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“Aviation Story” opens with narration by Sp4 Mike Baker describing 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) assault tactics. This accompanies raw footage of 1st Air Cavalry (in UH-1 Hueys and CH-47 Chinooks) in combat near the seashore in Bình Định or Quảng Ngãi Province on February 26-28 1967 during Operation Pershing. After the narration ends, there is additional raw combat footage with live sound. Although it appears that the sound and pictures were both recorded on the same sorties, they do not appear to be synchronized. Still it gives a vivid impression of actual combat conditions. Cameraman: SFC B. McBride.
The original of this film had the narration recorded in pieces over a blank picture (for later editing). I edited together the narration myself, and placed it over a stretch of the raw footage (which was lacking in live sound) at the opening.
Vietnam War playlist:
Public domain film from the Prelinger Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
Vietnam – 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile)
On 29 June 1965, the colors of the 1st Cavalry Division, at that time assigned to Korea, were transferred to Fort Benning taking over the re-flagged units of the 11th Airborne Division (United States) and 2nd Infantry Division, while the flag of the 2nd Infantry Division was moved to Korea taking over the re-flagged 1st Cav units.
The 1st Cavalry Division next fought in the Vietnam War. No longer a conventional infantry unit, the division had become an air assault division as the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), commonly referred to as the 1st Air Cavalry Division. The use of helicopters on such large scale as troop carriers, cargo lift ships, medevacs, and as aerial rocket artillery, was never before implemented, but by doing so it freed the infantry from the tyranny of terrain to attack the enemy at the time and place of their choosing. In 1965, colors and subordinate unit designations of the 1st Cavalry Division were transferred from Korea to Fort Benning, Georgia, where they were used to reflag the existing 11th Air Assault Division (Test) into 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). Concurrently, the colors and subordinate unit designations were transferred to Korea to reflag what had been the 1st Cavalry Division into the 2nd Infantry Division.
Shortly thereafter, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) began deploying to Camp Radcliff, An Khe, Vietnam, in the Central Highlands and was equipped with the new M16 rifle, the UH-1 troop carrier helicopter, the AH-1 attack helicopter, the CH-47 Chinook cargo helicopter, and the massive CH-54 Skycrane cargo helicopter. All aircraft carried insignia to indicate their battalion and company…
The division’s first major operation was the Pleiku Campaign. The opening battle, the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, described in the book We Were Soldiers Once…And Young, was also the basis of the film We Were Soldiers. Because of that battle the division earned the Presidential Unit Citation (US), the first unit to receive such in the war. 1967 was then spent conducting Operation Pershing, a large scale search and destroy operation of enemy base areas in II Corps in which 5,400 enemy soldiers were killed and 2,000 captured. In Operation Jeb Stuart, January 1968, the division moved north to Camp Evans, north of Hue and on to Landing Zone Sharon and Landing Zone Betty, south of Quang Tri City, all in the I Corps Tactical Zone…
The First Cavalry Division would end the Vietnam War suffering more casualties than any other division: 5,444 men killed in action and 26,592 wounded in action…
