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The Dark Story of Air Cavalry in Vietnam | Unbelievable true stories | YouTubeToText
YouTube Transcript: The Dark Story of Air Cavalry in Vietnam
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Core Theme
The content details the revolutionary, yet perilous, development and implementation of airmobile tactics in warfare, primarily during the Vietnam War, highlighting how helicopters transformed troop deployment and combat, but also introduced significant new dangers and vulnerabilities.
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Have you ever wondered what it was like
to be a soldier flown directly into
combat by helicopter? Well, today you're
going to find out how their job really
looked and why it was much scarier than
it seems in the movies. Let's begin.
During the Korean War, the US was
impressed by the effectiveness of
helicopters. Even though they weren't
the safest way to transport people, they
showed remarkable potential in wars
without clear front lines, where the
terrain made it impossible to use the
military in the traditional way. The
Vietnam War proved this as the US
deployed around 12,000 helicopters,
nearly half of which were destroyed
during the conflict. However, air
mobility would become a new
revolutionary tactic that for the first
time combined helicopters and infantry
in direct battle. Its first large-scale
test came during Operation Chopper when
American CH21 Shauny helicopters were
used to drop over 1,000 ARVN
paratroopers in an attack on Vietkong
positions near Saigon. They managed to
completely surprise the enemy by
attacking from an unexpected direction
and successfully completed the mission.
Since in the Vietnam War, roads were
difficult, often impossible for heavy
vehicles and prone to ambush,
helicopters took on the role of
transporting troops and providing them
with direct fire support. However, the
Vietnamese would quickly understand this
new tactic and develop counter measures
that would make their job extremely
dangerous. Even before Vietnam, the
experimental 11th Air Assault Division
was formed with the idea of introducing
this new tactic from the start. Although
it had many flaws for fighting
traditionally against whole armies, it
was ideal for combating the guerilla
formations that would characterize the
Vietnam War. Shortly afterward, the
well-known First Cavalry was recreated
with recruits from the 11th Air Assault
Division and immediately sent to
Vietnam. The first cavalry division was
originally formed back in the 1920s as a
traditional horse cavalry unit. It
fought all through World War II and
later Korean War as infantry, but kept
its historic name. And when the Vietnam
War began, it was no different. Only
this time, instead of horses, they were
riding helicopters, officially
designated as the First Cavalry Division
Air Mobile. Using this tactic, soldiers
no longer had to carry heavy packs for
weeks and hike for miles to reach their
destination. They didn't even have to
jump out like paratroopers. Instead,
they arrived fresh and ready, delivered
straight to the fight by helicopter.
Soon, many other units began serving as
air mobile infantry, even though they
were not originally formed for this
purpose. The famous airborne divisions
173rd and the 101st instead of jumping
with parachutes. They were now also
delivered into battle by helicopter and
soon standard infantry units as well.
The core of the air mobile tactic is the
air assault, which allowed soldiers to
bypass dense jungles, rivers, and
mountains, and land directly in
enemy-held territory, hoping to catch
them off guard. In practice, however, it
was far from safe and simple. Both the
North Vietnamese army and the Vietkong
quickly adapted to these new methods and
became experts at using traps and
ambushes. So, what did a typical air
assault look like? UH1 Huey helicopters
flying in tight formation would carry a
squad of 10 to 12 soldiers packed
tightly in open bays with their legs
often dangling outside. If you wonder
whether someone could fall out, the
answer is yes. And it happened for
various reasons. Alongside them, CH47
Chinuks might carry extra supplies or
even artillery while armed Hueies and
later AH1 Cobra gunships provided
covering fire and cleared the landing
zone. First, the gunships would sweep
the landing zone with machine guns,
miniguns, rockets, and grenades. This
would also help to activate hidden booby
traps or mines. Sometimes they would
even set up a fake landing zone and then
land somewhere else to trick the enemy.
