| I picked up Gary, Bill and Frenchy and put their remains in body bags. No enemy in sight.
They were only two minutes out of Marble Mountain Air Facility. Gary and I were best friends, and it was
crushing to me. The wreckage was just past a paddy and I thought maybe they took fire from there. There
were a lot of dinks in the paddy but we took no fire. I don’t know why they went down and there was no
way I could tell because the wreckage was strewn pretty good. It’s a mystery to me to this day. I was
on the scene two minutes after it happened. Submitted byPaul Smith, Crew Chief, HMH-463, chase plane and recovery
aircraft.
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I just read a synopsis of John W Zuehlsdorf (he went by Bill) on his CH-53A accident in July 1968 as a member of HMH-463. The synopsis was written in the Wall of faces through Vietnam Memorial Fund.
Bill was one of my roommates in Vietnam and I was the main witness to that account.
That synopsis is completely wrong. When I arrived in Vietnam June 1968. I was sent to HMH-463 and the next day I got TAD orders to HMM-161 to fly CH-34s for 4 months while the Marine Corps was phasing them out of Vietnam. Bill got there after me and stayed in HMH-463.
On that fatal day in July 1968 Bill was flying co-pilot and I saw his 53 coming from Elephant Valley about 500 feet straight at us. I was a co-pilot on a Ch-34 making an approach to the Generals pad located on the side of a hill at Red Beach DaNang.
Being a CH-53 co-pilot myself I saw the #1 engine glowing bright. I called them and said "53 at red beach your #1 engine is afire shut it down." It continued towards me and I repeated the call 2 more times. The engine glow got bigger and blew off the aircraft (possible compressor stall) when we were about a mile away. It pitched up as one of the main rotor blades left the aircraft and crashed near a rice paddy at the foot of the General's pad.
We landed by the 53 to help, and then had to leave because their 50cal rounds were cooking off because of the intensity of the heat and one round hit us. There was nothing we could do but call Marble Mountain and report the mishap.
I didn't know it was Bill in the aircraft until I got back to Marble 5 hours later.
As a side note, at the end of September 1968 I went back to HMH-463 and flew the CH-53A and the new CH-53D which came into the squadron in the spring of 1969 my last 9 months.
I retired a Lt Colonel in 1990 out of Headquarters Marine Corps on the head aviators Air staff.
I have over 4500 hours in CH-53s of which 400 of them were in HMH-463.
Regards,
Michael A Stabile
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