A Company, 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion,101st Airborne Division |
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Unit History On 7 December 1950, the 4th Light Aviation Section was constituted in the Regular Army and was assigned to the Eighth US Army in Korea where it remained until deactivated on 5 November 1954.
The 4th Light Aviation Section was reactivated on 1 July 1956 as the 101st Aviation Company and assigned to the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. On 3 December 1962, as the Army's aviation force structure continued to grow, the 101st Aviation Company was redesignated as the 101st Aviation Battalion.
Company A deployed to the Republic of Vietnam on 11 April 1965 and became the first element of the division to see combat since World War II. A Company, 101 Aviation served from 04/1965-09/1966 at Soc Trang, Republic of Vietnam.In 09/1966 the A Company Colors return to Ft. Campbell, the company assets were transferred to the 336th Assault Helicopter Company.
After the colors were returned from Vietnam in 09/1966 the Company regrouped, acquired assets and trained at Ft Campbell KY in preparation for it's return deployment to Vietnam.
In 12/1967 Company A returned to Bien Hoa, Vietnam and then moved north to start Camp Eagle in northern I Corp. The division was reconstituted Airmobile in July 1968, and several separate theater aviation elements were reorganized under the 160th Avn Group Later renamed the 101st Aviation Group that included A Company, B Company, C Company, D Company along with Headquarters Company.
01/1969 Redesignated as A Company, Comancheros, The company served until 01/1972, at Camp Eagle, Republic of Vietnam From 01/1972-10/1987, the Comancheros were stationed at their home in Fort Campbell, KY
The 101st Aviation Battalion was redesignated the 4th Battalion on 16 October 1987 when the 101st Aviation Regiment was activated. A Company, 101st Aviation was re-designated as Alpha Company, 4/101 Aviation Regiment "The Comancheros" 101st Airborne Division, Fort Campbell, KY. A 4/101 Avn has served two tours in Iraq and One tour in Afghanistan since 9/11. They are scheduled for deployment to Afghanistan in 2008.
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The Comanchero Name A/101st Aviation's was first assigned to Camp Eagle in December of 1967 and their call sign was Alpha Eagle until the first part of 1969. The story behind the renaming from Alpha Eagle to Comancheros.u ------------------ In 1968 101st Airborne Division got a new commander, General Zais, and he wanted to be having the Eagle 6 call sign for his own. The story is that the old timers were not happy about the changing of the call sign. The A/101 veterans had just gone through TET 68 and they were very proud of their performance and the call signs reputation earned in that battle. We tried to become Anheuser-Busch "landing at the brewery". The beer company liked it and even sent us decals. The eagle for the 101st and the star because we were THE BEST! They were even going to get us furniture, but it all got shafted by senior command (Zais) who thought it wasn't tasteful. The search was now on for a new nickname and call sign for A/101 Assault Helicopter Company. After some very serious discussions in the O Club, Andre "Strange Tom" Thomas, Comanchero 23, Larry "DoDo" Herring, Comanchero 10, and Capt. Michael Gouch "Comanchero 40" from El Paso, Texas, remembered a group called the Comancheros that existed in the 1830's and lived around the Commanche Indians. They raided both sides of the border and traded with the Indians and such. He remembered them as a despicable bunch, made up of Mexicans, Spaniards, Indians, Blacks and Gringos from varied ethnic backgrounds. The Comancheros were feared by all of West Texas, trusted by none and loved by few. They, however, did have a common bond of Brotherhood that was to be admired. Andre "Strange Tom" Thomas liked the John Wayne movie THE COMANCHEROS, threw the idea into the pot and the next day we pulled pitch as THE COMANCHEROS. Although the spelling of the name has changed over the years, The very first spelling was Komanchero, then changed to Comanchero, then changed to Commanchero in 1987 and finally in 1999 it was changed back to Comanchero by the current unit.
