Night Mission and Milo's Tower

It was certainly interesting to see Milo Overstreet's pictures. I was there at about same time period as Milo and a lot of this brings back memories.

One of the stories of Milo that I remember best is that he flew into a tower in Hue and lived to tell about it. As I remember the story, he and another pilot whose name I cannot remember, got a mission late one night to fly somewhere north of Hue. They were flying with all lights out (a common practice). They were flying below the level of the towers in Hue, but assumed that they were all lighted.

At some point, they became a little concerned and flipped on the landing light. At that very instance, they cut through one of the wires supporting an unlighted tower. Milo turned the Huey on its side and bounced off of the tower. They immediately returned to Camp Eagle and came into our tent to tell the story. No one believed them and thought that they simply didn't want to go north.

We went out to the pad to take a look at the Huey. The skids were bent about half way back and the landing light was broken. The next morning we flew by the tower. It was bent and broken at about 500 feet (at least, that is the altitude I remember).

If this story is not correct, Milo can correct it as necessary. That is the way I remember it. I have thought of Milo often over the years wondering how he was doing. I am certainly happy to know he is still around.

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John Bercaw A/101 AVN 'Eagle' 12-68 - 09-69

That's pretty much what happened. The funny part was the reason we (the other pilot was Frank Wynne) were flying the mission was some poor soldier was told to take some maps to an LZ north of Hue. It was dark & we had already flown a full day, so this did not make us happy. For the first and only time I think my temper help save our lives. I took off, balls to the wall, (I had never flown that fast before,) and headed North to the LZ. At night you flew low to avoid our artillery and Charles pot shots, so fly low we did.

About the middle of Hue I remember there's a damn tower around here somewhere. That thought reached my brain at the same time my eyes confirmed my suspicion. That tower was dead ahead, and we were dead centered on it. I banked hard left and pulled back hard on the cyclic The skids hit the tower & the cables holding the tower up, got entangled in the skids and started pulling us down,.

Then I heard a big snap. The cables had broken. Needless to say, Mission aborted. It was a very silent and slightly slower and much higher flight back to camp.

Upon returning, about 2 feet off the ground before landing, that poor soldier with his maps was just a blur as he left the ship.

Milo Overstreet A/101 AVN 'Eagle' 1967-68