The One-Eyed Ugly Angel, A True Marine Corps Legend

Post Image: Christmas 1967, Khe Sanh, Celebrated Ugly Angels style!

By Elaine Zimmer Davis, www.BringingJerryHome.com
An upside to searching for the remains of my first husband, Capt Jerry Zimmer, USMC, an F4 Phantom pilot shot down in the Que Son Mountains of Vietnam and MIA since August 29, 1969, is my renewed respect for Marines whose countless acts of bravery during the Vietnam War saved the lives of many fellow Marines. One of those heroic acts was recorded on April 30, 1968, the first day of the hard-fought, four-day Battle of Dai Do.

Stationed aboard the Iwo Jima, a Landing Platform Helicopter (LPH) ship, floating about five miles offshore from the mouth of the Cua Viet River in South Vietnam, Capt Ben Cascio and his crew of Ugly Angels (HMH-362) were on medevac stand-by when the call came from a unit with the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines (2/4), requesting a medevac for five seriously wounded Marines. Within minutes, Ben and his wingman, 1st Lt Robbie Robertson, were at the controls of their H-34 helicopters, enroute to Dai Do, a stone’s throw from Dong Ha and approximately eight miles south of the DMZ. Flying in the dead of night with 850 missions to his credit, Ben was unaware that the mission they were about to undertake would become a true Marine Corps legend.

As I prepare to write this blog, Ben has one request: “Please don’t call me a hero, this mission was a team effort.” But even with the passage of time, many of his Marine Corps brethren still credit Ben with an enormous heroic feat that earned him the name, “The One-Eyed Ugly Angel,” a moniker that Ben wears with pride. I think you’ll agree that his story makes us all proud, no matter what we call him.

To put the story in perspective, medevac missions were always dangerous, even when a chopper was called in to pick up a victim with a combat medical emergency during the daylight hours, in what appeared to be a secure area. Nowhere was absolutely secure in Vietnam during that era. But the ante was raised when a call for medevac came at night, these missions were true emergencies, and pilots knew that they likely would be landing in a hot zone during a firefight to evacuate recently wounded Marines. And although a moonless night could camouflage the big green workhorse, it did little to silence the H-34’s huge Wright 1820 radial engine that emitted a loud guttural sound, announcing its arrival to our troops, as well as to the enemy. I asked Ben if he had a gut feeling that everything was going to blow up in his face, literally, on this particular mission. His response: “Doesn’t make any difference, you go, no matter what. It’s a matter of life and death.”

Before Ben and his crew of Ugly Angels, co-pilot 1st Lt. Larry Houck, crew chief Bob Bush, and a gunner, dropped into the zone, he radioed ahead to the troops on the ground when he was a couple of miles out, telling them to put a strobe light where they wanted him to place his right wheel. They were flying into the zone without lights, and this would become the pick-up point for the medevacs. Ben was told that there had been heavy fighting earlier, but it was quiet at the moment. “When I broke the coast, I told Robbie to stay high and cover,” said Ben. At 0300, Ben dropped into the zone, and Bush immediately began loading the wounded. When he had three to five guys aboard, all hell broke loose. “The enemy opened up, and we started catching fire from all over the zone.”

Between the time when the VC opened fire and the wounded were loaded, a minute or two seemed like forever, said Ben, who was wounded during the barrage. Although unable to see, Ben didn’t realize that he’d been hit. “I never felt any pain” he said, describing the sensation as ‘being hit with a cold steak.’ “Meanwhile, Bob tells me we’re okay, let’s go. I still couldn’t see. I called Larry, my co-pilot, but the noise was deafening from the automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). Larry didn’t answer, so I reached over and still couldn’t get a response from him. I called Bob, my crew chief, and told him that I thought Larry was hit, so I needed him to talk us out of the zone. Meanwhile, Bob is continuing to return fire, getting hit twice in the process.”

Bush ultimately received credit for 12 kills but was devastated when days later he saw that his plane had taken 500-plus hits and looked like Swiss cheese. Bush also saw something else that caught his interest, the map case in the cockpit was destroyed. He realized that when Ben leaned over to get Larry’s attention, a round came up through the front panel and went through the map case that was mounted behind the pilot’s head. Had Ben not been leaning over, the round would have gone through his head and likely killed him.

Once in the air, Ben talked on the radio with his wingman, Robbie Robertson, telling him that he couldn’t see and thought Larry had been hit. Due to the volume of fire, Robertson didn’t think Ben would be coming out but now flew next to him. The two H-34s headed southeast to the point where the Dong Ha/Cua Viet River emptied into the Gulf of Tonkin. “Robbie had called ahead to the Cua Viet USN/USMC Base, and they refused to turn the lights on, so he told them, ‘You either light up the area, or I’m going to fucking light you up.’” Apparently, they turned on the lights, said Ben.

Once on the ground, several other Ugly Angels arrived from the Iwo Jima to help transport all the wounded to the Repose, the hospital ship that was nearby. The squadron’s corpsman, Master Chief “Doc” Jones, immediately performed emergency procedures to keep Ben from bleeding out. “Doc saved my life,” said Ben, whose voice quivered for the first time, telling me that Doc and he had remained friends until his untimely death a decade ago, the day after Ben was inducted into the Aviation Hall of Fame in New Jersey.

Ben Cascio (Left) and Doc Jones reunite
POPASMOKE Reunion 1998, Pensacola