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The
Comancheros "Business
Card" Comancheros in RVN carried this card
Helmet decal submitted by
Stephen Cipot, all rights reserved
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Building the Hideout at Camp Eagle When I was with the Comancheros we had a platoon leader named 1LT Larry Herring (I am not sure of the correct spelling of his name). I know he was an architect and he is the one that drew up the plans for our TOC and for the pilots new shower. He made them come to life. A little bit of everyone helped on the TOC. It was made of really thick timbers. We initially tried to cut one with a hand saw and it wore three of us out before we finally gave up and went looking for a chain saw which finally did the trick. The shower came about because one of our pilots had a brother with the Sea Bees out at Eagle Beach and they needed something done that we could help them with so we got a hot water heater from them in exchange for our services. So we endured that Emerson heated shower until we got our new shower/clothes washing building done. I digress though from the purpose of this information, and that is to give credit due to 1LT Herring for his talents. I also heard that he was the individual that drew up the Comanchero patch.
Information provided by Jerry L. Simpson, Comanchero 18, then Comanchero 42 when we were F Troop 1/17 Cav. Feb 69 to Feb 70.
It was Larry Herring, (Do-Do), who put together the plans to build the TOC. He
also went on to build the O-Club with a little help from his friends, it was
much nicer than the tent. Later on the he organized the new showers (god were
those nice), and also upgraded a few of the hooch's behind the original ones
that were getting overcrowded. I think you're correct, (Do-DO) did design the
original Comanchero patch.
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The A/101 Aviation Company area Unless you were there at the time you
likely wouldn't believe it - almost unfit for human habitation. This was taken
in either late Nov or early Dec 68. Some time later, starting in about Jan 69,
the Comancheros started a self-help building program and had several neat troop
billets by the time I left at the end of Apr.
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The A/101 Aviation Company area Provided by Augie Uleckas
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Comanchero company area 1970 Photograph provided by Joe Turner |
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The Comanchero Company area in 1971 Photo By Robert Carr.
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Landing at the Company Area 1971 Photo by Tom Nietsche |
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Doug Kibbey's 2005 Trip back to Vietnam - Then and now photograph of I Corp and Camp Eagle
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Comanchero Unit Organization
In the time of Vietnam, the
tempo and intensity of daily flight operations was relatively high. The company
had twenty UH1H's and normally put up a package of 1 and 10 daily, the 1 being a
console C&C and the 10 being slicks, against a mission array that might include
an assault or two, and then a full range of diverse support missions for various
elements, usually in single ship or two ship missions.
We averaged about 1600 hours a
month, had our own mess hall, motor pool, communications shack, POL, service
platoon, and aircraft maintenance detachment, even an LOH in the form of an OH-6
that battalion was quick to pool.
LTC (Ret) Robert Clewell, Company Commander, A/101 AVN, Oct 1970-May 1971
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The Hideout Club Photograph provided by Stephen “Smokey” Stover
The Hideout Club Photograph provided by Stephen “Smokey” Stover
Alpha & Eagle rug and Komanchero cartoon in the Hideout (O
Club)
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"Just say
it was the Comancheros" A poem written by Jay Tate, Comanchero 26/666 Dedicated to the late Frank Duncan, Comanchero 10, who lost his battle with cancer 2/8/99.
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The Comancheros where heavily involved in Lam Son 719 - 1971 http://comanchero.org/LamSon719.html
The group sitting on top of a M-48 Tank the South Vietnamese left at Lam Dong. L to R - Bob Morris, Paul Clewell, Rachel Torrance, Bob Clewell, Ray Ferrante, and two Vietnamese guides. (photo courtesy of Bob Clewell) |
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This is the legendary Khe Shan airstrip in the NE corner of RVN. The picture was taken in 1970 pre Lam Son 719 while the airstrip was unoccupied by any “US” personnel. If you look closely in the center of the picture you can see "A101" that was painted on the strip by a A/101 AVN crew while on a CCN mission (names withheld to protect the guilty)
Picture provided by Martin DiOrio
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Special Operations Group, SOG, Support
During 1970 and 1971 era, The Comancheros supported SOG personnel on numerous missions in I Corp. The Comancheros were presented this plague in 1970 by CCN MLT 2 in appreciation of the Comancheros aerial support on those missions.
The plague reads as follows
Company A 101st AVN BN COMANCHEROS
FOR HAVING YOUR SHIT IN ORDER THE BEST DAMN GNATS IN SE ASIA
This Comanchero plague was presented to Richard Bittle in 2007 by LTC (Ret) Robert Clewell in thanks for his work with A/101 Avn. Photograph enhanced by Ponytail Paul Cauley
SOG Presidential Unit Citation ceremony at Fort Bragg.