Next, the transport helicopters rapidly
approached the LZ one after the other,
landing only briefly so the infantry
could jump off before taking off again
while the next helicopter took its
place. Very often, this happened under
heavy enemy fire, so-called hot LZs. One
of the scariest experiences possible. A
veteran pilot recalled he needed all the
strength in the world to push the
joystick down and lower his helicopter
into the cloud of machine gun tracers
below. During landing, both helicopters
and soldiers were extremely exposed and
vulnerable to small arms fire, let alone
heavier weapons, and catastrophic
outcomes were not rare. Many choppers
were shot down before they could even
deploy their infantry or while trying to
extract them. Because helicopters were
sometimes piloted by very young and
inexperienced pilots, some only 18 years
old, accidents and collisions were
common. Flying in tight formations under
immense pressure, they could fly in each
other's rotors and propellers, causing
severe damage or crashes. The enemy
quickly learned how to lure Americans
into ambushes or predict where they
would land. Vietkong would be laying in
weight around landing zones with machine
guns, recoilless rifles, and
anti-aircraft weapons. Their 51 caliber
machine guns were especially lethal to
helicopters. A favorite strategy was to
lure American troops into mined areas
and prepared crossfire zones where
anti-aircraft guns were positioned. They
knew exactly which helicopters to target
and when to disrupt the Americans as
much as possible. They studied US
tactics and could often predict the next
steps such as the arrival of resupply or
medevac choppers. Still, it is said that
nine times out of 10, helicopters would
land when needed, no matter the
conditions. Cobra gunships had
significantly longer hover time than
Hueies, so they would arrive first to
prepare the landing zone, cover, and
support the landing, and even stay for a
while to support soldiers on the ground
before needing to refuel and rearm.
However, they were also vulnerable to
enemy fire, especially during low-flying
gun runs to provide close support. And
they were an even bigger target because
the enemy knew how dangerous their
firepower was. They were also followed
by several helicopters designated for
medevac, the famous dust offs manned by
some of the bravest crews credited with
saving thousands of lives. The entire
concept was based on extreme speed and
coordination, leaving no room for error.
All participants were instructed never
to hesitate and to make and carry out
decisions, even if they were wrong,
because waiting almost always meant
certain death or a failed mission. After
landing, the soldiers would disembark as
quickly as possible and run for cover to
establish a perimeter and defense. Many
times they were delivered literally
straight into combat. If they were lucky
enough to avoid traps, they would then
proceed with their mission depending on
their specific objective. In the field,
soldiers removed their shiny insignas
loved by enemy snipers and leaders
stayed close but not right beside the
radio men as officers and radio men were
the first to be targeted along with M60
gunners. Because of that, they always
tried to keep a formation where a single
RPG, grenade, or machine gun burst
couldn't take out all the most important
people at once. The US Army constantly
experimented with new and creative ways
to use helicopters. Even in places where
they couldn't land, they could hover
overhead so that soldiers could dismount
by ropes or special ladders. This made
it possible to insert troops almost
anywhere, especially in high mountain
regions where the Vietkong dug in,
expecting the enemy to come from lower
ground. Another tactic was diversionary
landings and extractions. Helicopters
would drop off troops and later pick
them up, but small groups of soldiers
would remain behind, hidden in ambush
patrols. The enemy often came to
investigate after the Americans had
left, so they would fall into an ambush.
Night landings were also used sometimes,
though they were less common because of
the higher risks involved. As an example
of how badly things could go during air
mobile operations, we can look at the
Battle of LZ Albany, one of the
deadliest and most chaotic engagements
of the Vietnam War. It was part of the
larger I drang campaign. After intense
fighting at LZ X-ray, two battalions of
the seventh cavalry regiment began a
tactical march toward new landing zones
to regroup and prepare for evacuation.
Their columns stretched out in a 550
line as it moved through dense jungle
and tall elephant grass. The soldiers
were exhausted, having gone 60 hours
without sleep, fighting and marching.
While trying to reach the extraction
point, the reconnaissance platoon
stumbled upon the enemy by surprise,
capturing two of them, likely part of an
enemy recon team. The scouts also found
sandal footprints, bamboo arrows
pointing directions, and rice grains in
the jungle, which creeped them out. The
column was ordered to halt and prepare
flank defense, but they did not realize
they were just 200 yd away from a
heavily fortified enemy headquarters.
The worn out troops were sitting in
chest high grass stretched out in the
open, unaware that around a corner were
hundreds of enemy fighters. About an
hour after capturing those soldiers,
enemy troops launched a coordinated
L-shaped ambush, hitting the front and
side of the American column. They poured
out of the jungle by the hundreds,
engaging in hand-to-hand combat and
overwhelming the disoriented Americans.
They split the column into isolated
pockets, and some companies were overrun
and wiped out within minutes. As the
battle raged, US helicopters tried to
help the ambushed soldiers. They flew
into heavy fire trying to evacuate them,
and several were shot down immediately.
Some landed to pick up troops, but were
damaged in the field and could not take
off again. The battle of Eadrang as a
whole saw 16 helicopters destroyed and
more than 125 damaged with LZ Albany
accounting for a large part of them.
Close air support arrived with A1E
Skyraiders dropping Napal, but the US
and NVA soldiers were so close together
that the air strikes caused
indiscriminate casualties on both sides.
Fighting continued in chaos until
nightfall when some reinforcements
managed to land and secure a perimeter
around the survivors. They were
extracted under heavy fire and by the
end of the day, the second battalion had
suffered catastrophic losses of 155 men
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