FINAL MISSION OF CW2 GREGORY G. BECK

On May 18, 1969, a U.S. Army helicopter AH-1G (tail number 67-15778) from B Company, 4th Aviation Battalion, 4th Infantry Division was attempting to silence a 122 mm rocket attack on Camp Enari, the second night attack in a row. CW2 Gregory G. Beck with an enlisted man in the front seat, crew chief SP5 James T. Cofer, scrambled to suppress the attack. While assaulting the enemy position the weather turned bad and darkness fell. CW2 Beck ran the aircraft into Dragon Mountain while attempting to return to base at Camp Enari. Both crewmen suffered fatal injuries in the crash.

The following is an account of the incident by Bill Roberts: Greg was my roommate. That night Greg was on standby flying his new Cobra. I was way down at the flight line helping my crew with a 100 hour inspection. The rockets and mortars started coming in and they were hitting way off on the north side of Camp Enari. The guns didn�??t go out for a while and finally Greg took off. We watched him silence the enemy position out west of Camp Enari and listened to the whole thing on our radio. The ceiling was real low and we could hear him come around the traffic pattern, turning west on final. He went IFR. The last transmission we heard was he was switching over to Pleiku AFB for a GCA. We found out later, he had been assigned a brand new Peter Pilot. When the rockets started coming in, the Peter Pilot headed for the bunker rather than manning his ship. Greg tried to find him and finally put the crew chief in the front seat.

When he went IFR he was pretty busy by himself and I believe the Cobra only had basic instruments at that time. He turned north toward Pleiku, thinking he was well East of Dragon Mountain. To my recollection, the Peter Pilot was immediately transferred to another unit. When I got in from flying the next day, all Greg�??s belongings had been removed from our hootch. [Taken from vhpa.org]

Beck, Gregory George, CW2