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A/101 Avn changes to D/101 Aviation After A/101 Aviation returned from Vietnam, the 101st Battalion swapped assets between A/101 and D/101. That is, the A. Co. became the Gunship Cmpany. and D. Co. became the Slick Company. I was a crew chief in D Co. and we were proudly known as the "Comancheros". It was our unit that later became A 4/101.
I will try to tell you what I remember about the D/101 Comancheros. My perspective for the most part is that of an 19 year old . I was assigned to D/101 from 4/1974 to 7/1976. I was an E-2 and was assigned right away to one of the flight platoons as a crew chief. I was one of the few school trained 67N's. When I first got there the company was so desperate for crew chiefs they were getting them from the motor pool. The draftees were leaving the Army and their was no one to take their place. A "shake and bake" Vietnam Vet Spec 5 was my mentor when I arrived. He made sure I learned to crew a Huey the right way. The pilots were a mixture of Vietnam Vets and guys right out of Flight School. Two of the Vets who I know were in the the Battalion during Vietnam were CW2 Gene (Ray) Howell and CW2 RC Morgan.
During this time D Company started to change from the tactics learned during Vietnam. Our emphasis was on fighting a "mid-intensity" conflict in Europe. We went from doing tight 10-15 ship staggered daytime insertions to an LZ, to night time cross FEBA loose V formations with the formation tightening up on short final. We pioneered night operations that are now taken for granted today. NOE as a doctrine was also pioneered by the 101st. D/101 provided Aircraft to the NOE school which was started at Ft Campbell. One of our aircraft was destroyed while being used by the school with pilots not assigned to our unit. While I was with D/101 we had one fatality. During a Division level field training exercise the Group and Battalion Safety Officer tried to beat a thunderstorm while returning to Campbell AAF. They didn't make it. After searching all night we found the aircraft. Only the tail boom was recognizable. The two pilots, and a crew chief who from our unit, PFC Cowan, were killed. During the summer we did a lot of TDY. We "fought" battles in North and South Carolina, New York, New Hampshire, and Georgia. We always kicked ass too. During the winter we stayed pretty close to home and had FTXs out on the reservation. Although I was never shot at, it was still a hard life for a crew chief. Formation at 6:30, then go out to the airfield. If our unit wasn't flying then we were usually getting the aircraft ready to support the NOE or Instrument training school. The crew chief during those days sat behind and between the pilots in the jump seat. The PAX did not sit on the floor like in Vietnam, they sat in seats that were back to back. Every time we picked up troops (even during CA's) I had to get out of the aircraft and make sure the troops were buckled in. Come to think of it, it's a good thing no one was shooting. As I said, a lot of our activity was at night, so it was not uncommon to finish a mission at one or two in the morning, daily and cover the aircraft, and have to report for formation at 6:30am the next day. Crew rest wasn't discussed much when came to crew chiefs.
Although we thought of ourselves as the best flying unit in the 101st (and WAY better than those Kingsmen and Black Widows!) we did not seem to have E'spirt de Corps that your era or A 4/101 have. Maybe it was Watergate or the post war trauma or Jimmy Carter's malaise, I don't know. Most of the people in my unit, Officers and Enlisted, just seemed to be marking time until something better came along.
I've been watching this site for two years and I seem to be the only one from my era with any interest about the Comanchero web site. I guess this why D/101 was overlooked. I'm sorry, but I don't have any pictures from this time, some how, they ended up lost. This post is kind of a colloquial snap shot of the era.
Tom Cavanaugh, 04/1974 - 07/1976, D/101 Avn Comanchero |
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A Company, 101st Aviation Battalion101st Airborne Division.
A/101 AVN Unit Citations http://comanchero.org/unit_citations.htm
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Provided by Dan Gore The 101st Aviation Battalion (Assault Helicopter) was awarded The Superior Unit Award for their Outstanding Meritorious Performance in the Republic of Honduras during 1983-84
ARMY SUPERIOR UNIT AWARD, Streamer embroidered 1983-1984
101st Airborne sends 1000 troops to Honduras, August 26, 1983, Provided by Dan Gore
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The 101st Aviation Battalion along with all its aviation company's was re-designated as the 4th Battalion, 101st Aviation Regiment in October 1987. |
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