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Gene Fletcher Matthews
Captain
D TRP, 3RD SQDN, 5TH CAVALRY, 9TH INF DIV, USARV Army of the United States Anson, Maine January 11, 1942 to May 26, 1967 GENE F MATTHEWS is on the Wall at Panel 20E, Line 120 |
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The 191st had just been formed and the advance party had arrived in Vietnam - with CPT Kidd heading up the Armed Platoon - but their helo's had not gotten into country yet. Both CPT Kidd and 1LT Dodson were eager to get into the action and talked D/3/5 into getting familiarization and experience. At approximately 2100 hours, a light fire team consisting of aircraft 66-677 and 66-673 were called out by the 51st ARVN Ranger Battalion, Ben Luc Vietnam, to investigate suspected Viet Cong activity. The team arrived on station at approximately 2130 hours. They began a visual recon of the area with the assistance of flares fired by the artillery. At 2230 hours, the two aircraft met in an apparent head on collision in bad weather. There was an explosion and both aircraft fell to the ground in flames. The nine men killed when their helicopters collided in mid-air and crashed were:
CPT Matthews was survived by mother, Esther Fletcher Matthews (1919-1972), Anson Maine and predeceased by his father, Rudolph J Matthews (1916-1959), who was a Sergeant in the Army in World War II. His younger brother, Richard Scott Matthews (1947-1967) predeceased Gene by about 6 weeks in 1967. The family is buried in Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, Somerset County, Maine. - - - The Virtual Wall, September 2, 2016 |
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