John Levitow: Medal of Honor in Vietnam

[Jerry D]

John Levitow: Medal of Honor in Vietnam - Page 1
John Levitow was one of only two Air Force enlisted men to earn the Medal of Honor in Vietnam.
By Judd Katz and Claire Skowronski for Vietnam Magazine

? Page 1: A military heritage.
? Page 2: Spooky 71
? Page 3: The flare

To engage the enemy, exchange fire and reduce the number of opposing military forces is the inherent wartime mission of every soldier; but to do so and face the possibility of falling several thousand feet from the sky is a hazard unique to an airman. The U.S. Air Force Dictionary defines the word "airmanship" as "the art or skill of flying aircraft or of using aircraft tactics," a definition which may give the reader a sense that the term is the province of pilots alone. Every member of the crew aboard an aircraft, however, engages the enemy. Each works to enhance the spirit of team cooperation, each demonstrates initiative, each possesses knowledge of aircraft tactics and, perhaps most significant, each crew member possesses a sense of something greater than self-specifically, crew teamwork. This, too, is airmanship.

An enlisted man may not guide the plane nor plot its course. But in time of lethal danger to craft and crew, the hand of the enlisted airman may stay that threat if and when that individual rises above and beyond the call of duty to save the lives of his crew.

In Vietnam, one such enlisted man was Sergeant John Levitow, 3rd Special Operations Squadron, 14th Special Operations Wing, who saved his aircrew when he ejected an armed 2-million-candlepower flare from his stricken gunship during a battlefield illumination mission. His exemplary airmanship earned him a place alongside only five other enlisted airmen in the history of the U.S. Army Air Forces and the U.S. Air Force who earned the Medal of Honor. (Editor's note: Until recently, Sergeant Levitow was the only enlisted airman to earn the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. On December 8, 2000, Airman 1st Class William Pitsenbarger was awarded a the Medal of Honor posthumously for an action that took place on April 11, 1966.)

Levitow was born in Glastonbury, Conn., the son of an employee of Pratt & Whitney, United Aircraft. Levitow attended Glastonbury High School, but scholarship held little interest for him. "I wanted to get out [of high school], and that's all there was to it," he said. "Academically, I just wanted to stay away from school as much as humanly possible." Levitow planned to join the Navy after graduating from high school, As he explained it: "The Army and the Marines walk, and I'm basically a lazy individual. I went down to the recruiter one day. I was going to join the Navy; I liked water, right? I had a recruiter sitting with his feet up on the desk. He looked at me and said, 'What the hell do you want?' I said, 'Take your Navy, blah, blah, blah,' walked next door, and joined the Air Force."

Levitow summed up his decision to join that particular branch of the armed forces as "real scientific!" His incongruous initiation into the military notwithstanding, Levitow noted that his family had always been militarily oriented. His father's work at Pratt & Whitney was critical to the Vietnam War effort. Levitow's uncles had seen extensive action during World War 11. One uncle, who served in the Army Air Forces, had become a prisoner of war. Another uncle in the Army had served in the Philippines when the Japanese invaded the islands in 1941, and subsequently survive the Bataan Death March.

Page#2:After enlisting, Levitow completed basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, and then went through his technical training in electrical maintenance at McGuire Air Force Base, N.J. "I went to Lackland Air Force Base, Texas, and had a couple of lovely months there," he recalled. "Then I was first assigned to McGuire Air Force Base. I think it was the 438th Civil Engineering Squadron. I was going to work in the electrical field that I wanted. They made me a lineman. That's not exactly what I had in mind, but I played at that for about six months to a year."

A nerve-racking incident caused Levitow to request a new assignment. "I had a bad experience where the power was not turned off when I thought it was, and it scared the hell out of me," he recalled. "I came down the pole and asked my squadron commander if I couldn't cross-train into something a little less dangerous. That is when I went to load master. I went to Sheppard Air Force Base and spent four to six weeks, and then I was reassigned back to McGuire flying [Lockheed] C-130s. Shortly thereafter, I was assigned to Vietnam."

Ironically, this new assignment as a load master on an aircraft in Vietnam became the "something a little less dangerous" that eventually led to Levitow's Medal of Honor. On the night of February 24,1969, Levitow filled in for the regular load master aboard a Douglas AC-47 designated Spooky 71. Based on the famous DC-3 airliner of the 1930s and its military transport cousin of World War 11, the AC-47 gunship carried three SUU-IIA/A 7.62mm miniguns, making it a potent ground-attack plane. Levitow had not originally been assigned to that particular flight, but he owed a fellow airman a favor.

