NVA Gunners Stopped Firing After This Helicopter Kept Coming

CW2 Jim Gruenwald stared at a cracked rotor blade near Pleiku in November 1965. The only helicopter that could carry the replacement blade, the maintenance crew, and the rigging equipment was another CH-47. A Chinook had to rescue a Chinook. The Army's newest, biggest helicopter had been in Vietnam for ten weeks and was already talking to itself. The men who flew Hueys called it the "Slow Fat Target" - a fuselage profile the size of a Greyhound bus cruising at 130 knots. This Vietnam War documentary examines the CH-47 Chinook from its first deployment with the 147th Assault Support Helicopter Company through the missions no other helicopter could fly - artillery repositioning at 15,000 pounds external load, downed aircraft recovery, mass casualty evacuation, and the impossible terrain of the Central Highlands. Featuring pilot testimony, maintenance records from a helicopter designed for flat European battlefields that found itself in triple-canopy jungle, and the combat sorties that turned a "slow fat target" into the most indispensable rotorcraft in theater. Sources and further reading in the bibliography below. Bibliography: 1. Dunstan, S. "Vietnam Choppers: Helicopters in Battle 1950-1975" (Osprey, 2003) 2. Williams, J. "The CH-47 Chinook" (Schiffer, 2000) 3. Boyne, W. "How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare" (2011) 4. Fredriksen, J. "The Air Force in the Vietnam War" (2005) 5. 147th Assault Support Helicopter Company unit history and deployment records 6. U.S. Army Aviation Museum, Fort Novosel. CH-47 Vietnam combat records 7. Mertel, K. "Year of the Horse - Vietnam" (Schiffer, 2003) 8. Boeing Vertol. CH-47A/B/C development and production records 9. Hobson, C. "Vietnam Air Losses" (2001) 10. Tolson, Lt. Gen. J. "Airmobility 1961-1971" (Department of the Army, 1973) #VietnamWar #CH47Chinook #MilitaryHistory #ArmyAviation #Helicopter #Airmobility #VietnamWarAviation #Boeing #USARV