I sent the following as an email to Bob Taylor, not knowing if it would be of use to anyone on this forum. He said it was suitable so I'm posting it here in case anyone is not familiar with Junior Mason's flying skill and courage. This occurred on Thanksgiving Day, 1967 in aircraft 522.
Just a few more details on the Hill 875 incident. I didn't want to clutter up the forum; not sure what the protocol is.
Our tail rotor linkage was severed by a large-caliber round as we were coming in to land. We began spinning and threw off the 173rd "legs" who were standing, getting ready to jump off. We crashed fairly hard but with nobody aboard hurt. I remember Junior turning to look back at me and the beginnings of a smile on his face and one on mine as well at our good fortune and that there wasn't an aircraft fire. I noticed a Sgt. on the ground (might have been inserted by another ship) was jumping up and down and trying to attract my attention. He was jabbing his finger and pointing under me. I undid my belt and bent down to look under the ship. Our skids were pinning some of the guys who had been thrown off. I got on the radio and said, "Junior, you are going to have to pick this motherfucker back up."
He replied, "I can't pick it up, we don't have a tail rotor."
I said, "We're sitting on top of a couple of our guys."
He thought a few seconds and said he would do it by himself if we all wanted to get off. That sounded like a great idea to me but somebody, the peter pilot or the crew chief said over the intercom, "No, Junior, we'll stay with you." I wasn't about to admit my cowardice so I buckled myself back in.
As the ship got light it started spinning and we ended up against some trees at the side of the LZ. I don't remember how many times we spun. Once again, everybody was uninjured and we waited for a Chinook to haul us out. All this time aircraft were strafing the area and bullet casings were falling from the sky like rain. My memory is hazy on a lot of details but parts remain quite clear.