page_title: 40th Helicopter Squadron
section_title: Operations and losses
hierarchical_section_title: 40th Helicopter Squadron / History / Operations and losses
caption_attribution_description: English: Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV BuNo 68-10357, converted from HH-53B of the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron which, with call sign Apple 1, participated in the Son Tay Raid
context_page_description: The 40th Helicopter Squadron is a missile support unit. As the 40th Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Squadron it was a helicopter rescue squadron of the USAF during the Vietnam War.
context_section_description: 30 May 1968, Jolly Green, an HH-3E was attempting to rescue Colonel Norman Phillips the pilot of a downed F-105, near Savannakhet, Laos. Pararescueman Sergeant Thomas A Newman descended into a hostile jungle environment to rescue the pilot. Hampered by darkness and concentrated automatic weapons fire, Newman requested the rescue helicopter to enter a nearby orbit, both for the safety of the crewmembers and to prevent the hovering aircraft from establishing their location for the unfriendly ground forces. When the HH-3 returned, he secured the injured Philips to the forest penetrator and protected him with his own body as they ascended to the helicopter. Newman was awarded the Air Force Cross.
  25 December 1968, Jolly Green 17, an HH-3E was attempting to rescue Major Charles R Brownlee, the pilot of Panda 01 an F-105 shot down near Ban Lathama, Mahaxia District, Khammouan Province, Laos. Pararescueman Airman First Class Charles Douglas King descended by rescue hoist to rescue the injured pilot. With the pilot attached to the hoist, the HH-3E and King were hit by enemy fire, seriously injured, King instructed the helicopter to depart. King was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross,. The bodies of King and Brownlee were not recovered and both were listed as killed in action - body not recovered.
  18 January 1969, Jolly Green 67, HH-53B, 66-14430, was hit by ground fire while on a CSAR mission for Sandy 02, an A-1H lost the previous day. Helicopter made an emergency landing 15 km southeast of Tchepone, Laos. The crew and the A-1 pilot were rescued by Jolly Green 70. An airstrike was ordered to destroy JG-67
  28 January 1970, Jolly Green 71, HH-53B, 66-14434, on a CSAR mission for the pilot of Seabird 02, an F-105G, was shot down by a missile fired from a Mig-21 piloted by Vu Ngoc Dinh of the 921st Fighter Regiment. The 6-man crew were all killed.
  30 June 1970, Jolly Green 54, HH-53C, 66-8283, was on a CSAR mission for the crew of Nail 44 an OV-10A, over Savannakhet, Laos. Abandoning the first rescue attempt due to heavy fire, the pilot Captain Leroy C Schaneberg decided to make a second rescue attempt. JG54 was hit by ground fire and crashed. The 5-man crew were all killed. The crash site was excavated in December 1993 and remains were identified as a group on 7 March 1995. Schaneberg was posthumously awarded the Air Force Cross.
  21 November 1970, 5 of the squadron's HH-53s took part in Operation Ivory Coast, the raid on the Son Tay POW camp.
  21 June 1971, Jolly Green 54, HH-53, 66–8285, was shot down over Laos while attempting to recover an AQM-34 Buffalo Hunter drone. Crew were all rescued.
  27 March 1972, Jolly Green 61, HH-53C, 66-10359, crashed over Stoeng Treng Province, Cambodia, about 10 miles (16 km) southeast of Siem Pang District due to unknown causes. A pararescueman was lowered to the ground at the site of the crash to check for survivors, but due to the intense heat from the burning helicopter, he could not approach near enough to determine if there were crew members inside the aircraft. Some three hours later a second rescue specialist was deployed in the immediate area, who reported the wreckage was still burning, precluding close inspection. The 5-man crew were all killed in action - body not recovered.
  13 April 1972, Captain Bennie D Orrell pilot of a Jolly Green, rescued a downed pilot near Tchepone, Laos. Orrell was awarded the Air Force Cross.
  2 June 1972, Captain Dale E. Stovall pilot of a Jolly Green, flew through intense hostile ground fire to complete the rescue of Captain Roger Locher, an F-4 copilot who had evaded capture for 23 days after being shot down in North Vietnam. This rescue was the deepest CSAR mission into North Vietnam and took place 8 km northeast of Yên Bái Air Base, one of the most active Vietnamese People's Air Force MiG airfields. Stovall was awarded a Bronze Oak leaf cluster in lieu of a second award of Silver Star. Stovall was also awarded the 1973 Jabara Award for Airmanship.
  27 June 1972, Pararescueman Sergeant Charles D. McGrath was on a CSAR mission on Jolly Green 77 over Nor
caption: HH-53B of the 40th ARRS which participated in the Son Tay Raid[note 1]
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "DAYTON, Ohio - Sikorsky MH-53M Pave Low IV on display in the Cold War Gallery at the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force. (U.S. Air Force photo)", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D200", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2008:05:15 13:12:34", "Image ExifOffset": "376", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1022", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "4524", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/2", "EXIF FNumber": "7/2", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "160", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2008:05:14 11:59:41", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2008:05:14 11:59:41", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "1", "EXIF ApertureValue": "361471/100000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "18/5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "CenterWeightedAverage", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "18", "EXIF SubSecTime": "08", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "08", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "08", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1800", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1205", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 0, 2, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "27", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}