3:38 until one day on July 1st, 1964, he flew
3:40 his dust off into heavy enemy fire to
3:42 save a wounded American adviser and
3:44 South Vietnamese troops. Ground forces
3:46 advised him not to attempt landing as
3:47 fire was too heavy. But Kelly refused
3:49 with the answer that became famous and
3:51 the motto of dust off units saying,
3:53 "When I have, you're wounded." Moments
3:55 later, one bullet hit Kelly directly in
3:57 the heart while he was at the helicopter
3:59 controls. He managed to hover the
4:01 helicopter for a few seconds before it
4:03 pitched over and crashed, but his crew
4:05 somehow survived. He was postumously
4:06 awarded the Distinguished Service Cross,
4:08 and he set the standard for what dust
4:10 off crews were soon about to do, never
4:12 refuse the mission, and always put the
4:14 safety of the wounded first. Now, it was
4:16 recognized that this was the best way to
4:18 evacuate the wounded. And because they
4:20 were very soon in high demand, the
4:21 United States command began deploying
4:23 more dedicated medical helicopters.
4:25 Tactics were also getting improved, like
4:27 the most important equipment innovation,
4:29 the rescue hoist. At first, the
4:30 helicopter could only evacuate the
4:32 wounded where it could actually land.
4:34 And this was difficult to do in the
4:36 jungle. So, to avoid forcing troops on
4:38 the ground to find a landing zone every
4:39 time they had a casualty in heavy
4:41 terrain, Dusts would hover over the
4:43 jungle and lower a rescue hoist.
4:45 However, this at first came with a wide
4:47 range of problems until the so-called
4:49 forest penetrator was developed. The
4:50 initial hoist models jammed or even
4:52 snapped cables during lifts, as if the
4:54 day for the casualty could not be bad
4:56 enough already. Instead of a canvas
4:58 stretcher, the forest penetrator was
5:00 made in the form of a slender metal seat
5:01 that could glide between branches and
5:03 was much more effective. Hoists were
5:05 difficult to work with for the entire
5:07 war, but they did save thousands of
5:09 lives. The biggest problem with them,
5:10 however, was that statistically they
5:12 were seven times more likely to get shot
5:14 up during hoist extractions because the
5:16 helicopter was staying still and
5:18 hovering above the trees, making it
5:19 clearly visible to anyone on the ground
5:21 and very vulnerable even to small arms
5:24 fire. Early 1965 then marked a turning
5:26 point in the Vietnam War when the
5:28 Vietkong launched a major attack on PLU.
5:30 The United States answered with air
5:31 strikes and within a few months,
5:33 American ground combat units went from a
5:37 few thousand to over 180,000. As the war
5:38 was now in full swing, the dust offs
5:40 were about to be needed more than ever
5:43 and also targeted more than ever. They
5:44 would soon be racing from one mass
5:46 casualty incident to another as large
5:50 battles erupted. By late 1967, over 100
5:52 medevac helicopters were in Vietnam, and
5:53 the stage was set for the most
5:55 challenging year of the war. At peak,
5:57 dust off units flew up to 400 missions
5:59 per day across Vietnam. When the massive
6:01 Tet offensive was launched in January
6:03 1968 and communist forces attacked
6:06 cities and bases all over South Vietnam,
6:07 dust offs were about to face their
6:09 biggest test until then. The sheer
6:11 number of casualties was overwhelming.
6:13 And these were not just wounded American
6:15 soldiers. Dust offs were evacuating
6:16 allied South Vietnamese troops and the
6:18 unfortunate civilians caught in the
6:19 crossfire. They were landing in narrow
6:21 streets during urban fighting or in
6:23 unpredictable landing zones in the
6:25 jungle and often under heavy enemy fire.
