LEON DARVIN FLANDERS
First Lieutenant, Infantry, Aviator
From: Fairfield, South Carolina
Born: October 30, 1942
Tour of duty began November 6, 1965.
Died on June 17, 1966 due to mortar fire.
LT. FLANDERS WAS THE FIRST 281st COMBAT CASUALTY IN SOUTH EAST ASIA.
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LT
Flanders preferred to be called Darvin and was known as Darvin or
"Darv" to his friends. He was born in Columbia, SC and
raised in Winsboro, SC, where he attended local schools playing
football, basketball and baseball. Following high school
Darvin attended Clemson College, graduating in 1964 with a degree
in economics. After college Darvin attended the Infantry Officers
Basic Course at Fort Polk, Louisiana and, upon completion, transferred
to Fort Wolters, Texas for initial rotary wing training.
Darvin went on to Fort Rucker, Alabama where on July 6, 1965, he
graduated with Rotary Wing class number 65-8.
Following graduation he remained at Fort Rucker as a rotary wing
aviator with the Department of Tactics. In September of 1965
Darvin left Fort Rucker and on November 11, 1965 joined the 145th
Airlift Platoon which later became part of the 281st AHC.
On June 17, 1966, 1st
LT Flanders and his crew were supporting a special forces
camp in the highlands of South Vietnam when a mortar round struck
and exploded in the tent being used as a waiting area.
Darvin was hit by metal fragments and died instantly. Darvin
was the first 281st AHC KIA in South East Asia.
Recollections of Darvin Flanders by Fred Phillips:
Darvin and I worked together as 'blackbirds' at Tac-1 at Fort
Rucker for a while before we went to Vietnam. (His
middle name was Darvin, spelled with a 'v.' He didn't like to be
called Leon.)
We shipped over at the same time, and he was assigned to the 145th
Airlift Platoon at Nha Trang. That platoon was actually the
predecessor of the 281st, whose primary mission was Project Delta.
By the time my platoon arrived a few months later Darvin was an
experienced slick AC and, unfortunately, a damn good one. Of
course, the best slick pilot was always assigned to fly the
primary pickup aircraft on the hot extractions and Darvin got
stuck with that job for a couple of months. After a few weeks, he
started to burn out. Hell, he knew that there was no way he could
survive the six months or so left in his tour doing that job. The
rest of us started to worry about him.
Then we went to Tay Ninh. I started to suspect that the operation
wouldn't be much fun when I got shot down on our first area recon,
but that's another story. Two days later, one of the recon teams
parked in the remains of an abandoned village in C-zone called Bo
Tuc. A few minutes later, an entire NVA battalion marched into the
area and camped all around the team. The team couldn't move and
the NVA appeared to be setting up to stay awhile, so they called
for extraction. Darvin and Pete Frazier got the job.
We planned to use our usual tactics - gunships spraying the area
while the slick comes in over the trees, pops up and lands amid
the confusion, grabs the team, and gets out of Dodge, all in a few
seconds. This time, there were just too many bad guys and it
didn't work at all. On short final, Darvin got hit in the foot,
the aircraft spun a couple of turns, but Pete recovered it and
flew it out. On the way back to Tay Ninh, Darvin reported that his
leg hurt, but that he didn't want to look at it since he thought
his foot was gone. He finally looked at it when we landed and his
foot was still there. In fact, an AK round had come in through the
right chin bubble, hit the FM radio, tumbled, and knocked Darvin's
left foot off the pedal. The whole bullet was stuck in the leather
of his boot. It hadn't even broken the skin. Left a helluva
bruise, though.
By then, Darvin had had enough, used up his chances, and the rest
of us knew it. A few of us went to the CO and asked him to give
Darvin another job. A few days later, he started flying ash and
trash for one of the Special Forces 'C' detachments. I saw him a
time or two after that and he was back to normal, feeling good. He
told me that he was glad he didn't have to fly for Project Delta
any more, and that he figured he could survive a couple of tours
flying ash and trash.
Then one day he was eating breakfast in the team shack at some
Special Forces camp when a mortar round came through the roof and
blew him away. Nobody else got hurt. We all heard about it the
same day, and somebody said it was a short round fired by the
friendlies.
From John Hyatt: (who can be reached by email to jhyatt53@airmail.net
I think I was working out of Det. C3 in Bien
Hoa when Darv was killed. As I recall he had flown some SF
people to a site near Buen Me Thuet where a new camp was to be.
There was a secure perimeter with tents inside. The mess
area was a GP tent with Reefer units and other mess equipment.
The crew, including Darv was hanging out in the tent area waiting
for the passengers to finish their business. Some ARVAN or
VN SF were firing mortars from a position near by-possibly
inside the perimeter. One of the rounds was short, some one
called "Short Round" and everyone hit the ground. Rather
than go completely down Darv knelt near one of the reefer units.
A piece of shrapnel from the short round struck him in the neck-
in one of the arteries. Before anyone noticed and
administered aid he had bled to death.
A MAN IS NOT DEAD UNTIL HE IS FORGOTTEN
ONCE AN INTRUDER ... ALWAYS AN INTRUDER