LEAVE NO MAN BEHIND

DURING WORLD WAR II THE U.S. MILITARY DEVELOPED RUDIMENTARY CAPABILITIES TO RESCUE DOWNED AIRCREW MEMBERS WHO DITCHED IN THE SEA—A SCENARIO THAT UNTIL THEN HAD USUALLY AMOUNTED TO A DEATH SENTENCE. Amphibious aircraft, originally designed for maritime patrol, were repurposed for search and rescue, augmented with pursuit and small liaison airplanes for searching and bombers retrofitted for dropping life rafts and other supplies. In the last months of the war, tiny helicopters introduced in the China-Burma-India Theater proved their worth for picking up airmen downed on land.

Search and rescue came of age during the Korean War with the advent of more-capable helicopters and an amphibious aircraft designed specifically for the SAR mission, the Grumman SA-16 Albatross. In Korea the U.S. Air Force’s Air Rescue Service extracted nearly 1,000 personnel from hostile territory. After the war, however, military strategies centered on nuclear weapons, and SAR during a nuclear war seemed ludicrous: There would be no one left to rescue. Air Rescue Service crews no longer trained for combat conditions and mostly flew support missions following peacetime accidents.

In November 1961, USAF crews began training South Vietnamese pilots in counterinsurgency operations using older aircraft such as North American T-28 trainers and Douglas B-26 bombers. Despite the stated goal of training, U.S. crews were soon flying combat missions against the Viet Cong

The Air Force was initially reluctant to station dedicated SAR aircraft in Vietnam since their presence would indicate U.S. involvement in combat. Instead, a handful of assigned rescue coordinators relied on Army helicopters and the CIA’s Air America, neither of which had crews trained for combat SAR. Even if the Air Force had been willing to send SAR aircraft to Vietnam, Air Rescue Service equipment was woefully inadequate, suited mostly for