Im brad warthen and welcome to the new debrief. Were here to listen to Dennis Dupuis tell about his experiences in vietnam, where he served two tours. Tours as a helicopter pilot. The first, starting with is just 19 years old. Thats why he calls his program from high school to Flight School. Dennis is one of several men in his family, some of whom are here who proudly serve their country in wartime, in the second world war, korea and vietnam. He also continued to serve many years after his return, and the South CarolinaNational Guard. And as yall just saw, we have some other guests here today, a crew from cspan, which is not one of our programs, might be worth broadcasting nationally. So hello to america from the relic room. This is an accredited museum that honors the long military tradition of our state, from the revolution to the present. A recent major addition to the museum is the exhibit a war with no front lines. South carolina and the vietnam war, 1965 to 1973. In keeping with that theme we have lately presented a number of live programs such as this, in which Vietnam Veterans join us to tell their stories. Please welcome our speaker, dennis depuy. Thank you, brad. Im proud to be here today and thank them for giving me this opportunity. I want to thank everybody that came, especially the Vietnam Veterans. Welcome home, guys. For family members that served at home while we were away. Thank you for what you did and all the citizens that are here. Thank you for coming. And today, im honored. Talk a little bit about what inspired me to be a helicopter pilot. I went to Flight School and then my tours in vietnam, particularly the first tour of my inspiration was my father saying here on the left picture on the far right, starting at age 24. And this picture was taken the day that general westmoreland, colonel westmoreland became a general and went to the nco club to celebrate with him in the picture on the right is a some cousins and im very proud of my dad was two who flew forties during world war two. They had three brothers that flew al atkins, then flew in the navy and survived the war. His youngest brother, robert edward. When my flight to be 40 in china. But he crashed in burma. And peter w who was a test pilot for general schnall and the original vgs, who died in a test flight in october 41, about six weeks before pearl harbor. Dad used to talk about his atkinson cousins who flew in world war two. And he was so proud of them. I could see it in his eyes when he read me a book about flying tigers. And i went to my dad to be that proud of me. Someday. So along with dads relatives, they were he was born on indian reservation and goes back to full name, not timothy, who means hes in the history books is no heart, but it literally translates to no heart of fear. And revolutionary war Lieutenant Colonel richard campbell, who fought at the second battle of camden at hopkirk hill back in 96, in 1781, and died at utah springs in october 1781 and was buried on the field. So military ethos and warrior ethics goes way back, and my family, another inspiration was my brother bruce, whos here today. And im very proud of him. And so thats what i wanted to do, was make my dad proud of me. So we went to basic training at fort polk, louisiana, with a lot of other helicopter pilots and then ended up in fort walton, texas, for primary Flight School for four or five months. And i flew these things thats called a metal messerschmitt to 50 part that was made by hughes aircraft. And there had to be thousands of them in the air. Now that were training so many helicopter pilots in 1968, especially after 1068, that it was just amazing. All my instructors were worn officers and what they brought me through primary, it taught me how to hover, taught me how to fly. Traffic patterns, taught me how to navigate, tell me how to land in confined areas. And after five months in fort walton, we moved to a hunter army airfield, went through the gate there. We went through dallas, and on the right there you can see it from picture from the Bell Helicopter plant. While the army was training and thousands, a helicopter pilots, they were making many, many helicopters right there in fort worth. Now, mineral wells, when we got there, there were main heliports, which are ive annotated with a yellow triangle. Theres two of them on there. And thats where you originally flew out of. And then ty went to stage fields. When i got a little blue arrows marking those, just some of them. Theres many, many stage fields. And thats where we learned to hover and do traffic patterns and just a little note of interest, fort walters, texas, is where audie murphy took basic training. So i guess thats why they sent helicopter pilots there. I went to savannah to finish advanced helicopter and that was four months worth of training. We started out no. 58 or excuse me, 13, which were like the Bell Helicopter on mash. And we learned to fly instruments with 50 hours. And then we moved to the magnificent huey helicopter with a jet engine and all these instruments. And it was the one we were going to fly in vietnam. So i graduated. When i graduated on june the 30th, 1969. In the right there, youll see my brother on the left after he returned from vietnam. Hed been back probably three months. And theres my dad who had been back from vietnam about a year. And four months. And brand new warrant officer dennis dupuy on the right, 19 years old, on the right over here. I had my brother bruce and his wife, annie. Bruce was wounded two times in vietnam and recovered in country and met annie, who was a nurse at the 71st evac hospital. They dated. They came back to the world and they got married. And then annie loved my brother so much. I think she might have shot in the second tower just so she could take care of him. Now, bruce laughs, but he didnt think that was it, funny. So i graduated the third days leave. I went home to vietnam, so i must stop here for a minute and ask for