Tom,

I flew the II Corp mission twice. The first time was right after Gator 371 went in for its 1100 hr PE. They needed a replacement ship and mine and Mike Cece's ship were the two newest ones in the platoon. Mike's A/C was Mr. Becker call sign the "Animal" and he did live up to the name. Great pilot and didn't worry about a thing. He would sit hovering in a hot LZ pulling out LRRPs and have his peter-pilot light him a cigarette while they hovered there. Mike's gunner was Billy Frakes. I don't think Bill was even house broken at that time. That was a great and crazy crew. I had Mr. Ryan as my A/C. He was a career soldier and by this time the Battle of Dak To and a few other things weighed on his mind so having this gravy job agreed with him. We flew that day to Qui Nhon. The general whose name I think was Timothy had a meeting. They took the pilots somewhere and left me and my gunner Francis Hightower with the ship. I don't know if we were suppose to polish the chin bubble all day but we sat there. They came and got us at noon to take over to the mess hall to eat and then right back to the ship. We sat all day. I decided right then I would never take this job. So I gave my ship my to Kipher who was the normal crew chief and I became the float until Gator 371 got out of maint. It worked out great because I got to flew with lots of different crews and learned a lot.

The second time was in Nov. 68. I had guard the night before and was suppose to have the day off. The II corp bird while sitting at MACV started slinging greese from the short shaft. They needed a replacement ship and crew. I got drafted with Sempek to crew Gator 540. That was the old man's ship and for some reason Maj. Cary decided to fly the mission. The general had a meeting in Nha Trang and because of the delay they decided to fly cross country instead of following the road and coast there. I didn't like that at all. We would follow landmarks in case we went down and that would give the other guys a chance to find us. Flying over the jungle and mountains to save time was nuts. After almost ten months of flying I knew all the do's and don'ts of flying. Well we got there with no trouble and again we sat the entire day with the ship. The only nice thing this time was we were near the beach and could walk along and take pictures of the South China Sea. Never pulled that duty again. Stella would fly it when he needed something and they were going to Qui Nhon. He had a buddy he would trade stuff with there. Barker and Mooney crew that mission most of the time after Nov. 68. When we were sent to An Khe Gator 316 was transfered to the 189th for the mission. It crashed on Sept.14,1969 on its way back to Holloway after dropping of the general. The entire crew was killed.