The Ranger
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Could this be about the Texas Rangers or the Army Rangers? No it’s just a little story about the light observation helicopters we serviced and flew on Artillery Hill in Vietnam often referred to as the Ranger.
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The Ranger
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The “Ranger” was the common term used by the pilots on Artillery Hill in Vietnam in reference the light observation helicopter OH 58A which we used to shuffle around officers to and from manned artillery field posts in the area. Most of our passengers were colonels or higher in rank. We had up to eight active helicopters at the air section. The helicopters were not armed except for the M16s the pilot and passengers carried with them in case they were shot down. All the members of the Air Section wore a patch that said “52nd Air Assault Taxi”
The OH 58A light observation helicopter used to taxi officers around the Artillery Hill Area. It was often referred to as the Ranger.
Flying over the jungle, the helicopters became targets for any Viet Cong or North Vietnamese soldiers that were in the area. They all had Soviet Union made AK 47 automatic rifles they fired as the helicopters flew over. Three times when I was there, they were able to hit the helicopters and wound one of the occupants in the helicopter, but they never shot one down during my tour. For this reason, I purposely avoided flying in the helicopters unless absolutely necessary.
Viet Cong soldier in jungle carrying an AK 47 automatic rifle they used to shoot at our helicopters as they flew over the jungle.
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The helicopters were often the target of rockets fired from the jungle around Artillery Hill so at night they were kept inside steel armored revetments with walls on three sides about four feet tall. Each night the pilots flew them into the revetments. On five or six occasions while I was on the Hill rockets landed on or near the air strip. Shrapnel from the rockets was laying all around the area following the attacks, but none ever got the helicopters. I avoided sleeping at the Air Section because of the frequent attacks on the helicopters, but I did occasionally have nighttime guard duty at the Air Section.
A Viet Cong 122 mm rocket heading for the air strip on Artillery Hill with the purpose of damaging our helicopters.
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On one occasion, one of those giant crane helicopters was starting to set down on the air strip on Artillery Hill and the rotor wash was so bad that it blew four of our OH 58A helicopters against the steel revetments they were setting in and damaged the tail rotors on all four. In an instant, half of our fleet was out of commission. I headed for the Air Force Base and picked up four complete tail rotor assemblies and we were back in business the next day. Our CO put out the word that after that that nothing larger than an observation helicopter could come in on the Artillery Hill Air Strip.
The huge crane helicopter that tried to land on the air strip and blew our small helicopters around like they were toys damaging the tail rotors on four of them.
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Thanks for reading The Ranger,
Bill