173rd Assault Helicopter Company - "Robin Hoods, Crossbows"

A crashed Robinhood in the Phu Loi bone yard next to the 405th Maintenance Image courtesy of Chip Decker	A gaggle of slicks leaving an LV near An Loch with the gun ships standing by. Image courtesy of Mike Rollins 408th Trans Det./173rd AHC Lai Khe '66-67	Entrance to the 173rd Company Area which was dubbed Sherwood Forest because of the 173rd "Robinhood" nickname. Image courtesy of Mike Rollins 408th Trans Det./173rd AHC Lai Khe '66-67
A still from a 8mm home movie clip taken in 1967 or 68. Image courtesy of Mike Rollins 408th Trans Det./173rd AHC Lai Khe '66-67	173rd AHC Co. patch. The slicks used the Robinhood designation and the gun ships used Crossbow hence the Robinhood hat and crossbow on the patch. Image courtesy of Mike Rollins 408th Trans Det./173rd AHC Lai Khe '66-67	This picture was scanned out of book about the war by one of my fellow ex-Robinhoods. I don't have any information regarding the operation or year. Image courtesy of Mike Rollins 408th Trans Det./173rd AHC Lai Khe '66-67
173rd AHC flight line at Lai Khe circa 1966. We built the flight line, parking pads and parallel runway from scratch after arriving in Lai Khe in Feb 1966. The engineers would grade and level a section during the day and we would hand lay the PSP at night. As I remember it, it took several weeks to finish.I don't remeber how long the runway was but we were resupplied by C123's and C130's that used it until the weight started to break up the PSP causing a series of main gear tire blowouts. Image courtesy of Mike Rollins 408th Trans Det./173rd AHC Lai Khe '66-67

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