174th Assault
Helicopter Company

DOLPHINS & SHARKS

Page 2 (of 3)
Photo Pages of:

SP4 Sam Davis
"Dolphin 016"

Dolphin Door Gunner and Crew Chief
June 1967- June 1968

You may e-mail Sam anytime at sdavis016@yahoo.com

All captions listed are above their described photos.

BIG BOMB going off north of Dong Ha (Joint Army-Marine defense of Dong Ha, 1968).
Photo taken with Kodak Instamatic camera.


Aerial shot of Kham Duc just prior to the total airlift on 12 May 1968.



I wanted to include this photo of Dolphin pilot CW2 C. Somerville (left). I flew a lot
of test flights with him. He was an outstanding pilot and was a super great guy.



Coupla' calves seeking a ride in my Bird #66-01016 at Ba-To



I’m firing my M-60 one-handed on an NVA road in Laos while I snapped this with the other.
We were flying a "photo recon" mission along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.



First photo below: NVA soldiers tried to blow up this Highway 1 bridge, just south of Duc Pho.
Second photo: The Sharks attacked them during their attempt.
You can see two US soldiers as they examine several NVA bodies.





Six photos below: UH-1D #66- 16235 crashed July 1967 due to a tail rotor strike on a hilltop outpost.
It rolled several times. No serious injuries. This was the ship that carried the original
“Machina” Dolphin nose art, designed and drawn by WO1 Richard Machina in June 1967.
To see photos of the hilltop outpost crash site, click HERE.


The four photos below are also of Machina's "Nose Art Dolphin" (Dolphin 235), but taken in early July 1967, a few weeks before it crashed on the hilltop outpost. I was in maintenance when the aircraft came in. In the top photo, posing with the aircraft, are left to right: Bailey, Dailey and Valentine.

Dolphin 235 was shot up on a battalion-level combat assault (CA) supporting the 101st Airborne Div. "way out west" of Thien Phouc in Indian country. WO1 Jim McDaniel was flying as aircraft commander (AC) in the left seat, and WO1 Richard Machine was in the right seat, on his last flight as a co-pilot before assuming AC duties. Both he and McDaniel had passed their AC checkrides the day before, and the unit liked to pair an inexperienced AC with an experienced co-pilot. McDaniel "won the toss" and was assigned as the AC on this mission, his first, with Machina as co-pilot. The crew assignment could just as easily have gone the other way.

During this CA, while at low level on short-final to the landing zone (LZ), they overflew the concealed VC who opened up with automatic weapons as the helicopter flew low and slow, directly over their position. The aircraft took multiple hits with some troops in the back being wounded, and Machine took two hits in his leg. We had a thin piece of armor plating on the floor; however, the round that hit Machina was an armor piercing round. It broke into two pieces as it came through the armor plate on the floor, and both pieces entered Machina's leg at the top of his boot and traveled up his leg toward his knee. The wound was serious and Machina was medevaced back to the States, ending his tour.

How ironic, as this was the first and only aircraft with nose art that Machina had personally painted, at that time it was the only one in the company with the nose art, and it was to be Machina's last flight before becoming aircraft commander. The second photo below shows where a round came through Machina's windshield. The third photo shows blood in the chin bubble from Machina's wound. The round that hit him came up through the floor panel of the helicopter just behind the left tail rotor pedal. The bottom photo shows the front of the aircraft and its nose art, with the windshield bullet hole visible. There were also multiple bullet holes through the fuel cells and in the cargo area of the helicopter.









Just some photos of the amenities that were provided for us at Duc Pho. I think they explain themselves. Top left: “Out-tents" (think outhouses). Top right: Urinal. Mid-left: Urinal in action. Mid-right: Our massive “shower area.” I’d like to point out that the bottom two photos are... Left: Me and Dailey, in June 1968, in what we call a "short timer’s bunker" and we were very short. The bottom right photo is our laundry room.




Sequence of below photos: Top two, and second down left, are large shipments of U.S.
ordinance arriving on the beach just east of Duc Pho on the South China Sea. The rest of the
photos are after the VC mortared and blew the whole dump just a few days later!



”Greetings Mom, from the RVN! Food's great!”

Actually my Mother didn’t know other than that I was in Maintenance my whole 174th tour. She found out just before I came home. Dad knew the whole time. Below are six photos of me. Top and bottom photos are me posing with Dolphin #016. The fifth from the top is my "pulling guard duty" pose (note my M-14 I had for a couple of weeks). The photo with my chicken plate on only, well…, I’m a little dirty there. We had just finished an "all day confiscation" of some needed items for the Unit... Such as the 3/4 ton partially visible behind me!
Please don't tell anyone about that either (smile).














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