July 15, 1962 - A U.S. Army helicopter with five Americans and two Vietnamese aboard was shot down by Communist insurgents today. It crashed in flames near the Laotian border in the central highlands of South Vietnam. One American, an officer, was found alive, a U.S. military spokesman said. The fate of the others was undetermined. Their names were not available. Four of the Americans missing from the lost helicopter were members of the copter’s crew. The fifth was an officer from the U.S. Military Assistance Advisory Group who was assigned as an advisor to the Vietnamese forces. The officer who was found had been discovered by a ground search party about 10 miles from the site of the crash in a dense rain forest. The area where the craft was shot down is where the Viet Cong have been reported to be infiltrating into South Vietnam from Laos in large numbers during the last five weeks.
