U.S. Army Captain Thomas Pienta: Firsthand Account of a Vietnam War Helicopter Pilot

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I glanced to my left, and the next frame of the film was Trezona stumbling, his face burnt black and his helmet still on his head. I screamed his name and saw that he was working his way toward a Huey waiting on the ground. It was Chalk Six. Nineteen-year-old Warrant Officer Ron Timberlake was the aircraft commander of that helicopter. Timberlake, flight lead for the first platoon, was Trezona’s hooch-mate. I don’t know who his pilot was but wish I did, so that I could thank him for his bravery. Timberlake did not hear us call that the LZ was clear, and saw a ship burning on the ground. Nothing was going to stop him from coming back into the jaws of death to attempt to rescue us.

Chalk Six’s pilot came in 90 degrees off our original approach axis, landed and faced the enemy battalions. Timberlake and his crew sat on the ground waiting as no less than 10 wounded Americans piled into his helicopter. The NVA fired RPG after RPG at Chalk Six and us during that time as well as intense small-arms fire. Timberlake noticed the RPG gunner up in a tree about 75 yards away at his 2 o’clock — with his assistant on the ground handing him up rockets. Timberlake told his gunner Nelson to kill them. Nelson’s M-60 riddled them, and they got what they deserved. Timberlake told me about that years later, and I have to say it made me feel better to know that the guys who had probably killed Brady and maimed Bob Trezona and me were dead.

I saw Trezona on the rescue helicopter and piled on top of the group already aboard. I think I was about the last aboard. I could see Timberlake’s instrument panel glowing red and knew the Huey was undergoing major damage. He then lifted that fragile but oh-so-strong-and-beautiful Huey out of the LZ while we were again racked with machine-gun fire.

The chopper had flown a short distance when I noticed Timberlake’s exhaust gas temperature rapidly decrease, and his engine quit. Timberlake began autorotation — the much-practiced, intricate maneuver to land a helicopter without an engine. I can tell you that what he was doing is very difficult under any circumstances. His autorotation and landing was the greatest power-off maneuver I have ever witnessed, especially since this was a low-level autorotation, which gives you no time at all to think about what you are doing.

He flew his bird to a velvety-soft landing in a rice paddy with more than 14 Americans aboard. We then set up a perimeter around his Huey, and before the rotor blades stopped turning, another Slick swooped in to pick us up. Warrant Officer Jack Flukinger was the aircraft commander, and his pilot was Lieutenant Al Barret. After Flukinger’s Huey landed, his gunners helped me slosh through some muddy rice paddies to his helicopter. I was pretty deep in shock, I guess, but still functioning pretty well.

I remember being in the back of the third helicopter I had been in that day and looking at Flukinger and Barret and shaking my head in disbelief. My thoughts were of my parents and how upset they were going to be to find out I had been burned, and I felt sad for them. The whole time at Tay Ninh I had been writing home telling them how safe it was flying and about all the safety equipment we wore to keep us alive. I was mad because I knew my flying days were over and I had only been in Vietnam a short time. But to hell with ambition, I was alive!

As we flew toward Tay Ninh and the field hospital, my vision became very hazy, and everything appeared to be smoky. I knew I was seriously burned, but I did not know how bad my condition was. We landed at Tay Ninh medevac pad and were met by medics and nurses. I elected to walk into the field hospital myself and did so escorted by medical personnel. I lay down on a cot and heard Trezona ask the doctor if we were going to die, and then I became very concerned.

I remember some pilots from our unit coming in to talk to us and telling us not to worry, because the Viet Cong had ambushed the convoy bringing us turkeys, and no one was going to have a happy Thanksgiving anyway. The last thing I remember for a month, except for short periods of pain and consciousness, was the doctors cutting off my flight gloves and watching the flesh on my hands being removed with them. They cut off my officer candidate school ring and my watch, and that was the last I saw of them. I then told the doctors I couldn’t see anymore, and they put patches over my eyes. By then I really was scared. ‘Please God, don’t let me be blind,’ I prayed. Sweet morphine then took me away to the land of hallucinations. My war with the Grim Reaper had just begun.

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Tags: 20th - 21st Century, Airborne Operations, Historical Conflicts, Historical Figures, People, Vietnam War

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