Air Rescue Service - Vietnam War

Vietnam War

The Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service peacetime force was not equipped, trained, nor structured to meet the demands of war in Southeast Asia in the early 1960s. As lessons were learned, the service's rescue capability continued to increase. During the Vietnam War, ARRS crews would save 4,120 people, with 2,780 of them in combat situations.

At the outset of the Vietnam War, the primary rescue helicopter in the USAF inventory was the HH-43B "Huskie" manufactured by Kaman Aircraft. A fire fighting and enhanced crash rescue capability was added by Kaman as an incentive for selection of the HH-43 by USAF acquisition officials. But the HH-43 was slow, short-ranged and unarmed, having been procured primarily for the local base recovery (LBR) mission at air force bases in the United States and at other U.S. air bases overseas. The LBR concept also included a fire suppression role, with an external AFFF foam bottle and firefighters as part of the flight crew.

During June 1961, the HH-43 helicopters, crews, and support personnel of the various major commands were reassigned from their respective home bases and host wings to the Air Rescue Service in an attempt to unify their command structure. Standardized training and mission concepts were also implemented.

As the Vietnam War escalated, HH-43 rescue detachments from bases in the continental United States (CONUS) were deployed to air bases in Vietnam and elsewhere in Southeast Asia (SEA) with the new nickname and callsign of “Pedro.” The HH-43B's combat radius of only 75 miles was increased with added fuel drums strapped in the cabin. The HH-43B was eventually replaced with the armored HH-43F model for use in an Area Crew Recovery (ACR) mission role, the HH-43F also possessing additional internal fuel tanks for extended range. The HH-43F units were staffed with USAF Pararescue personnel as part of the combat recovery team and throughout the war, both HH-43B and HH-43F helicopters flew deep into North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. HH-43s accounted for more lives saved than any other rescue helicopter in the Vietnam War.

In July 1965, ARS received its first CH-3C, an aircraft considered an adequate aircrew rescue vehicle. The HH-3E "Jolly Green Giant" and subsequent HH-53B/C "Super Jolly Green Giant" helicopters were manufactured by Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. With the introduction of the Lockheed HC-130N and HC-130P, an air-refuelable HH-3E in June 1967, and the delivery of the air-refuelable HH-53B (the first helicopter specifically designed for CSAR operations) later that year (the latter two aircraft both being dual-engined helicopters), the now-renamed Military Airlift Command (MAC) and ARRS considered that they finally had the right force structure for combat rescue operations in Vietnam.

Other aircraft that were on the rescue mission team included the low and slow-flying forward air controllers (FACs) of the Tactical Air Command (TAC), call sign “Nail,” a frequent rescue force component flying the O-1E Bird Dog, and later the O-2A Skymaster.

"Nail" would initially serve as the on-scene commander during a rescue operation until the arrival of USAF HC-130 Hercules aircraft utilizing the call sign of "King," augmented by USAF A-1 Skyraider aircraft utilizing the call sign of "Sandy." The "Nail" aircraft helped locate the downed crewman or crewmen, marking his/their location with smoke for the "Sandys" and pickup helicopter(s) utilizing the callsign of "Pedro" or "Jolly," and directing close air support (CAS) against enemy ground troops.

In 1970, TAC-operated OV-10A Bronco aircraft began working with search and rescue forces, replacing the slower unarmed O-1 Bird Dogs and O-2 Skymasters as FAC aircraft. OV-10s equipped with PAVE NAIL night observation equipment could locate survivors at night or in bad weather and helped development of rescue operations relying more on advanced technology than merely courage, firepower and tactics.

One Department of Defense report said that one Air Force search and rescue crewman and two aircraft were lost for every 9.2 recoveries in Vietnam, while the Navy lost a crewman for every 1.8 recoveries.

ARRS had begun to build its reputation as the world's finest combat rescue force. However, the ARRS continued to be plagued by its own shortsightedness, even as new tactics and doctrine for combined rescue operations were developed. As late as October 1970, Colonel Frederick V. Sohle, commander of the 3rd Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Group, would say, "Our development . . . has been a history of relearning lessons already learned by someone else, but who unfortunately could not or did not document it for others to profit by."

This lack of documentation and the inability to integrate an institutional memory among ARRS forces (with the possible exception of the pararescue force) would detrimentally affect Combat Search and Rescue (CSAR) units well into the 1980s. Consequently, the CSAR mission became subordinate to daily support and auxiliary mission roles. If one lesson could be drawn from the Vietnam War, it was that an effective CSAR force was needed. Unfortunately, the institutional Air Force failed to learn this lesson well and ARRS assets experienced the same neglect and lack of funding which plagued its ARS predecessor.