On the 6th of April we were summoned to assist an insertion of infantry who were pinned down in a paddy area. They had landed and were in the process of approaching a ten meter wide jungle finger line that ran out into the paddy some 150 yards when they came under intense heavy weapons fire from bunkers and fighting pits within the tree line. When we arrived it was apparent either the air force or artillery had already directed some firepower on the tree line because there was considerable smoke hanging and drifting along the entire length of the tree line. I supposed that this firepower had been curtailed due to close proximity the infantry were pined down to the left of the tree line and that this is why we were brought it. Anyhow, because the infantry were along the length of the left side, the decision was to scout down the length of the right side to try and locate and drive Charles out into the face of our infantry. Unfortunately there was a slight breeze which shifted the smoke to the right of the tree line while we were on our first couple of passes down the tree line and we were unable to observe very much. On the third pass I recall trying to come right down the edge of the tree line and just as we had broke through the smoke my ship was hit in the engine compartment by some type of shoulder held rocket. I know because my crew chief saw this kid jump out of the finger line with the thing and yelled at me pointing with his finger. Before I could do squat however, this kid pops the thing off and when it hit I knew we had trouble. First, and the luckiest thing was that I still had about 40 knots of air speed and about 150 feet of altitude and was on a descent when the rocket hit and nearly flipped us over end. Immediately, the engine was dead so with no power our situation was strictly reduced to kinetic and potential energy physics. Whether I actually intended to or not, I pointed the nose at the ground (probably because that is where it was already pointed at this time) and some twenty feet prior to impact pulled the nose back up building rotor RPM and transferring our direction down along the tree line rather than at the ground. As we continued dead sticking it, I kept milking the collective to maintain altitude and distance while I slowly began a flare descent for landing. Everything seemed to be going textbook perfect up until the skids touched the paddy water and I realized we still had too much forward momentum. As a consequence we commenced an end over end roll down the length of the tree line for approximately 60 feet during which the entire LOH was reduced to nothing but a ball of metal surrounding the cockpit. When we finally came to a stop we were upside down and momentarily just hung there in our seats with our heads partially hanging down into the paddy water.  Slowly as our senses began to return, I yelled at my chief to see if he was OK but initially got no response. I reached over and unscrewed his helmet visor and pushed it up and having done this was very pleased when he winked at me. Realizing the concussion from the explosion had about deafened us both, I yelled and signaled for the chief to get out and that I would follow him. In assisting him in unbuckling his seat belt harness, I almost caused him to break his neck when he dropped down inverted. During his efforts to exit I could both smell fuel and feel the impact of small round fire smacking into the ship, so needless to say, I was anxious to exit post haste also. In the coarse of my trying to exit the ship through all the jumble, I was about halfway out (butt and legs first) when my flight gloves and shirt got tangled in some jagged tin or something. Luckily, my feet and legs did not wish to hang around and thus gave some much needed impetuous to tearing the former clothing items from my body as they extracted themselves. In an effort to distance ourselves from the nearby tree line some short 60 feet away, Chief and I swamp belly crawled some 30 feet further out into the paddy to a nearby low dike line and rolled over it to the far side for some partial added protection. Although we were still experiencing difficulty hearing, the absence of any immediate extraction attempt on the part of my wingman or the C&C ship gave testimony that our paddy side of the tree line was now heavily involved in both heavy enemy out going fire and heavy incoming Cobra fire. We were not going anywhere for awhile it was plain to see. Having never been within the vicinity of the receiving end of Cobra gunship rocket fire, I was temporarily distracted for a few minutes and when I turned to tell my chief something I discovered he was gone but his M-60 machine gun was still there with me. Just as I think I was about to PANIC, he reappears in a body flop back across the dike line with a long belt of M-60 ammo. I screamed at him as to what he thought he was doing and he screamed back and motioned with his hands something to do with some Audy Murphy idea he had had but I told him 'NO WAY LEROY!'. Frankly, if the snap down gate portion of the receiver had not been sprung in the crash, I think till this day he would have tried to affect some wild John Wayne idea that he had concocted in his mind. Anyhow, after about 30 minutes and after the initial Crusaders had expended and had just departed to go re-arm, here comes what appeared to be the whole Calvary Troop of Crusaders to save the day, which they did, and we were extracted finally by my wing man. About a week later, a group of us were at the O-Club one afternoon when this fairly rough looking soldier walks over to our table. He said he recognized our unit and was looking for a certain pilot that had been shot down on a certain day and gave the place. I said that I was that pilot and he said he had something for me and reached abruptly into his fatigue pants storage pocket. Not knowing what to expect, I was already coming to my feet when he pulls out a watch, my watch, my Seiko watch that was torn from my wrist with my flight gloves and shirt a week earlier. He said when his unit had swept the area after our action that day, he had found it in my glove and figured he would see to it that I got it back in appreciation for our help that day. When I noticed it was still running he said, " We took a licking but we're still ticking, Thanks Guys for coming to the rescue" and walked away. I thought to myself what a neat commercial this would have made if only my watch had been a Timex instead of a Seiko!