questions and clear up just a couple of questions. Then. But has any about helicopter Flight School. Anybody . Yes. Was it hard to get in to Flight School . Oh, no, not hard at all. When i went down and talked to recruit, i told my dad i was going to go. I want to go to helicopter Flight School. And hed been in the army and 29 years or so. And he told me, he said, son, be careful since youre going to go down and see the recruiter. And hes going to see your mechanical ability and hes going to want to sign you up to go to mechanics, crew, chief, school so that you get experience around the helicopters so that youll be better pilot when you go to Flight School. He said, dont believe that. He says, stick to it. Tell me you want to go to Flight School. And sure enough, when i went, thats what the guy asked me. And i think you ought to be a mechanic first. And not only go to Flight School. So if you passed the test with a score of a good score and were physically able to pass the flight physical, you were accepted in the Flight School and then when we got to Flight School, my class started with. Over 301 off four candidates and probably 120 commissioned officers. We graduated. About 181 officers and overflow went to savannah because fort rucker didnt have the airspace for this increased load need for a helicopter pilot. They didnt have the airspace. We didnt have the helicopters that didnt have a maintenance schedule. And so the overflow went to Hunter Air Force base and. We took 61 off the candidates, two hunter and i think about 60 Commission Officers and took four months there. But it all depends what you applied for. We had some guys that were Prior Service that were sergeants that applied to go to Flight School and they were accepted. And when i got fort walton, i found out there was quite a few mechanics. There had been to vietnam and now theyre going to go back to helicopter pilot. So that gave me some real good advice. Q thank you. Hello, lynn. I played with this guy for a long time on National Guard, and i want to tell you that nothing is going to ruin any of my war stories like the truth. So i expect you to just hold on that i. All right. Lets go to lets go to vietnam, back. Beginning august 1969, i got on an airplane that gets to georgia after a night of celebration and went to atlanta, changed airplanes to go to california with a stop in dallas. Well, i went to sleep on the airplane between after we left atlanta and they landed in dallas. And the stewardess woke me up and says, were in texas. And i went, im going to california. And i went back to sleep. Well, we got california and i went down to pick up my duffel bag and i waited for the baggage come through. And i was not many duffel bags and i thought there was more than then. I never did find a duffel bag. So i went to the baggage claim. I said, hey, you know, wheres my bag . And he says, and let me see your ticket. And he looked at ticket. He says, your bags probably in san francisco. Youre in los angelus. Thats supposed to change your plane to dallas. And i didnt make that. So i ended up going to oakland. When we got to oakland, one of the guys in my flight class with Jim Willingham and his father, he lived in right outside of california. And jim, mr. Willingham worked for caterpillar and hed given everybody a Business Card and told us in when we got there to call, calling. So after i checked in, i called him up and he told me to meet him at a bar. Where . Down there. There was three or four guys from my flight class. There and mr. Willingham showed up. He took us to his house where there was 12 or 15 more guys in my class that had been there for maybe two or three days or one day, or got there that morning. And he was letting me stay at the house until they got the port call. And so we had like a mini reunion there, mr. Willinghams house and told us when we got to vietnam to let him know where it was. And we all wrote him letters when we got to our unit. And about once a month, if you wrote him a letter, he made a newsletter and his secretary at work put it together and mailed it to all of us. It was a wonderful, wonderful thing that mr. Willingham from california did for us. And im thankful for that. Theres some good stories about vietnam, and we just need to tell them that. So i write in vietnam and ben to we landed a cut the airplane off of and opened up the door to hot humid Tropical Heat came in there and the stench of a third world country with open sewers and everything just invaded the airplane. And it was not a pleasant experience. And then we had a group of employees come on board and briefed us on the ride from ben. What a long bin. And how dangerous is going to be and walks daily and get on the bus. And we did that and the bus had grenade screens on it and went through downtown and there was no vietnamese on motorcycles and bicycles and walking along. And we just thought every one of them was vc and they were all going to throw a grenade at us. But that didnt happen. They were just we were just scared. A couple of days of the replacement depot got assigned to the First Aviation brigade, went to Group Headquarters in canto, and they went to the 13th battalion. The delta battalion combat aviation battalion, and start training and then ended up going to bennelong where i was in the 1 14 knights of the air, and that was from august. 