Lieutenant James Durward Flurry, US Army
Distinguished Flying Cross - Air Medal w/ Ten Oak Leaf Clusters
James Durward Flurry was born January 4, 1943 in Montgomery Alabama to Durward and Mildred Flurry. His father was career military, serving in the USAAF during WW II and then in the USAF upon its inception. Jim grew up on military bases such as Great Falls MN, Columbus GA, and then in Clovis NM. He graduated from Clovis HS in 1961 and enrolled at ENMU where he attended classes intermittently up until the spring of 1965. That summer he and his wife Ruxell (Gragg) transferred to NMSU. In the spring of 1966 James withdrew from school and joined the US Army. By May 1967 he was stationed at Fort Knox for OCS and in November 1967 was assigned to flight school (rotary). Shortly after graduation from OCS he married for a second time. The following November (1968), after completion of flight school he was in country assigned to C Troop 7/17th Air Cavalry, 1st Air Brigade. The unit was attached in support of the 4th ID then operating in the Central Highlands II Corps. Jim was flying the OH-6A scout helicopter. One of his fellow airmen from C troop, Dan Townsend, wrote:
“It didn’t take us long to name Jim “Fearless Fred” (why not fearless Jim? I don’t know, I guess Fred sounded better.) He had a steadiness and outward calmness you just couldn’t miss…Every pilot had their own style and Jim’s was fearless! Low and slow he’d be there getting the job done as it was supposed to be done”
On 4 May 1969 while on a reconnaissance mission in the An Loa Valley west of LZ English, while hovering at 50 feet above a suspected VC encampment, Jim was struck by ground fire, killing him instantly and causing his helicopter to turn and crash killing his copilot. His observer was wounded. The unit responded by inserting a platoon of men to recover the downed crew. The following recaps the efforts that followed:
“At 3 PM we had a call that a chopper was shot down and that a reinforced platoon from the 4th Infantry Division which arrived at the crash site had been attacked, was forced off the landing zone, and had requested backup. We gathered all the troops we could find, about 20 guys from the battalion area, boarded three hueys, and flew to the valley.
We arrived at a bombed out area on a steep, rocky hillside which was a landing zone prepped by artillery. We began taking fire as we approached and got the word from the crew chief that it was too steep to land and that we would have to jump from the skids. The drop was about eight feet and once on the ground we began to return fire toward a rocky area at the crest of the hill. It took several minutes of fire and maneuver to suppress the incoming enemy fire. Once the LZ was secured we left a squad behind and the rest of us began an attempt to contact the 4th Infantry platoon and assist with the rescue of the downed chopper crew. The crash site was very near the top of the hillside in a heavily wooded area. The chopper was severely damaged and, sadly, there were no survivors. We loaded Lt Flurry and another soldier into hammocks and moved them to the LZ.
The enemy had time to regroup and we came under intense light weapons and heavy machine gun fire. The M60 crew that was left at the LZ was nearly out of ammo and at that point we weren't certain we could get out before nightfall. Then the Cobras arrived. Four of them. They were coming to the aid of one of their own. Until that time I had never seen them up close and personal. A couple of times during that early evening they came almost too close. They had impressive firepower for the time. Even Steven Spielberg would have a difficult time trying to duplicate what was going on at that LZ. With the Cobras keeping the other side busy we were able to move to the LZ and begin extracting everyone. The extraction helicopters came in one right after another taking fire, with no hesitation until we were all out of there.- George Gagusis