Specialist Fourth Class

Specialist Fourth Class (SP/4-E-4) Lee Joseph Boudreaux, Jr. a 31 year old Single, Caucasian Male,  from New Orleans, Louisiana was serving as the Door Gunner on the crew of UH-1D 65-1088 which was  performing a Special Operations rescue mission Under the command of WO Daniel Sulander. WO Donald Harrison was the pilot and SP4 William Bodzick was the Crew Chief.  The crew was engaged by a hostile ground force resulting in their aircraft being  shot down by hostile forces, killing all on board.

Sp/4 Lee Joseph Boudreaux joined  the 281st  AHC on January 22, 1966, after having served  served six months as a Military Policeman South of Saigon, South Vietnam. Prior to joining the 281st Lee spent Christmas with his family in New Orleans, Louisiana and according to his father if Lee could not have gotten a door gunner assignment he would not have extended.  Lee Initially enlisted into the U.S. Army in 1955 and  served in the Paratroopers  in Japan.  He was separated from the army in 1958 and returned home to became a New Orleans Police Officer.  He reentered the Army in December of 1965 and was trained as a Military Policeman at Ft. Gordon, Georgia.   He was then assigned to Vietnam as an MP and one of his fellow soldiers posted this note:

At approximately 10 AM on December 2, 1966, Lee and the crew of 65-1088 along with 1st Sergeant Irby Dyer, a Project Delta Special Forces Medic, left Khe Sahn South Vietnam, along with six other UH-1s from the 281^st AHC. Their mission was to recover a long-range recon team located inside the borders of Laos.  The recon team on the ground consisted of two Special Forces Sergeants, Master Sergeant  Russell Bott and Master Sergeant Willie Stark along with a number of South Vietnamese Army personnel.  The team was  in contact and under heavy fire from larger enemy force from the NVA 325B Division, SGT Stark had been wounded in the chest and leg, and several ARVN troops had been killed or wounded.  The team reported that they were running low on ammunition and that their situation was precarious.  As the UH-1D neared the team’s position and begin to make it approach it came under heavy intense automatic weapons fire.  The crew of a 281^st AHC helicopter flying protective cover reported that 65-1088 was hit by heavy ground fire and  descended in a nose down attitude and crashed.  The aircraft was immediately engulfed in flames and continued to burn for the approximately fifteen minutes.

Searches conducted between 10 and 13 December located the  wreckage of 65-1088 and identified the remains of the five men aboard, but the search team was not able to recover the bodies.  No trace of SGT Bott or SGT Stark was found.  Another team was inserted to recover the remains of the helicopter crew, but found that US air strikes in the area had hit the UH-1 wreckage.  While three bodies could be positively identified and recovered, WO Sulander and SGT Dyer’s remains could not be identified.  Although there was some evidence that Bott was captured, there is no certainty of what happened to either of the two Special Forces men.  On 2 August 1973 WO Sulander’s status was changed from missing in action to Killed in Action and presumed Dead, Body Not Recovered.

Lee Joseph Boudreaux was adopted by Earl Broussard of the 281st AHC and he developed the information shown here. Please contact Earl if you have information concerning Lee Joseph Boudreaux, Earl J. (EJ) Broussard, e-mail ebroussard7@houston.rr.com, address is PO Box 1121, Highlands, Tx 77562.