KingBees to the rescue

While many elements of the Republic of Vietnam Armed Forces have a bad reputation, some units were outstanding. One was the 219th Helicopter Squadron of the Vietnamese Air Force. Known as the KingBees, their most dangerous missions were extracting MACV-SOG teams from hot LZs across the fence in Laos and Cambodia. Many Americans and their indigenous team members owed their lives to these brave fliers.

Flying the basically obsolete H-34 Sikorsky, they were better than the best.

I had to have a model for my 20mm Vietnam wargames. I did a bit of conversion to an MRC 1/72 American UH-34 Choctaw with markings for a Marine chopper. I had to remove the armament in the cargo door area. It was replaced with a .30 caliber machine gun on a bungee cord and with the gunner to man it. I could not get any pilots in the cockpit, but so far no one has noticed it in a game. Or, maybe they were just too polite to say anything. Of course, it needed a new paint job. No real markings, due to the clandestine nature of its missions.





Here come the KingBees to extract the SOG team at their purple smoke marker. Back when these photos were taken I was still using some cake decorator palm trees and stepped hills on top of my mats.

There is some cool info on the KingBees here:

http://vnafmamn.com/VNAF_sikorsky.html

Tom

Vey cool! And thanks for sharing the link.

Thank you.

Tom

Just love the Choctaw.

That's brilliant Tom, love the look.

Thanks Paul and Darby. I love those guys.

Darby, I always think of your telling me that when any of the Kingbees who made over here showed up at the Special Forces Association meetings, they would get a standing ovation. Well deserved.

Tom