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jpetito

Mindoro Island

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The attached short story, written for an audience of middle school students, is based on my experiences in the fall of 1977 on Mindoro Island, Philippines.

Please excuse omissions and incomplete or just plain wrong recollections of names and facts, modified by the lapse of time.

I will appreciate corrections with concern taken to redact personal details.

If anyone knows the exact location, please send me a GoogleEarth link.

Respecftully, joe petito
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  1. ameriken's Avatar
    Fascinating account Joe, thanks for posting it.

    I was with Supply in 3/9, H&S Co. We were back at Subic during the time of the operation. We got word of the accident and I was flown to a beach on Mindoro for the solitary purpose of banding the two turbine engines and rear rotor stem to pallets to be be shipped off on the return trip to Oki.

    I learned there were 2 Marines that I knew who were on the 53. One I had served mess duty with, he was killed. If I remember correctly, I believe his name was Lcpl Quiane. He was a pretty big guy, either of Samoan or Hawaiian descent. The other was a guy I met back in NYC at the recruiting office....PFC Michael Kane. We flew to boot camp together and were in the same platoon. A few months after boot, we ran into each other in Camp Schwab. We met again back in Oki after the crash, and that was the last time I saw him.

    Thanks for the personal account. As I read it, I wonder if one of the injured you saw was Kane.

    This is a time in my life I will never forget, and the memories ring back strange and mixed emotions as I go back to that time so long ago.
    Updated 02-08-10 at 04:06 PM by ameriken
  2. 7th Comm Bn's Avatar
    I concur Joe, fascinating account; and after 31 years I'm getting details of the crash I never knew and I was there that day!

    I was a LCpl with HQ Co., 7th Comm. Bn. and we had come in with the Navy Task Force 77; my battallion aboard the LST-1195 USS Barbour County. You are right, it was hot as hell there! It felt like it never got below 95 degrees, even at night! I was working maintenance on the AN/TRC telephone switching van in the Command Post area and I felt a little guilty during the day because the van I worked on was air-conditioned, at least I got relieve during the daytime where other Marines in my company did not. I never had to lay any wire or anything like that because I was one of the highly-skilled telephone techs; ours was a 4th echelon outfit. But at night we had to sleep in our tents with mosquito netting because the mosquitos were, it seemed, as large as dragonflies and were carriers of malaria. You sprayed yourself with bug juice and you still needed that net and you could hear them buzzing around your head all night anyway.

    I can remember that in the morning as soon as the sun came up it was instantly so hot and humid that you would break out in a sweat without ever moving!

    This was my first taste of an operation this size and I can remember one morning when these harriers came screaming over our tents, and it sounded like they were 50 feet off the ground!! I was too scared to stick my head out of the tent to see what they were doing, for fear I might get run over by one of them!! They were that close to the ground!

    I remember that CH53 going down that morning and could see the column of black smoke coming up from the mountain. Down by the beach where I was we heard rumors that the helicopter was overloaded and the water buffalo it was carrying struck the mountain because the pilot couldn't gain enough altitude to clear it. This was the scuttlebutt, anyway. Like I'm saying, I didn't know how it happened.

    After it happened, everybody down where we were just went on with what they were supposed to be doing but the atmosphere was somber and subdued. When we got back on ship and underway, they held a memorial service for the Marines and sailors who died in the crash.

    Thank you for telling your story. It gives me a different and better perspective of what really happened that day.

    It's interesting to read posts made by guys who were stationed over there at the same time I was! ameriken was stationed? at Schwab, which was the only camp north of Camp Hansen where I was stationed on "the rock." Brings back a lot of memories of Kin village and Koza down outside Kadena Air Base when we could afford to pay the $9.00 cab fare to get down there.

    Wow, those were the days...
  3. wolf11's Avatar
    Thanks for the story. It brought back some memories. I was a sqd ldr. Cpl Hall at the time . I lost some good men that day as I had half my sqd and wpns atttachments on that bird. It is real nice to see that these men have not been forgotten. I think of these men everyday for 32 years now. Bowman was my first team ldr., Aguirre, Baker, and Suda were all members of my sqd. Sgt Smith was with wpns plt and attached to my sqd. At that very last moment he came and told me that my Lt wanted me on the first flight with him and he was taking my place on the second flight. Prior to taking off we had a flight list of the Marines on the flight and there was 43 Marines listed to include the crew. Now it has changed. I had two of my other Marine that survived the crash. Gonzales also got a metal for going back in the crash and got Garcia out, but now I can not find thier names on the list of being on the bird. If you could let me know where I can get some more info on all of this.
  4. jhenderson's Avatar
    I was on that operation i was the ncoic of comsec for the 3rd mardiv and slept in the command tent any messages that were classified had to be picked up by me as the lowest rank there I remember the crash very distintly as it was the 1st time I dealt with death in a peace time military from what I read and heard in the command center the water buffalo was supposed to be empty and was to be picked up and taken to the beach to be refilled when the chopper began lifting it wasnt and the cable could not support the weight it snapped and went up into the rotor causing the crash it supposedly rolled down the hill burning during the recovery the hill was so steep that you had to tie off to trees to repel down and pick up pieces of bodies I was aboard the USS NEW ORLEANS where they took the bodies for identification and the div adjutant section began trying to notify families to this day I have only flown in 1 choper sense and that was to get off that island a lot of the other ships in this exercise stopped at subic bay for r and r we were not allowed to because we were command ship and i suspect because of the bodies on board all of the families have my heart felt sympathy and respect cpl james e henderson
    Updated 12-02-09 at 08:56 PM by jhenderson