6:27 For example, in just 12 days during the
6:29 communist offensive, dust offs evacuated
6:31 over 8,000 casualties with only 64
6:33 helicopters, out of which 40 were hit by
6:36 enemy fire. Crews worked in 12-hour
6:37 shifts, and it was not rare that they
6:39 were flying the whole time, refueling
6:41 hot and touching down, only to load and
6:44 unload the wounded. Nurses in evacuation
6:45 hospitals would hand them sandwiches or
6:46 cookies through the window to eat
6:48 mid-flight, as sometimes there simply
6:49 was no time, and with not enough
6:52 helicopters or crews, they had to keep
6:54 flying. The cumulative stress of such
6:56 operations was unimaginable. And Dust
6:58 offs actually had the most severe cases
7:01 of PTSD. Just seeing so many horrors on
7:03 so many levels was breaking the human
7:04 mind. We can't describe it here in
7:06 detail, but we'll just say that they
7:07 would land their helicopters in shallow
7:09 rivers to wash the inside. And we'll let
7:11 your imagination do the rest. The year
7:13 1969 was the peak of dust off
7:15 performance. During this year alone,
7:16 more missions were flown and more
7:18 patients moved than in any other year of
7:20 the conflict. Dust offs usually took two
7:22 patients on the same trip, but in
7:24 desperate cases, which were not so rare,
7:25 they overloaded their birds with
7:27 hundreds of pounds of weight they were
7:28 not designed to carry. Pilots were
7:30 fighting to keep the helicopter
7:31 airborne, as they would say, bunny
7:33 hopping it to build translational lift
7:35 to stay in the air. In one chaotic
7:37 evacuation, a dust off Huey meant for 11
7:39 passengers max, somehow lifted off under
7:42 fire with 32 panicked ARVN soldiers,
7:43 most of them not even wounded, clinging
7:45 to the helicopter just to get away from
7:47 the firefight. One disturbing thing was
7:49 that Vietkong and North Vietnamese often
7:51 tuned in on American radio frequencies,
7:53 making so-called ghost calls to request
7:55 artillery on American positions or to
7:57 lure in dust off helicopters. Learning
7:59 from captured Americans or listening to
8:01 radio traffic, they would request a dust
8:02 off in English exactly the same way as
8:05 an American unit would. So dust off
8:07 crews were not always sure who was on
8:08 the ground until they were well within
8:10 rifle range. When a dust off approached,
8:12 the pilot would request the ground unit
8:14 to pop smoke to locate them. And
8:16 sometimes the ground unit would call the
8:18 color of their smoke. Soon there would
8:19 be a couple of smokes in different
8:21 places, meaning the enemy was listening
8:24 and trying to confuse and lure the dust
8:26 off to the wrong landing zone. The dust
8:27 off pilot then would tell the ground
8:29 unit to pop smoke without saying the
8:31 color. And once he saw it, he would ask
8:33 if it was the right one. Now, you may
8:34 wonder why they were attacked, even
8:36 though they were marked with the red
8:37 cross, which should not have been
8:39 targeted under the Geneva Convention.
8:41 Well, here's the thing. Under the Geneva
8:42 Convention, medical vehicles are
8:45 protected only if used exclusively for
8:47 medical purposes and not flying over
8:48 enemy held areas without prior
8:50 agreement. With Vietnam being a war
8:52 without front lines or any standard
8:54 rules, this was impossible to fulfill.
8:56 So, the Red Cross wasn't protecting
8:57 them. Besides that, given the fact that
8:59 the United States used Agent Orange and
9:00 carried out questionable bombing
9:02 missions, it was somewhat understandable
9:04 that the other side wasn't following
9:06 those chivalry rules of war. Dust offs
9:08 were supposed to be unarmed, but since
9:09 their red cross was ignored, they
9:11 usually carried personal weapons. In
9:12 some cases, they even stripped down the
9:14 crosses and added machine guns for
9:16 protection during missions in areas
9:18 deemed too hot. One bizarre thing was
9:19 that wounded captured enemies were
9:21 sometimes evacuated together with
9:23 American soldiers and treated the same
9:24 way, despite having been in combat
9:27 against them only moments before. During
9:29 this time, Dust received its first Medal
9:31 of Honor, the highest military award in
9:33 the United States. Major Patrick Pat
9:35 Brady performed an extraordinary series
9:37 of rescues, extracting the wounded
9:39 stranded in a minefield and under heavy
9:41 sniper fire. When previous medevac
9:42 attempts failed, he volunteered to go
9:44 in, flying into the minefield and even
9:46 activating a mine with a rock thrown by
9:49 rotor wash that damaged the helicopter.