On that flight, Levitow and the crew had been airborne for approximately 41/2 hours when Major Kenneth Carpenter, the pilot of Spooky 71, received orders to assist troops in contact in the Bien Hoa area. The pilot and co-pilot saw muzzle flashes on the southern and eastern perimeters of Long Bien Base.

The AC-47 banked and fired 3,000 rounds into the enemy position. Spooky 71 and her crew were then called to go two kilometers south of Long Bien to drop illumination flares for a night action.

Levitow hooked the lanyard of a 2-million-candlepower flare to a static line so that it could be armed and ejected by Airman Owens, the crewman in charge of tossing out the flare. Levitow remembered that they were at 3,500 feet. Just then, an 82mm mortar round struck Spooky 71, catching the wing of the aircraft. The mortar exploded, throwing Owens from his position at the door back into the aircraft. Shrapnel struck Owens, Airman Baer and Levitow. Worse, the armed flare fell inward, rolling around the floor of the aircraft.

John Levitow later described the dilemma the aircrew faced that night: "First, I have to explain that from the time the airplane was hit, I don't remember anything. My memory is a blank. I I mean, I don't remember step by step. I have to recite now what 1 was told by the other guys on the flight.

"They tell me that I went down [and] a guy named Baer--I forget his full namewent down. Owens was the one handling the flares at the time. Every enlisted man on the airplane was at least eligible for the Purple Heart. Not one officer got so much as a nosebleed. They are all up front; they are exempt. It was like a hidden wall: officers are off-limits [for] shrapnel, that way.

"So I had about 40 pieces of shrapnel in me. One of our other enlisted guys, Baer, had quite a few. I mean, he was really hurt bad. They tell me that I saw him; I was helping him with Owens up to the front of the airplane to make him more comfortable.

Page#3:"The pilot yelled, 'What happened? Did a flare explode?' We didn't know what the heck had happened. The only thing I know is that it felt like a great big two-by-four hit the whole side of my body. It was a dull, thumping wham!

"But my mind [was] on Baer and the other guy. Let's say I really didn't acknowledge pain as you would perceive [it]. It was dark in there, and that's when it dawned on me. What did happen to the flare? At this point, I don't remember jumping on it. I don't remember getting it to the door. It was like a blank, conditioned response."

Levitow's recollections of his emotions at the time did not include any sensations of calm acceptance, inner peace regarding his likely fate, or a calculated plan of action. "I can't honestly say that I saw the tight," he said. "Maybe had I seen it, I would tell you. But all I can relate to, it was a thing of fear. I had a fear of that flare the entire time I was over there."

"Many evenings you just fly around in circles all night long," he related, "and you hypothetically create many different situations. And [you ask yourself] what would you do in this particular case? So these hypothetical situations, whether I thought of the ideal situation or not, led me to a conditioned response."

Levitow later realized that, because of his training, he had reacted appropriately and decisively, even though he was not aware of what happened at the time. "I think that [my training] is it; it's got to be," he said. His heroic action notwithstanding, Levitow also attributed his actions in part to a basic survival instinct: "Fear. I think fear is the main word. Anybody who says they are not afraid in that situation is an idiot."

After the event, Levitow did not remember precisely how he located the armed flare. "They [told] me afterward it was smoking already. So that meant that soon the chute would come out. Now, the canister ejects almost, as I understand it, at the same velocity as a bullet, so we are not talking about something that just pops loose. We are talking about something that could be potentially dangerous."

Major Carpenter, Spooky 71's pilot, later discussed the event with Levitow. "He [Major Carpenter] honestly believes that the flare had probably been damaged by the mortar, just like we were, because we were all standing right there," recounted Levitow.

The flare came to rest next to the munitions storage area of the aircraft. Levitow lunged for the flare, but in a pitching and rolling AC-47, the flare's 27-pound weight and 3-foot length made Levitow feet as if he was trying to latch onto a couple of rolling bowling balls. "Well, there are three things going against you when you are dealing with a magnesium flare," Levitow pointed out. "First of all, the heat of the flare. It can burn right through the cargo floor in about two minutes. The DC-3's fuel tanks are in the floor. Secondly, the toxic gas. Magnesium is a toxic gas. The third thing is the light. Had [the flare] gone off, and we had survived that aspect, it more than likely would have blinded everybody in the back as well as the landing abilities of the pilot. Oh yes, we had a number of things going against us that night. Not a fun-filled night."

