Celebrated SAR Mission
19 JUNE 1968
CELEBRATED SAR MISSION
Any search and rescue team member will tell you that no SAR mission is routine. Such was the case shortly after midnight on this date, as LTJG Clyde E. Lassen and the crew of his UH-2 Seasprite helicopter hovered over the water a few miles off North Vietnam. Standing the nightly SAR duty from USS PREBLE (DLG-15), they had been on station for nearly an hour. Earlier, an F-4B from AMERICA (CVA-66) had “gone in,” and there had yet been no word from the pilot and RIO. LTJG Clarence L. Cook’s radio next crackled with the information that the two were alive, under cover, in a hilly, heavily jungled area–with NVA troops closing in.
Guiding off flares dropped from a circling plane, Lassen reached the correct hill. He selected a rice paddy nearby where he hovered a few feet off the water. Small arms fire began to ping the chopper. The door gunners, Aviation Machinist Mates Bruce B. Dallas and Donald N. West, streaked the night with return fire. But the downed fliers could not reach the paddy through the thick jungle, so Lassen moved to an alternate position along the side of the hill. Here large trees and tricky winds threatened the aircraft, and to make matters worse, as the rescue collar was being lowered to the first flier the illumination flares burned out! Lassen lost all depth perception in the pitch blackness. The Seasprite shuddered and the crew shouted in panic as the rotor bit into a tree trunk. Using all his strength, Lassen gained control of the careening chopper. Now low on fuel, he directed the fliers to try again for the rice paddy.
He hovered out of range until more flares arrived, then returned into intensifying ground fire at the rice paddy. More bullets peppered the chopper as the door gunners kept the enemy at bay. Miraculously, no one was hit. Yet again the flares burned out! With no fuel to await more illumination, Lassen threw caution to the wind and flipped on his landing lights. Now a perfect target, Lassen scanned the night for the aviators, then, determined to save them, set the chopper down. The gunners dueled heavily with the inrushing NVA. A seeming eternity later the exhausted fliers clawed their way out of the jungle to safety, guided by the lights. Lassen pulled up, then made for the coast. He landed on the first friendly object he could find, the guided missile frigate JOUETT (DLG-29), with only five minutes of fuel left.
The recovery rate of downed fliers in Vietnam was higher than in any previous conflict. Largely this was due to the actions of the undecorated heroes of SAR. But for their gallantry and fearless bravery on this day, Lassen was awarded the Medal of Honor, Cook the Navy Cross, and Dallas and West, the Silver Star.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 25 JUN 22
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Mersky, Peter B. and Norman Polmar. The Naval Air War in Vietnam. Annapolis, MD: Nautical & Aviation Pub., 1981, pp. 118-20.
Murphy, Edward F. Vietnam Medal of Honor Heroes. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, 1987, pp. 131-33.
Stevens, Paul Drew. The Navy Cross Vietnam: Citations of Awards to Men of the United States Navy and United States Marine Corps 1964-1973. Forest Ranch, CA: Sharp and Dunnigan, 1987, p. 74.
United States Congress. United States of America’s Congressional Medal of Honor Recipients and their Official Citations. Columbia Heights, MN: Highland House II, 1994, p. 92.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: Lassen received his Medal of Honor on 16 January 1969, along with MAJ Stephen Pless, a Marine Corps Huey pilot who had performed an equally heroic extraction in 1967. They were the first naval aviators of the Vietnam war to receive the Medal of Honor.
On 24 August 1998, the keel was laid for our (then) newest Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, LASSEN (DDG-82), at Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, Mississippi. Lassen Building, aboard NSA Mid-South, Millington, TN, also remembers this officer.
