30. Some Recollections

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By Dean Hudson

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I was the peter pilot from Bo Roberts story about the hydraulic failure. I made AC within 2 months. I'm wondering if my co-pilot from this story has ever mentioned this incident. Sometime between July 1970 and October 1970 I flew somewhere to help evacuate a village. As soon as we landed, 19 men, women and children filled the H-model giving us 23 persons on board including the crew. We were overweight as we likely had lots of fuel. As I attempted to take off, I flew across a field and came upon a wire fence before gaining enough speed to get lift. I pulled pitch quickly enough to jump over the fence and back to the next field where I was able to finally get lift. It was a close one. We counted the souls onboard as they departed. I would love to know (haven't been able to find out online) if anyone remembers what village we were evacuating, when this occurred and if my co-pilot was ever around to tell this story.

I also remember landing somewhere once where we met a flatbed truck that was loaded with bodies that they put onto our craft. The very curious thing was that there was no blood, no uniforms but someone showed me after we landed that their hair would easily pull out. I don't know if they were gassed or ???? If anyone remembers, I'm a little embarrassed, but one morning after preflight I had taken my left seat and was checking my handgun and accidentally fired a shot that went through the co-pilot door just about when one of the crew was arriving.

Another time as I was bringing it up to a hover (at Phu Hiep) my EGT climbed into the red and the engine blew. I responded quickly, got it back on the ground without incident for which I was given an air medal. I'm also the person who was busted in Bangkok and spent my last 5 months (Tuy Hoa) as motor pool officer. I played a lot of pool at the NCO club.