D Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st Cavalry Regiment

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Cobra on the ground 10 minutes into 20 minute fuel light. I think this was LZ Ross. Abandoned Image courtesy of Dave Ayers D/1/1 1971/72	The fuel truck. Image courtesy of Dave Ayers D/1/1 1971/72	LT Richards, WO Holmes and unknown crewchief from slick. "Pumping gas" Image courtesy of Dave Ayers D/1/1 1971/72
Here is a series of pics showing a snake can be "snake bit" too! The guys were shooting up an ARVN firebase, overrun by NVA during the "Easter Offensive". The crew swears they could see the muzzle flash of the gun that was shooting at them and at least one pair of rockets landed right on top of them. The hit occurred after the rockets hit! The incident occurred while supporting the ARVN 5th Regt SSW of Danang. I think we were one valley south of Que Son. Most of our support was provided to ARVN units, particularly the 5th Regt. After the start of the Easter Offensive, a string of outposts was over run by NVA. The ARVN wanted the eastern most position re-taken. An earlier attempt (a week or so) by air assault failed due to over eager VNAF slicks, who went in prematurely, and without gun support. Since then, we had simply been making sure the NVA were not being reinforced or moving down toward the coast. There had been some intel that there were tanks further up the valley to the west. In any event, the LOH took some fire from the bad guys, and the guns rolled in. That�s when the Cobra pictured took the hit. I�m not sure whether the ARVN had retaken the positions or if the NVA had simply abandoned them when I left towards the end of August. Image courtesy of Dave Ayers D/1/1 1971/72
D troop 1/1	LOH on the pad at ARVN 1st INF DIV NNW of HUE. Image courtesy of Dave Ayers	Slick at LZ ROSS ARVN 5th REGT SW of DANANG. Image courtesy of Dave Ayers
"NIGHTHAWK" low, slow, heavy and blacked out at night; engine failure! Image courtesy of Dave Ayers	The pilot! Don't remember his name. P.S. I'm the pilot with the Goofy Eyes! The photo showed up at my 60th birthday day surprise party! - CW4 Daryl F Osberg (retired) Image courtesy of Dave Ayers	Sign entering company area Marble Mt. air field Image courtesy of Roger Grasman
These 5 pics show the trajectory of the 5th and final rocket fired at Marble Mountain Army Airfield(MMAF). They were launched from south of "The Marbles" and targeted the billets, which were parallel to the main runway and between it and the beach. The first hooch was enlisted flight crews. The second was occupied by civilian contractors doing maintenance on our a/c. The rocket came through the wall of the tech's hooch, hit his double wide wall locker, shredding the contents and exited the other side. It sounded like an empty steel boxcar bouncing down a mountain side. I was standing just opposite it's final resting place when it "ran out of gas". We were still D/1/1. It turned out that the rocket had been fired with it's shipping plug still in place, not the fuse!!!! Image courtesy of Dave Ayers
Rocket hole in a hooch, This rocket went though 3 hooches and didn't explode, Thank goodness! Marble Mt. air field Image courtesy of Roger Grasman	Cobra flight line, Marble Mt airfield Image courtesy of Roger Grasman	Marble Mt. Which was just south of Marble Mt airfield Image courtesy of Roger Grasman
Marble Mt. Which was just south of Marble Mt airfield Image courtesy of Roger Grasman	The three S's (Shit Shower and Shave) Note the Shower truck on the left hand side. Primative conditions continued at Scabbard Country from July 68 to early 1969 when Division conversion caught up with D/1/1, again we were the red headed step child of the division when it came to supplies and non organic equipment. We were the last unit to have plywood hoothces built by the Sea Bees, ant then we still had to steel supplies from the Sea Bees for the four Officer Hootches as we were so different from 2/17 troops which were still recon grunt units. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	One of our LOACHs in its revetment in the foreground. The signifance of this picture is accidently in the background.. The tents belonged to the LRRPs and in the far right middle is Acid Pad, the launch point for the LRRPs, their support was split between B Company 101st Avn Bn ( The Lancers) and D/1/1. The Lancers at first providing all troop carrying duties while the Cav (we're mistakenly called 2/17) in Will Grant's Book "Lest we Forget". Observation, C/C and gun cover were all provided by D/1/1. Latter our Aerorifle birds took over the troop carrying responsiillties as the Division continued to grow. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
