By Scott Longman
The AH-1G Cobra helicopter is a magnificently lethal aircraft. While many other helos can be adapted for multi-mission roles – troop transport, cargo, medevac, SAR rescue, etc. – the AH-1G was designed solely for devastating close air support. Indeed, it couldn’t be used otherwise: the fuselage is a tiny 36 inches wide, and has only two, very cramped seats, with zero room for anything else.
One night, Army 1st Lt. Larry L. Taylor developed a disagreement with that limited characterization. Indeed, that disagreement would ultimately lead to him receiving the highest award the United States bestows for outrageous courage, the Medal of Honor.
Troops in Contact
June 18, 1968, Republic of Vietnam – the call came in, troops in contact, and it was bad.
By “bad,” that means a tiny four-man Long Range Recon Patrol (LRRP) team facing at least 100, maybe far more, enemy, and at close range. Without immediate support, the ending of that movie was going to be tragedy. For those unfamiliar, LRRP teams are designed to penetrate deep behind enemy lines to gather intelligence, but they are absolutely not for contact, let alone extended contact. Given the nature of their mission, they travel light, most often with no weapons heavier than a rifle, and they don’t carry big ammo loads. The goal, instead of Caesar’s “We came, we saw, we conquered,” was “We came, we saw, we got the hell out.”
They were in severe danger of complete overrun.
Taylor’s team was on duty that night for emergency response. The alert came, and they sprinted to their waiting Cobras, spooled up and pulled pitch, going after a radio beacon and a rough estimate as to where the LRRPs were. Of the 1,200 combat missions 1st Lt. Taylor would fly, about 1,000 of them were of just this sort.
The AH-1G was the world’s first purpose-built attack helicopter. In 1968, it was then still new, only having been introduced the year before, but it had already proven itself. Taylor’s team had their wing stores loaded with a total of four pods containing 2.75-inch Folding Fin Aerial Rockets. Depending on the warhead, the lethal radius for each rocket was 50 meters. Each ship in the two-ship team carried 76 of them, which meant essentially a massive artillery barrage at close range. Each ship also had a devastating 7.62x51mm M134 Minigun in a chin turret, carrying 8,000 rounds.
As they flew in, Taylor had the LRRPs fire flares defining their position, and then he and his wingman got to work, jumping into a 45-minute heavy shootout with the enemy. Working at low altitude, both helos sustained numerous hits and expended almost all of their ammunition.
While they were successful in preventing an immediate overrun, there were still lots of enemy firing at both the LRRPs and at them. A plan was started to bring in some UH-1 Huey evac ships, but before long, higher command made the hard decision to cancel that effort, fearing the loss of the Huey crews would only be in addition to the LRRPs. And they ordered Taylor’s team back to base, essentially sacrificing the LRRPs.
Disobeying Orders, Saving Lives
Potential court martial notwithstanding, 1st Lt. Larry L. Taylor was having none of it.
He was shot up, almost out of ammo, and short of fuel to get back, but he defied the order and instead formulated a crazy plan. First, he had both his wingman and his gunner dump all their ordnance into the enemy, which both killed and suppressed them. But the more important point was that it lightened his ship enough to add an unprecedented four passengers. Taylor then set down his gunship amid heavy fire, and the LRRPs climbed on, two on the skids and two on the rocket pods. The LT di di-maued all of them RTF out of there.
His equally intrepid co-pilot/gunner, J.O. Ratliff, who does not seem to have gotten the same level of recognition that 1st Lt. Taylor did, asked “So now what?”
That was a really valid question. They couldn’t simply fly back to base: the LRRPs were soaking wet and physically exhausted, so trying to fly all the way back at 150 knots while barely holding onto the outside of a helo would have frozen them and no doubt lost them. Instead, they found a surprisingly close secure facility at which to set them down. And they did.
Decades later, 1st Lt. Taylor, in an interview, told the end of the story, with an understandable hitch in his voice: the four men rolled off his ship, came in front of his canopy, faced him, and all together saluted.
Taylor was originally awarded a Silver Star for that action. And, 55 years later, in 2023, it was finally upgraded to the Medal of Honor.
Utterly deserved.
