Home»History and Legacy»Timeline»1966-1967: Taking the Offensive»U.S. Navy Helicopter Crews Begin Air Support for Riverine Operations

U.S. Navy Helicopter Crews Begin Air Support for Riverine Operations

August 1, 1966 - August 31, 1966

1966-08_HH-1Ks_from_HAL-3_over_Vietnam_1967
1966-08_HH-1Ks_from_HAL-3_over_Vietnam_1967
On a combat mission near Can Tho, the door gunner of a Navy Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 3 “Huey” scans the fields below as another “Huey” hovers nearby, providing cover for river patrol boats below, November 9, 1967. (U.S. Navy, National Museum of Naval Aviation).

Naval aviators begin flying UH-1 “Huey” helicopters in support of riverine operations, a duty that they take over from Army pilots. The consistent success of these helicopter missions results in the establishment of Helicopter Attack (Light) Squadron 3 (HAL-3) in early 1967. HAL-3, nicknamed the “Seawolves,” becomes one of the most decorated Navy squadrons of the war.1

1Edward J. Marolda, By Sea, Air, and Land: An Illustrated History of the U.S. Navy and the War in Southeast Asia (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, 1994), 167–169; Simon Dunstan, Vietnam Choppers (Oxford: Osprey Publishers, 2003), 158.