Edward C . DeBow



War Wagon 12, Larry Little writes;  I appreciate the posting of this remembrance of Ed DeBow.
The day De Bow was killed, he was flying as observer/door gunner for Ed Serrano, and I was Ed's wing as trail scout.
We were working in the Plain of Reeds far west of Dong Tam and near the Cambodian border.
The terrain was covered with a dense growth of shrub, similar in appearance to the Mountain Laurel in North Georgia, only much taller (maybe ten feet).
The entire area was laced with a confused network of small streams and tributaries, which, if I recall correctly, both branched off of and fed back into the Mekong river after it turned NW and into Cambodia. Intelligence had reported that Charlie was using these side tributaries, during the daytime hours, to hide sampan traffic bringing supplies and men down into the lower delta area.
Our mission was to locate these way station rest areas. When we entered the area to begin scouting, we immediately realized the difficulty that faced us.
The vegetation had a dense uninterrupted canopy, beneath which, we could observe the streams literally disappearing into.
Initial scouting efforts using our rotor blades in the attempt to blow observation openings in the top cover also revealed that the area beneath the canopy was clear of any base foliage and was literally one expansive hidden subterranean world. In two words, it was "Very Spooky."

   We had only been low level in the area for no more than 15-minutes,
when Lead saw, off a short distance, a small curl of smoke rising up through the foliage canopy and proceeded to the area.

Almost immediately, upon arrival at the spot, Ed's loach began jerking erratically,
 and he transmitted "..........Head.........Shot!!! ........Head..........Shot!!!" as he proceeded to fly away from the spot.

Once he was out of the way, I came to a distant hover and immediately began saturating the area below with mini-gun fire.
I then also moved out of the immediate area to join back up with Ed and allow the Cobra's to roll in.
Expecting to see Ed's ship in the near vicinity, I didn't and immediately thought he had gone down while I was providing suppressive fire.
I told my crew chief of my fear about Ed, and I had just begun coming back up to altitude to be able to better see and scout the surrounding area for signs of where they may have gone down, when my crew chief pointed off in the far distance and said,
"There they go!" Sure enough, my chief had spotted Lead, but Ed was still low level and going west toward Cambodia.
I called and called him on the radio, trying to turn him around, but got no response.

   The only option was for me to try and catch up with him, but he already had a good half-mile on me and appeared to be moving on at a fast clip,
so I put the pedal to the metal in hot pursuit still trying to raise him on the radio to no avail.
After what seemed a forever and with every pinch of power pulled in, we finally were gaining on him and coming up on his five o'clock position,
 when a large plume of dark grey smoke erupted from his exhaust.
Suspecting that Ed had had an engine failure, I immediately began trying to get his attention on the radio for him to initiate an auto rotation, but again no reply.
After only a couple of seconds, we were at his three o'clock position, and to my relief he began a controlled decent to a landing.

Not knowing whether or not if he had received fire in the immediate area, I did a couple of quick circles of the immediate area around his bird,
then landed about 30 yards away just in case I needed to pop back up to provide covering fire, while my crew chief ran over to check things out.
My chief first went to Ed's door, which was facing me, and after only a moment went around to Ed De Bow's door on the far side.

At this time, Serrano climbs out and runs over to my bird and crawls into the back.
He is covered in blood and when I turn around to talk to him, he is a fetal position and unresponsive.
I then see my crew chief come back around Ed's bird and shake his head, which I knew signified that Ed De Bow had been killed.
 I signaled to my chief to come back to our ship and assume I then called upstairs to inform the C&C and the Cobra's.

I was instructed to fly Serrano back to Tan An (I think) and await further instructions, while De Bow and their ship were retrieved.
   After landing at Tan An, Serrano was still unresponsive to my questions, so once I determined he had not also been wounded,
I took him and got him somewhat cleaned up. For some reason the next few hours remain a blur,
but at some point someone came to where ever we were and asked that we accompany them to some type mortuary building facility to make a positive identification of De Bow.
I recall asking Serrano if he wanted me to take care of this, and he said "No", that he would do it.

De Bow had been shot in the head and killed instantly but had toppled over against Serrano where he apparently lay the whole time until Ed finally landed,
therefore the reason Serrano was so traumatized and disoriented.
Strangely, I cannot now remember if I then flew Serrano back to Dong Tam or if he was picked up by the C&C ship.
By Larry Little, War Wagon 12

The Last Roll Call
Your friends, classmates and fellow former cadets of the Massanutten Military Academy Alumni Association,
remember and salute you as a fallen hero, member of the Class of 1964,
Sharpshooter, Good Conduct Ribbon, Gearing Rifles, and Drill Team.

Submitted by
John C. Smuck
mmaalum@rica.net
Thursday, July 05, 2001