69 oh to october. One of the things we did, an Assault Helicopter Company was make combat assaults. We loaded up with troops in one place and carried them to where they were going to engage in a battle. Theyd fight there. And when it came time to pick up, wed go back and get them in a pickup. So and take them back to their home base. Usually in a 1 14 that was a flight of three with some gun cover that covered us in and out and i started there, got a few hours and started doing night missions, started flying on about the 16th of august. My birthday was 20th august. I turned 20 years old and by the end of august, the first night of september, we went to a place called mokwa, where we were doing standing by for 40 ship lifts. Night missions were we didnt have night vision goggles. It was just make the eyes and we flew formation and the guns followed us. We had a command and control helicopter that was going to guide us into them wherever the ground commander wanted. So we went out for look while we went a little bit west to a place called beatty and landed in special forces camp. And when the guys came out there, they werent the same guys that we picked up during the daytime. The guys were the enemies. We picked up in the daytime, had starched uniform arms and brightly colored patches and shined boots and these guys that came out to the aircraft were in camouflage, wrinkle up camouflage, and they were actually mercenaries that worked with special forces on the border. And we loaded mountain three aircraft, took off, went back east towards mokwa. We saw the flare ship dropping three flares at a time to light the way to the lc open and they drift down a little bit. So we turned final and headed for the lc and i was in a trailer ship being the new guy on the map so i could learn the area. And i told them, mr. Wilson, who was the aircraft man whod been there probably six months, i says, were getting close to the border and he says, being a new guy and not really know me, he says, are you sure thats yeah, im yeah, well, im pretty sure. Let me check the map again. So were constantly heading towards the border. We get closer and closer and closer. Its a surveyed line in the plain of reeds, just a grassland, kind of like down around buford, where you go out to the park and its just tidal basin. It was like that. No, no geographic marker, no road, no canal, anything like that. At the border. So we approached into the buffer zone and then we approached in a no fly zone. I tell you, im sure were headed towards cambodia. And when he made that call to lead, lead, of course, questioned the new guys navigational skills. Could you get me that water, please . Like, im going to have time to open it up and drink it. Thank you. And where were we . We were on the way to cambodia. So its nighttime. Were flight three and a v. Were flying off the right side. We start descending, starting our approach and the approaches over a wooded area into an open, grassy area. And. At about 100 feet, we fly over this tree line, headed towards a clear grassy area and automatic weapon opens up and shoots green tracers directly into the lead helicopter. Im looking at the lead helicopter. Im close to the controls in case my aircraft commander gets hit, that ill be able to take over. And im focused on him because were flying formation and hes just being hit with his green tracers. I am being in country three weeks yet. The first time i ever seen this and all of sudden they hit the engine and the engine puked up hot parts like it was Bottle Rocket at the backside and it started to descend quicker. Well, the engine, it quit. And then there was a fire back there and it hit the ground so hard that it bent the skids. And were trying to match his rate. And he it starts to be on fire and we land and touch the back of the skids and the guys are jumping off. We start to take off and his flames are higher and bigger and brighter. And theres no way in hell anybody could have survived it. And so the two guys, two other aircraft take off to the north further in cambodia. And as we leave the light nighttime and the light of that burning ship, we are swallowed up by the darkness and it feels then like were a little bit safer and we keep kind of low and increase our speed so we can climb higher and get away from these guys and we head back towards mokwa land there and want to know whats going on. The command and control ship is calling mayday, mayday, mayday. An american helicopter down ten miles north of mach one on guard an emergency frequency that we monitor and we hear the air force respond and theyre going to send one of the a spooky or above or fixed wing aircraft that has a lot of firepower over here. Now provideer. And when the cobras come back and they re armed and they go back out and finally the s. S. Comes in to get more fuel, were briefed on that. All the guys, our guys somehow or another made it out of that aircraft. But two americans were wounded and theyve got them with them and theyre evading to the east. There was a piece of cambodia that came down in like a wing, and we landed inside the wing and they were going to the east and about. We werent we were just told to stand by. We wanted to go get help, get our guys. But they had coordinated with the medevac because the adviser, lieutenant michael burns, had been injured. But up we recovered him a medevac. Come in, drop the crew off and the mission was over. The newspaper article on the side over there is from the stars and stripes and it describes from the stars inscribed a couple of weeks later how an Army Aircraft just happened to be on the vietnam side of the border and got shot, made an Emergency Auto rotation a mile into cambodia, which meant he had to be a mile high. And theres no way in hell you had that kind of glad distance. And the two other aircraft going in there to rescue me, a few facts, right . But for the most part, an entire ticle is bogus. But that was published in stars and stripes. So thats september, october rolls around and i get transferred because the was quite a fewuys on that flight that were upset with the command. I get transferred bearcat to the 3 35 assault helicopter tour and our calligns the slicks were cowboys and the guns were the falcons. And i was bearcat from october 69o october 70. There it is. Heres a map you can see up in the top left that saigon. Ben, while long bean and down here where the red arrow is is a bearcat base camp near longtown t, a world war two. Japanese frplanes out a long thats how long had been. There are a normal area of operations are al was about an ho