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help he merely called his supporting Caribou detachment commander. Seldom was a request denied; almost never was he disappointed with the performance. The Caribou tests were highly successful—the light cargo plane seemed assured a place in the Army inventory.
Like the Mohawk, the history of the Caribou is somewhat tangential to the history of airmobility in the Army. It did perform a logistics role in a gross weight and performance category that was unique. The next plane in size was the C-123B which had a gross weight of 55,700 pounds compared to the Caribou's 28,500 pounds, and the single wheel load of the C-123 was almost double that of the Caribou. Consequently, the Caribou could operate repeatedly and routinely into airfields that were denied to the C-123 and later the C-130. For example, in 1963, the Caribou could operate into 77 percent of all airstrips in Vietnam while the C-123 was limited to just 11 percent of these airfields. The big question at this time was whether the Caribou should be employed under the corps senior advisors or whether it should be integrated into the Southeast Asia airlift system. Strong differences of opinion existed.
In 1964 the 61st Aviation Company introduced the low-level extraction system to Vietnam. In this technique the Caribou flew over a restricted drop area, at an altitude of about ten feet, and a drag chute attached to the load which was to be deployed pulled the load out of the ship through the rear door. Faster than the time it takes to tell, the load skidded across the ground until it came to a safe rest. Using this system, a narrow stretch of road was an acceptable drop zone. During my visit to Vietnam in August 1964, the only complaint I heard about the Caribou was that there weren't enough of them.
Other Army Aviation Units in Vietnam
At that time our fixed-wing aviation assets were centralized in Vietnam in the Aviation Support Battalion (Provisional) commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Robert J. Dillard. This battalion consisted of the 18th Aviation Company (U-1A Otters) for light transport, the 73d Aviation Company (O-1F Bird Dogs) for reconnaissance, the 61st Aviation Company (CV-2B Caribou) for heavy transport, and the 23d Special Warfare Aviation Detachment (JOV-1 Mohawk) for surveillance. Three transportation maintenance companies provided the necessary logistics support. The 18th Aviation Company with its otters had been doing yeoman service in Vietnam since January 1962 and its pilots generally felt that their unique contribution to supplying infinitesimal air-