Sword 21 landing at Scabbard you can see the D Troop Area to the right of the bird.. The tower in the center of the tents is topped with water tanks for our showers, no more trucks and if you got there at just the right time you even had hot water. (Cold more times than not). Image courtesy of Ray Knight	CW2 Felix R Knight Jr in Jan/Feb 1969 at Quang Tri I am standing next to an OV-10 Bronco which replaced the piper push/pull twin engine FAC plane for the Marines. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	WO1 Felix R Knight Jr in front of the TOC's area of operations wall map. 1968 D/1/1 Camp Eagle. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
17 Lb warheads, note the protrudence from the pod. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	19 ten lb warheads ready for duty sir! Image courtesy of Ray Knight	Our First Combat loss. D/1/1 Late Summer 1968. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
Sword 21 making an insertation in the low land rice patties east of camp Eagle August 1968. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	A CH 54 at Camp Eagle POL taking while reufling my OH 6, note the V Tail in the Fore Ground, every time these damn things took off over me I became airborn at flight idle and zero pitch. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	A D/1/1 UH1-H at Read Beach Da Nang. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
The first morning we were able to leave out teints dry after the 68 typhoon, note it is still raining north and west of Camp Eagle. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	The buisness end of a D/1/1 Cobra at Camp Eagle 68-69, note the outboard 18 pod rocket tubes with the inboard mini guns, with the 40 mm and mini gun in the nose. We launched every day over gross in this configuration. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	A rare view of the tail of an H Model, we are cranking up at FSB Birming along the Perfume River getting ready to return home to Camp Eagle and the 101st (D/1/1) Bird. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
This is Officer's Country after setting out a 4 day typhon in the lade fall of 1968, not the large timjbers in the fore ground, these had become our tent stakes due to the wind, rain and wet ground. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	There were OH-23 Ravens in Nam this picture was taken from the pilots seat of a UH1 Belonging to Dl/1/1. I am not sure of the owners of these birds, but we sure were glad we had the OH 6. Image courtesy of Ray Knight	Home Sweet Home, D/1/1 10st Abn Div July 1968. Cannot name the individual but he was a senior WO1 in D Troop. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
D Troop 1/1 Cav in 1968 while we were attached to 2/17, 101st ABN. At this time 5 Trans Bn had not arrived and since we were a bastard unit our direct maintance source was Read Beach in Da Nang this is a shot of one of our "New H Models" The ship was cubed out but not grossed out. The Boxes sticking out are new rotor blades for a tree strike damaged bird. The aircraft could not make over 40 kts going home due to the aerodynamics of the boxes sticking out the sides..(No lift at all). Image courtesy of Ray Knight	This piece of Nose art lasted less than a month. This helicopter's crew chief was the pilot NCOIC for the Aero rilfle plt's birds. His name was SFC John R Rock. (AT this time the Sgt Rock Comics were hot). D/1/1 had deployed from Fort Hood to join with our parent squadron 1/1 Armord Squadron assigned to the American Div in Chu Lai. Enroute our orders were changed attaching the troop to 2/17 Cav, 101st. This was the period of time when the division went from Airbone, to Airmobile and back to Airborne (Airmoble) in less than 2 months. We had the first Cobras attached to the division and 1st Avn Bde units supporting the 101st were redesignated as 101 units . The Division had become the Army's second Airmobile Division As soon as the change was "Officially Completed" The word came down from Division Hqs there would be no Nose Art in the division and Sgt Rock disappeared. Image courtesy of Ray Knight
D/1/1 Calling card. The callsigns for the gun platoon started all started with 7. i.e I was Sabre 75, my friend Dale McKnight was Sabre 77. The lift platoon's callsigns all started with 2, and the scouts started with 1, our Commander was the standard Sabre 6 and so my gun platoon leader was Sabre 76 - all spelled in the French way of Sabre being Sabre. You earned your call sign when you made A/C, and being in a Cav Troop we never had to worry about their being more than 10 A/C's in any of the Platoons. Image courtesy of David Adams

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