From December 8, 1967 through January 24, 1968 volunteers from the 188th AHC “Black Widows” and “Spider” gunships provided tactical air movement and close-in fire support for teams A-361 and A-362, under the command and control of Detachment B-36 of the 5th Special Forces Group, commanded by Major Bo Gritz. Special Task Force Rapid Fire was under the control of II Field Force and during its existence provided intelligence information during a total of nine Rapid Fire operations in the III Corps Area of Operations and Cambodia. A-361, call sign Marauder, was commanded by SFC Bernie Newman and A-362, call sign Maverick, was commanded by Captain Stanley Krasnoff. This particular operation was for the purpose of gathering intelligence on VC/NVA movements across the Cambodian border northwest of Tay Ninh in the fishhook area of War Zone “C” where the Vam Co Dong River serves as the border between Cambodia and Vietnam. The 188th committed five UH-1H slicks, one Command and Control (C&C) and three UH-1C gunships (heavy fire team) daily for this operation. The Forward Operating Base (FOB) was set up at Tay Ninh East airfield. B-36 presented all the flight crews with their coveted red, white and blue scarf’s that we wore with great pride.

Utilizing low level insertions at first light, teams from A-361 and A-362 were inserted into multiple LZ’s in AO’s Bear, Mongoose and Cub to preclude the Viet Cong pinpointing their exact location and strength. By the close of Rapid Fire V the 188th had flown 45 separate airmobile operations ranging from single ship insertions and extractions to multiple ship operations. Types of missions included, ambush, interdict VC and capture POW’s and documents, area assessment, recon, aerial observation-targets of opportunity, armed aerial recon to engage targets of opportunity, destroy bridges, search for caches and B-52 bomb damage assessment. POW’s were interrogated at FOB Tay Ninh East for immediate useable information and then evacuated to Company “A” headquarters in Bien Hoa. Some of the captured documents were of such importance that they were flown directly to Washington D.C. This intelligence was crucial because of the upcoming Tet’68 communist offensive.

The 188th flew a total of 1,185 sorties and 621 flying hours in support of Rapid Fire V. The 188th killed 36 VC, wounded 3, captured 3, and destroyed two VC vehicles and three bridges. Corporal Ron Carpenter, Sp/4 John Newcomer, Captain Gerald Doht, Sp/4 Tim Wingerd and Warrant Officer Wes Gager were wounded, and eleven helicopters were hit by ground fire; of these, three were totally destroyed on the ground.

Sp/4 Ruiz (A-362), Sgt. David R. Simmons (A-361), Sp/4 Theodore Taylor Jr. (A-361) and Pvt. Frank Taboada (A-362) were killed in action along with ten Khmer Serei Cambodian mercenaries. The after action report stated that 47 Special Forces soldiers and 56 Cambodians were wounded in action during Rapid Fire V. Enemy losses were 139 killed, 41 wounded and 11 POW’s captured.

SFC Bernie Newman said, “that B-36, Project Rapid Fire, was the last bare knuckle outfit in the Army, if that was the case, then the 188th was the last bare knuckle aviation company the Army had.” The teams agreed that the 188th gave B-36 the best helicopter support they ever experienced.