9:51 Brady limped back to the nearest base,
9:52 jumped in a second helicopter, and
9:54 continued his mission, flying directly
9:57 into combat over and over again. Then,
9:58 when the second helicopter was badly
10:00 shot up, what do you think he did? He
10:02 found a third one and continued flying
10:04 dust off. By the day's end, he and his
10:07 crew had saved 51 heavily wounded men,
10:08 extracting them literally from the
10:10 firefight. Not long after that, Chief
10:12 Warrant Officer Michael Novacell earned
10:14 his Medal of Honor. He was actually a
10:16 Second World War bomber pilot who came
10:17 out of retirement to fly dust offs in
10:19 Vietnam alongside his son. when he
10:21 received a call that a pinned down unit
10:24 had many wounded. The 47year-old pilot
10:26 made over 10 extremely dangerous
10:27 extractions in a 2 and a half hour
10:30 period, evacuating group after group of
10:32 wounded while taking heavy fire. By the
10:34 time he was done, he had saved 29
10:36 soldiers while his helicopter was
10:37 riddled with bullets and flying
10:39 basically on Michael's sheer will and
10:41 skill. Now, I think when talking about
10:43 dust off, we have to mention evacuation
10:45 hospitals as well as they were a very
10:47 important chain link in saving the
10:48 wounded. The wounded would be delivered
10:50 here first to be stabilized and then
10:52 from there they'd go to hospitals best
10:54 suited for the type of their injuries
10:56 and the operations needed. I'll tell you
10:58 something taken from a book I highly
11:00 recommend, Home Before Morning by Linda
11:02 Van Devanta. She was a nurse in an
11:04 evacuation hospital in Vietnam and she
11:06 described her job firsthand. How
11:07 everything looked when dust offs would
11:09 fly in with mass casualties. Her
11:11 descriptions are hard to read and really
11:13 explain the horrors of war in a way we
11:15 can't even mention here on YouTube
11:17 without the video being taken down. The
11:19 thing that hit me the most, however, is
11:20 how sorting out patients looked when
11:23 dust offs would arrive. In cases of mass
11:24 casualties, like during bigger
11:26 engagements, tens of critical patients
11:28 would arrive within minutes, sometimes
11:30 up to two or 300 in a single day, with
11:32 dust offs waiting in line to touch down
11:34 and unload what Linda called damaged
11:36 human cargo, then flying back directly
11:38 into ongoing battles for more. Now,
11:40 because they didn't have the resources
11:42 and time to treat all casualties equally
11:44 at once, and some required immediate
11:46 help to survive, patients were sorted
11:48 upon unloading into three categories.
11:50 The first was immediate, meaning these
11:51 patients had a chance to survive, but
11:53 only if helped right away. They were the
11:55 ones going on the operating table first.
11:57 The second group were called delayed,
11:58 those who could wait, like patients
12:00 without major bleeding or injuries that
12:02 weren't life-threatening at the moment.
12:04 The third group were expectants. These
12:06 were not completely beyond help, but
12:08 they had such slim chances of survival
12:10 that helping one of them would take the
12:12 time needed to save several patients
12:14 from the immediate group. So, they were
12:16 given pain relief and literally left to
12:18 die without any help besides some
12:20 comfort in their last moments. This was
12:22 standard procedure when mass casualties
12:23 reached the base. And no matter how
12:25 disturbing it sounds, it was simply the
12:27 way to give the most people a chance to
12:30 survive. And keep in mind, those medical
12:32 workers literally had to play God,
12:34 deciding who'd go in which category.
12:35 This is something they had to live with
12:37 for the rest of their lives, and it's
12:39 described in detail in that book that
12:40 you should read only if you have a
12:43 strong gut. Linda also told how barely
12:45 21-year-old kids were flying DustF
12:47 helicopters, sometimes even shot and
12:49 refusing help, taking barely airworthy
12:51 birds back into combat to save as many
12:53 people as they could. A lot of them she
12:55 never saw again. During the war, Dust
12:57 offs evacuated around 900,000 casualties
12:59 in Vietnam. And before you start doing
13:01 the math, interestingly, roughly half of
13:03 that number were Vietnamese soldiers or
13:05 civilians. Dust crews paid a big
13:07 sacrifice, but as you just saw, they
13:09 saved hundreds of thousands following
