26. BIG WINDY PILOT

Jack,

Your site and words are very appropriate. It has been 30 years ago this month, and I thank you for what you did, and also what you said in your site. I flew (Big Windy) out of Pleiku and would really like to piece together what I have surpressed for 30 years. I was shot down north of Kontum on the highway and would really like to access any info your have available to piece it together. My wife is not aware of what happened, and my memory is not helping me much, after 30 years. Thanks for your attention to this E-mail, and hope to hear from you.

Regards: A "Big Windy" Pilot

REFLECTIONS: "Big Windy" was the call sign for a CH-47 Chinook Helicopter unit that flew out of Camp Holloway in Pleiku. Not enough can be said about the role these aircraft and their crews played in The Battle of Kontum - I am convinced that without them, we would have failed. In war we tend to focus on the guns and the shooters and we forget those who do the hauling. Often times people think that the Chinooks were flying high, from secure base to secure base and out of harm's way. That was just not the case. The exposure to enemy fire these big birds faced and their crews was very intense and they performed magnificently. The number of Vietnamese refugees they pulled out of Kontum during that battle was incredible. When the weather and the enemy fire were at their worst and the C-130's couldn't land at Kontum, these aircraft and their crews kept us alive. History tends to remember the gunfighters - we would do well to remember who brought the "beans, bullets and fuel" - Thank you "BIG WINDY"