Bob,

I remember that night very well and Gator 851 and crew were at Holloway that night.

We took off single ship no escort and headed north west into the mountains. Dobbs asked me who I wanted for right seat in the back and said our usual gunner Jim Bradford I trust him. We did not however have our normal Peter Pilot, Dobbs had another AC lined up. Good thinking on his part, not that a Peter Pilot could not have handeled it but when you go to do something like that you may as well take the experience you have available.

Anyway to fill in some of the blanks that I did not write home about; when Dobbs pulled pitch to get out of the hover hole it was like we were shot from a cannon. How he managed to go stright up I will never know. He then nosed it over for air speed. The sensation of speed was non existant since we had no visual reference of any kind. I remember the guy flying right seat calling out the insturment readings and dwelling on air speed and rate of decent. For what seemed like minutes but I know it was only seconds the guy started shouting out the rate of decent. I too was watching the guages and becoming nervous. I will never be sure but if we did not pull up when we did in about 5 seconds we would have plowed into the jungle at over 100 knots.

The man upstairs must have pulled back on the stick.

Tom Gator 851.