|
M.A.S.H. medevac helicopters
This
Bell Model 47 has an external litter for transporting wounded.
During World War II, helicopters were
used for numerous light utility duties such as scouting and searching for
submarines. They also carried out a large medevac operation in June 1945
when helicopters airlifted at least 70 wounded soldiers from the front
lines in Luzon to rear-area hospitals, marking the first time that U.S.
helicopters came under concentrated enemy fire. But few helicopters—either
German or American—made it into front-line service. That changed by the
time the Korean War took place.
Two helicopters—the Bell 47 (designated
the H-13 by the military) and the Sikorsky S-51 (designated the H-5 by the
military)—were the primary
rescue helicopters in the Korean War. The
Sikorsky S-51 helicopters were pressed into service early in the war as
aerial ambulances. These helicopters could carry two crewmembers and a
wounded soldier. There was so little room in the narrow fuselage for the
stretcher that the soldier's legs stuck out the side of the helicopter
from the knees down.
The history of the Bell 47 began in
November 1941 when the somewhat eccentric inventor Arthur Young and his
assistant Bartram Kelley persuaded Bell Aircraft Corporation of Buffalo,
New York, to sponsor the development of a helicopter Young designated the
Model 30. The craft made its first untethered flight in June 1943. It had
a single two-bladed rotor and a small
vertical propeller at the tail. In April 1945, the third Model 30 made its
flight, demonstrating many of the characteristics that were soon
incorporated into the Model 47, which flew on December 8, 1945. In March
1946, it became the first commercially certified helicopter.
The Bell 47/H-13 had a two-seat cockpit
enclosed by a distinctive plastic bubble. The two-bladed rotor made a
"chop-chop" sound, leading to the nickname "chopper" for helicopters. It
became the first successful commercial
helicopter beginning in the early 1950s. It is perhaps most famous
for its extensive use during the Korean War.
In
addition to its role as a medivac helicopter, the Sioux was selected for
use by President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957.
Soon the H-13, which was serving in a
light utility and observation role, was converted to a flying ambulance,
ferrying wounded troops from the front lines to Mobile Army Surgical
Hospitals (M.A.S.H.) that were often far from the front. The H-13, which
the U.S. Army named the Sioux, normally could carry a pilot and two
passengers in the bubble cockpit. The Army fitted stretchers on both sides
of the cockpit—outside of the cockpit—atop the landing skids so a pilot
could carry the wounded soldiers to medical help. Small plastic bubbles
were fitted at the fronts of the stretchers to protect the men's heads. It
was a cold and windy ride for the wounded soldiers, but it meant they
would be rushed to a team of trained doctors working in a well-equipped
hospital room. The alternative was first aid at the battlefield and a
long, bumpy ride to a field hospital. However, the limited carrying
capacity of these small helicopters and their slow speed were clear
drawbacks for military use.
The Bell 47 was one of the supporting
actors of the long-running television show
M.A.S.H. The helicopters were
seen at the beginning of every show bringing wounded soldiers to the field
hospital.
The Bell 47 has proved to be one of the
most successful helicopters of all time, staying in production for over
three decades. More than 5,000 copies were built for both military and
civilian use. In addition to its military use, it has been used for
everything from police work to radio traffic reports to crop-dusting to
cattle herding. Thousands are still in use today in training and light
observation roles. A typical variant, the Model 47G-3B-2A, has been
equipped with a single Lycoming TVO-435-F1A piston engine providing 280
horsepower (209 kilowatts). It is 31 feet 7 inches (9.6 meters) long, 9
feet 3 inches (2.8 meters) high, and has a rotor diameter of 37 feet 1
inch (11.3 meters). It weighs 2,893 pounds (1,312 kilograms) empty, has a
maximum speed of 105 miles per hour (169 kilometres per hour), and a
maximum range of 215 nautical miles (398 kilometres).
Because Korea had a relatively fixed
battle front during the second half of the war, M.A.S.H. units could be
located near the front and the helicopters did not have to fly far or for
long periods of time when transporting their wounded. This was not the
case only a few years later in Vietnam, where there were no clear front
lines and medevac helicopters often had to fly into battles to retrieve
the wounded and carry them great distances to medical help. In the 1950s,
the French used Sikorsky H-19 helicopters to transport wounded during the
Indochina war. (The U.S. Air Force also used the H-19 as a search and
rescue helicopter in Korea.) By the mid-1950s, the U.S. Army began
searching for a replacement medevac aircraft for the Bell Model 47 and
soon selected the Bell Model 204, HU-1A (later UH-1A) "Huey." In early
1962, the 57th Medical Detachment (Helicopter Ambulance) went
to Vietnam to provide medevac service to the Army of the Republic of
Vietnam (ARVN) forces. The unit's Hueys often had large red crosses
painted on their side and nose. The Hueys quickly became the primary
medevac helicopter of the war.
The medevac Hueys were known by their
radio call sign "Dustoff" for the dirt they kicked up as they took the
wounded to safety. Later variants, such as the UH-1H, could carry three
stretcher patients and a trained medic inside the cabin. Most served in
the Army, although both the Navy and Marines used their Hueys for similar
tasks.
The
U.S. Army "Dustoff" helicopter, the Bell UH-1 Huey, received its
nickname for the dirt that it kicked up as it took off and landed.
Although almost never armed, Dustoff
Hueys sometimes dropped off supplies and even ammunition to troops in the
field—what one pilot referred to as "preventive medicine." They frequently
came under fire and many were shot down—the large red crosses on their
sides did not provide them with immunity. Dustoff pilots often earned
reputations for immense bravery, risking themselves and their aircraft to
remove wounded soldiers during intense fire fights, and resulted in the
awarding of several Medals of Honor to pilots and crewmen.
By the 1980s, the U.S. Army began
replacing the Huey with the Sikorsky UH-60
Black Hawk in the medevac role. The military's requirement was the
ability to carry a greater number of wounded, and the Black Hawk's larger
fuselage and higher speed (compared to the
Huey) made it highly
valuable in 1991 during Operation Desert Storm. But the Army also changed
tactics—medevac helicopters no longer went into firefights to retrieve the
wounded. Instead, wounded soldiers were retrieved either by the
helicopters that brought them to the front or by dedicated
search and
rescue craft. They were then taken to a staging area where
the most seriously wounded soldiers were evacuated by medevac helicopters
to field hospitals. During the Gulf War, one helicopter working in the
search and rescue role and carrying a doctor was shot down. Five members
of its crew were killed and three captured.
|
home
