After this incident, my missions flying Ed's trail were pretty typical and uneventful until the day of 13 March. On this particular day, we were assigned to work an AO sector far out to the west of Dong Tam in the Plain of Reeds area. I had worked this area on numerous occasions earlier in my tour while flying with the Stingrays so I was somewhat familiar, at least from a higher altitude, what the area was like and what the major navigation landmarks were. Anyhow, the day started off initially in trying to accustom ourselves how to effectively scout this new terrain as the area we were reconnoiter was basically nothing but an 8 foot or so deep sea of dense shrub like ground vegetation growth. I recall it reminded me somewhat of the Mountain Laurel bush that grew in the northern mountain area of my home state of Georgia. It had been explained to us that the area was laced with a network of streams and canals that ran south to the Mekong River from both Cambodia and also the providences to the north. At night Charlie used these canals to transport supplies, etc into the South and our mission was to try and detect and interdict this activity. Supposedly, in the daytime the sampans carrying 'whatever' were either sunk just below the water or pulled out of the water underneath the cover of the vegetation to prevent detection. At night they were re-floated and continued on their way. Anyhow, after about an hour down on the deck atop this stuff, we determined the only way to effectively scout down into it was to utilize our rotor wash to attempt to temporarily part it so we could observe, almost vertically, down through it to the ground below. In doing this it became immediately apparent that Charles had very effectively created a literal network of trails and camps beneath the vegetated canopy tops. I suppose we had continued scouting in this manner for another hour when Ed reported seeing a wisp of smoke (cook fire) drifting up through the ground cover some distance off from us and immediately proceeded to it. Within seconds of his arrival at the location, I observed his ship to jerk erratically, momentarily toss about and then break off target while transmitting (very brokenly) something to the effect, 'Oh my........Shot.........head'. At the sound of the word SHOT, I immediately saturated the area beneath and around where Ed had departed and then quickly broke off to find and assist Him. Initially, I could not pick him up but finally spotted his ship a good distance away still down on the deck and headed west toward Cambodia at full tilt. I immediately fell in pursuit while trying continually to raise him on the radio but the only response was an unintelligible garble. In trying to catch up with him, I quickly realized that it would require maxing all my ships power, which I did...plus some. After what seemed an eternity, I was able to finally close up on him at his right rear four o'clock location. The whole time I was still trying to establish commo on the radio to clearly understand his ship's status and also to get him to look out his door at me. Well, I had no sooner gained position before a large grey puff of dense smoke came from the exhaust of his bird and I realized that he had had an engine failure. I immediately reported my observation to Ed and maneuvered as close along side him as possible while attempting to talk him through an auto-rotation landing which, with or without my help, he accomplished. Not knowing whether his aircraft failure was a result of earlier hits or subsequent hits in our present location, I circled his ship several times, before landing, dosing the immediate area with fire. I then landed along side his ship at a distance in order to be able to immediately provide a wide arch of covering fire and repeatedly signaled by hand and called on the radio for him and his crew chief to come to us for extraction. After a period of time, Ed jumped out and made his way to us and climbed into the back. When I turned to talk to him, I saw he was covered in blood and was unresponsive to my questions regarding both his condition and the status of his crew chief. At that point, I instructed my crew chief to get out and make his way over to Ed's ship to check on his chief, which he quickly did. Only a minute or two after arriving at the ship, my Chief came back around to the near side of the ship and shook his head signifying that Ed's chief was dead. In that we were still momentarily in the absence of over head Cobra gun cover and I was also still unsure as to the status of the immediate area we were in, I waved for my chief to come back. After lift off, I contacted the C&C ship and gave a short report where upon I was instructed to fly back to Tan An, shut down and await further instructions following their extraction of the crew chief and the aircraft. When we arrived at Tan An, I took Ed who was in an obvious state of shock but surprisingly unwounded and tried to get him cleaned up. After a few hours someone informed us that we had to go over to a building to identify Ed's crew chief and although I did not consider it the best thing for Ed to be doing in that he still was not totally himself, he insisted so we went. When we arrived, we found the building to be some type of small mortuary affair where the dead were processed after coming in from the field and I personally was ready to leave. We went in however and to the best of my recollection found a staff sergeant to whom Ed asked if his chief’s body was there. Well, this idiot replied something to the effect that 'Well, he sure enough has not gotten up and walked off' where upon Ed decked him before I could get between them. Anyhow, Ed did identify his friend and as I best recall his name was also Ed. Ed DeBow. As to the name of my own crew chief that day, I cannot recall.  Sometime during the ensuing days following this incident, Ed transferred from Scouts to aircraft maintenance test pilot and for some strange reason that I cannot now recall or understand, I saw little of him the balance of my time with the troop. Also following Ed's transfer, I was promoted, somewhat unexpectedly, to a lead scout and given my own team.