: Went up to the crash site that afternoon with
: the old man. Took photo's as I was doing the
: maint. status for the accident board. They
: had picked up some grunts, one was Derosing
: and popped a smoke which was streaming from
: a/c (not a factor). The beach was 15 ft
: higher then the water. A/c struck top of
: sand in extreme nose up. Paint was sanded
: totally off the bottom of tailboom. Tailboom
: broke at fuse attach point and t/r pushed it
: around were it folded next to fuse side. One
: pack fell out and hit the sand really
: moving. I interviewed him couple days later
: in hospital. He was skinless on one side of
: his body, but glad to be alive.
: US witness on ground said a/c went low level
: streaming smoke, made a 180 turn over water,
: he thought the blades were going to hit
: surface in the turn. A/c hit the sand at
: very hi speed, tried to pull up. This was
: know by us as a DEROS ride gone bad. Total
: 11 US died.

Thanks Jack. There's something wrong, somewhere. The Goldbook shows 6 total KIA, our crew plus Ater and Demaline of the 4ID, and the 4ID's Chester A. Pudlo, DEROSing, who survived after being thrown clear. He must have been the skinless man you interviewed. "Switchboard" shows a Chester Pudlo living in Chicago... how many can there be?

According to CACF records, (Accuracy? Who knows?) there were 18 total KIA in all of Vietnam on that day: the 6 shown in the Goldbook in the crash of 67-17587 in Binh Dinh province, 3 Marines, 4 Air Force, and 5 other Army.

Of the 5 other Army KIAs that day, CACF shows one in Quang Tin province, 2 in Thua Thien, one non-hostile in Binh Duong, and one homicide in Quang Ngai.

I've been helping out the guys going through the complete casualty files to ID casualties down to unit level; they call it "The Coffelt Database." If you could come up with anything showing the old casualty files are wrong, they would really appreciate the help, because they want to get it right the first time.

Thanks,
Bob Kilpatrick