According to the Medal of Honor citation, Levitow clutched the flare, crawled with it to the back of the aircraft and maneuvered it out the door. As the flare cleared the tail section of the aircraft, it ignited.

Levitow remembered, "The next thing I knew, the pilot was saying, 'We are landing. Everybody hold on."' Levitow and the other injured crewmen found themselves on an air evacuation flight to Tokyo. Once there, he learned that he had received a total of 47 fragmentation wounds.

Because of the student demonstrations against the Vietnam War and the public's general disillusionment with American involvement there, the Pentagon handled the preparations for awarding the Medal of Honor to Levitow in an almost furtive manner. Levitow recalled: "All the preparation for the medal was done verbally.... I think you have to step back into history a tittle bit. We were in a very troubled time with Vietnam-bad afterthoughts, bad publicity." It was in the midst of that situation that Levitow received a teletyped message telling him he was going to receive the Medal of Honor. "If that had gotten out, what would have happened?" he wondered. "Demonstrations? I went down to Washington in civilian clothes and was told not to tell anyone about the award. I mean, very hush-hush."

After four years of service, Levitow chose to leave the Air Force and returned home to Connecticut. As his Medal of Honor citation attests, it was because Levitow moved swiftly to secure and eject an armed flare during that flight in February 1969 that an AC-47 gunship and its crew were not incinerated. John Levitow's actions that night reflected the core of aviation professionalism--airmanship.

Editor's note: John Levitow died on November 8, 2000. He was buried in Arlington National Cemetery.This article was written by Judd Katz and Claire Skowronski and originally published in Vietnam Magazine, August, 2001.

To every Sgt in the USAF who goes thru NCO Leadership school Sgt Levitow is a hero to us for all he did and the humility he showed after receiving the MOH one of 5 enlisted Airmen to receive the award and One of the Few to live and tell about it.

[Jerry D]

John Levitow, Vietnam Medal of Honor recipient, died on 8 November 2000



8 November 2000 - WASHINGTON (AFPN) -- Air Force Sergeant John L. Levitow, one of only 16 airmen awarded the Medal of Honor for exceptional heroism during wartime died Nov. 8 at his home in Connecticut after a lengthy battle with cancer. He was 55.

Levitow, the lowest ranking airman to earn the medal, received the honor as a result of an incident on Feb. 24, 1969. At that time, the airman first class served as loadmaster aboard a severely damaged AC-47 gunship flying a mission over Long Bihn, South Vietnam.

Suffering from more than 40 shrapnel wounds in his back and legs caused by a mortar blast, he saw a smoking magnesium flare amid a jumble of spilled ammunition canisters. Despite loss of blood and partial loss of feeling in his right leg, the 23-year-old threw himself on the flare, hugged it close, dragged himself toward an open cargo door and hurled the flare out. Almost simultaneously, the flare ignited harmlessly outside the door and away from the munitions.

President Richard M. Nixon presented the Medal of Honor to Levitow on Armed Forces Day, May 14, 1970, at the White House.

After Levitow left the Air Force, he worked in the field of veteran's affairs for more than 22 years. His most recent work was for Connecticut developing and designing veteran programs.

[Boats]

A man is not dead until he is forgotten?.


Your line speaks volumes.

[SuperScout]

May his very name be an eternal source of inspiration, of hope, and of example for every generation. To paraphrase, "... My god, where do we get such men......?"

[MORTARDUDE]

Hell of a story. Thanks for posting it !!

Larry

DEO VINDICE

[Jerry D]

John Levitow,Sgt USAF was born on 1 Nov 1945 and was 55 when he died in 2000 I recently found out the Airforce named a C17 Cargo Plane after him "The Spirit of John Levitow" it was the first time an Enlisted Man received that honor and Sgt Levitow was around in 1998 when they unveiled it with him in attendance.When Showed the loadmasters Seat he stated that if he flew on one he would rather ride up front with the crew ,Because if he sat in the Loadmaster seat he would be tempted to get back to work

I agree with ya' Sgt Levitow is an inspiration to me and your welcome Larry glad you liked it .BTW I hear them AC47 2million candle power flares lit up the countryside pretty good