46th Special Forces Group-Aviation Section

In the cockpit with the other pilot who was a CW3. I believe his name was Zuchellie from the Ft. Benning area. Image courtesy of Robert Whittaker	Special forces camp at nam pung dam Image courtesy of Robert Whittaker
Orders assigning me to the 46th SF Thailand - The aviation section was organic to the unit under the operations section. I understand that before they got these two UH-1H we had the unit had a a fix wing.I was told it was a Beaver.I believe they got their helicopter support from the helicopter unit that was at Korat Air Base. It was the 7th airlift platoon that was sent to Thailand in 1967. The main misssion for this platoon was to support the 46th SF. Somewhere in 1970 or 1971 it was deactivated and the helicopters were sent home except 4 to stay with the fix wing unit that supported Jusmag Thailand and that unit moved to Bangkok in 1971. It had U-21S and the two UH-1H.The other 2 was sent to the 46th which got rid of its fix wing. Up to this time the aviation section comprise of a pilot and support personnel. So they sent around 5 or 6 wo1s fresh out of flight school to this section as the war in nam was starting to slow down. There was a section commander a,CPT Wheeler, and a CW3 When I got there as a CW2 in 1971. We were authorized to wear the green Beret and the shoulder patch was SF. We had a Blue Baseball cap that we normally wore. As you can seen by the enclosed orders I was assigned to a helicopter pilot's position that was authorized IAW the MTOE. The only training I had for this position was as a aviator. No SF training.We flew in support of any mission the operations gave us. Image courtesy of Robert Whittaker

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