“Inside Yankee Papa 13, one of 17 copters making up the mission, with the pilot and co-pilot buckled in at the controls, U.S. Marine gunner Pfc Wayne Holien, Vietnam. March 31, 1965.”
“The U.S. Marines’ Helicopter Squadron 163 knew their mission – to airlift nine Vietnamese infantry to a post some 20 miles away. The date was March 31, 1965.
By the time of the photo essay, entitled One Ride with Yankee Papa 13, Burrows had been covering Vietnam for more than three years and had seen his fair share of operations.Doubt lingered thick in the air – would this mission be a ‘milk run,’ a simple leave and return, or would the Vietcong be waiting with guns to ambush the Yankee Papa 13?
The answer, unfortunately, was the latter. The crew was being led by Lance Cpl James C. Farley, who was only 21, and had been shopping around the nearby town of Da Nong earlier that day. Once airborne and with nine Vietnamese infantry on board, they knew it was a trap.
‘The Vietcong dug in along the tree line, were just waiting for us to come into the landing zone,’ Burrows wrote in his report. ‘We were all like sitting ducks and their raking crossfire was murderous.’
He described the chaos of trying to rescue a wounded pilot who was bleeding from the neck from the nearby Yankee Papa 3. The helicopter’s blades were still whirring and enemy fire rang around him.
With gunshots from the enemy barraging the copter, they had no choice but to leave the wounded pilot and flee for their lives.” (Photo by Larry Burrows. dailymail.co.uk)
