Word: choppers
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...HEROES Chopper Pilot At Fort Lewis, Wash, last week, Marine Captain James V. Wilkins recalled an experience he had had in Korea. "On July 3, 1951," he said, "I was flying a Corsair with my squadron along the east coast of Korea, 15 miles inland and about 20 miles south of Wonsan. We ran into heavy ground fire from a road reconnaissance outfit; my plane was hit and began smoking heavily. I bailed out at 800 feet and landed on the inland side of a small bowl east of the main supply route. The North Koreans were lined...
...little while later I heard a putt-putt-putting," Wilkins continued, "and I realized it was a chopper. So I scrambled back down the mountain to my parachute. I got down into the bowl just as the chopper was finishing its first search of the area, flying at about 50 feet. He was way out near the main road, and I figured, there he goes, because the ground fire was thicker than the overcast." A burst of ground fire rocked the helicopter, but Lieut. Koelsch managed to keep it under control. "I figured he would surely back out," said Wilkins...
...cruel chopper and rain theories are other possibilities. The former blames tree "trimmings" for leaving the squirrel without home and food caches. Possibly number four had to climb to such heights before reaching a branch that he died of over-exertion. Equally fatal is the rain theory, which visualizes the creature scampering innocently across the Yard, then sinking into the mud with only a brown bubble for a headstone...
Last week a Marine Corsair pilot, Major David Cleeland, crash-landed on a frozen reservoir, 70 miles north of the front line. Two of the rescue group's chopper pilots grabbed Pop and flew off. They found Cleeland surrounded by Reds who were pouring fire at a dummy which the major had made of his rolled-up parachute and helmet. One mounted Chinese made a one-man cavalry charge at Cleeland, was dropped by a Corsair that swooped...
Aboard the helicopter, there was a moment's hesitation: rescue pilots are not required to go in under heavy fire. Pop and the pilots decided to chance it. The chopper sat down 15 yards from the crashed plane and Major Cleeland made a run for it. Just as Pop was stretching out a beefy right hand to help him aboard, a Chinese hit the hand with a rifle bullet. Cleeland was hit in the leg, but Pop pulled him aboard with his good hand, and the rescue craft whirled safely away...