He turned on his Cobra lights to draw fire away from the reconnaissance unit installed in a rice field. The warplane had only two seats, a pilot and a co-pilot. Even if he could reach the four army guards, they would have to hold on to whatever they could grab to be taken to safety.
“Before I started this approach, I thought this was a good idea,” he recalls. “And when I got about halfway through, I thought: What the hell am I doing?”
The night maneuver on June 18, 1968, became one of the most daring air rescues of the Vietnam War and, 55 years later, earned him the Medal of Honor after a long campaign to have the mission recognized with the military's highest award for bravery.
In September, President Biden presented the medal to the former Army aviator, who retired with the rank of captain. He was 81 when he died on January 28 at his home in Signal Mountain, Tennessee.
“He could have left the fight,” Biden said at the ceremony in September, recounting how he was then a lieutenant. Taylor's Cobra was running low on ammunition and facing intense rocket and machine gun fire. “You have done something extraordinary,” the president added.
Two AH-1 Cobra gunships were dispatched on a moonless night to assist the reconnaissance patrol. The fates of war turned against us that night. “We were in a Custer-like situation,” one of the guards, Sgt. Narrated by David Hale for The Stars and Stripes. The Cobra crews located Hill and the others by having them send just one word — “now” — as the helicopters flew over their location.
The Cobra then strafed for 45 minutes, jumping just above the jungle canopy, to try to repel the 100 or so guerrillas, known as the Viet Cong.
Lieutenant Taylor heard over the radio that commanders had canceled a rescue mission using a UH-1 “Huey” helicopter due to the high risks and sustained Viet Cong fire. This meant that the reconnaissance team had to either manage the escape alone or face almost certain death. Lieutenant Taylor ordered the other Cobra pilot to launch his remaining runs on the rebels' eastern flank and then return to the base near Saigon, now known as Ho Chi Minh City.
At the same time, Lieutenant Taylor and his co-pilot, Petty Officer 1st Class James Ratliff, blew up the western side of the battle area with all their remaining ammunition. When they got out, Lieutenant Taylor used the Cobra's landing light in attempts to fool the guerrillas into thinking the gunship was still making the attack.
The trick worked long enough to give the scouts time to reach a spot near the Dong Nai River, where there was room for the cobra to land for only a moment.
The guards were told they had 10 seconds to reach the cobra. “Within two seconds…they were hanging on,” he said in an interview with NBC News last year. Hill and another man were covered in mud and spilled over Cobra missile pods. The other two wrapped around the landing skis. No such rescue has been attempted with the newly introduced cobra.
“Someone slapped the side of the ship, which means pulling the ass,” he said. “And we did.”
They reached the landing zone and the Cobra's fuel tanks were almost empty. The warplane had 16 bullet holes. It is noteworthy that no one on board was injured. The guards walked away from the helicopter. The blades shook and Lieutenant Taylor and his assistant were about to leave. They exchanged high-fives with the four men they had rescued, then the cobra soared high and sped back toward base with the remaining fuel.
It would be 31 years before then-retired Captain Taylor officially met some of the men he carried to safety. At a 1999 veterans reunion, Hill learned that Mr. Taylor had earned the Silver Star and other honors for more than 2,000 combat missions, but had not been awarded the Medal of Honor, the military's highest award for valor. Direct pilots in Vietnam, who typically filed paperwork for high-level honors, were killed in action shortly after the rescue.
Hill led two attempts over the next 20 years to gain military support for Mr. Taylor's Medal of Honor. The third submission in 2021, with the help of retired Army Gen. Burwell P. Bell III, was successful.
“People ask me about that night. ‘What made you do it?’ Well, it needed to be done,” Mr. Taylor said at a White House event in September. “Then they’ll say, ‘You’re crazy, right?’” I would say: Well, Cobra pilots are a bit weird anyway.
“I never lost a man”
Larry Louis Taylor was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee, on February 12, 1942. His father ran a roofing and sheet metal company, and his mother was a homemaker.
He joined the Army ROTC program at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the Army Reserve after graduating in 1966. He joined the Army in August of that year and later trained as a helicopter pilot. He already had a private pilot's license and quickly moved through the helicopter program, qualifying as an Army pilot in June 1967.
He served in Vietnam from August 1967 to August 1968, flying some of the first Cobra attack helicopters of the war. He completed his military service in 1971 as a captain with the 2nd Armored Cavalry Division in West Germany, then returned to Chattanooga to take over management of the family roofing and metal business.
His first marriage to Dolly Kaywood ended in divorce. In 1971, he married the former Toni Bechtel, who confirmed her husband's death and said the cause was cancer. In addition to his wife, survivors include two children from his first marriage and five grandchildren.
“I've thought long and hard about that night, over and over again,” Mr. Taylor once said. “I don't know what we could have done to make things better, but we didn't lose a man. Everyone we came with went home with us.”
