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for the remains of missing American soldiers. It was not large enough to handle all of us, so we divided into two groups for the trip across the miles and years to Landing Zone X-Ray, some thirty-five miles and a quarter century away from Pleiku.
The two civilian Vietnamese pilots in the cockpit passed the word back to those of us on the first lift that they hadn’t the foggiest idea where LZ X-Ray was located. The former Huey pilot Bruce Crandall and I moved forward and knelt between them in the cockpit. I showed them my old Army topographical map of the area and put my finger on the clearing. Not good enough. “Anyone have a compass?” we shouted to the rear. Joe fished around in his pack and pulled out a battered old compass he had carried as a Boy Scout. With it we oriented our pilots and, finally, were on our way.
For Bruce Crandall, squatting between the two Vietnamese helicopter pilots, the reasons for this journey were twofold. “My purposes for going were to travel with my brothers back to the time and place where we first became a family, and to use the opportunity to find out everything I could about my missing helicopter and crew who are still missing in action,” Crandall said.
Huey helicopter No. 63-8808 with crew members WO Jesse Phillips, WO Ken Stancil, Crew Chief Don Grella, and Gunner Jim Rice—all of whom flew missions during the Ia Drang battles—disappeared on a routine supply mission between An Khe and Qui Nhon on December 28, 1965. They were in Bruce’s company in the 229th Assault Helicopters and the missing men have been on his mind for all these years.
Everywhere we went on this trip Bruce asked for information and help finding the crash site and the missing men. He said he was particularly grateful to Colonel Thuoc “for his assistance and continued efforts to find our MIA crew.” The North Vietnamese colonel brought Bruce photos of downed Hueys from military files in Hanoi and at every stop on our journey questioned military and civilian authorities on the subject. “He was and is a true professional,” Crandall said.
We watched out the windows and windshield as the city gave way to patchwork plots of small coffee and tea plantings, two or three small villages, and then we were over familiar territory—thick scrub jungle, meandering creeks, open areas with tall elephant grass and no evidence of human habitation. Much as it was twenty-eight years ago.
The first time I flew over this countryside was at dawn on Sunday, November 14, 1965, when we did an aerial reconnaissance mission searching for a clearing in the Ia Drang Valley suitable for our helicopter assault scheduled in just a few hours. To disguise our intentions the two Hueys and two escorting gunships flew a course from Plei Me Camp to Duc Co Camp on the other side of the Ia Drang River. Just passing by, but from the open doors of the helicopters we scanned the terrain carefully with binoculars. We needed a clearing big enough to take eight Hueys landing together. Only two clearings seemed large enough, one designated Yankee, the other dubbed X-Ray. Yankee turned out to have tree stumps dotting the clearing, so it would be X-Ray, at the base of the Chu Pong.
Now, from two miles out, Bruce and I spotted the X-Ray clearing dead ahead of us at the foot of the Chu Pong Massif. As we approached the clearing I saw clear signs that nature had done much to repair the devastation of war. Shattered trees had grown new branches. Shell holes and the line of old foxholes were at least partially filled. The elephant grass had reclaimed large swaths of land that had been burned over by fires set by napalm and bombs and artillery shells. I was stunned to see wildflowers blooming here and there in the clearing.
The helicopter settled to the ground almost precisely on the spot where Crandall landed that morning twenty-eight years ago carrying me, Sergeant Major Plumley, Capt. Tom Metsker, and my two radio operators.
The steps were
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