By Ken Hackman
Darryl Gordon Winters, an Air Force motion picture photographer assigned to the Aerospace Audiovisual Service (AAVS), was killed in action on July 19, 1966, while filming a combat strike against Viet Cong guerrilla positions from a F-100F Super Sabre fighter south of Saigon, South Vietnam.
Darryl was born in Stanislaw County, California on March 6, 1939. His parents were Sydney Winters of San Francisco, CA. and Dorothy Gimblin of Alameda, CA. He later married and divorced Bonnie Smith with whom he had a daughter Wendy R. Winters.
In 1962 he enlisted in the Air Force and following basic training he was assigned to the 1369th Audiovisual Squadron at Vandenberg Air Force Base where, as a motion picture cameraman he photographed the testing and launching of Minuteman Ballistic missiles. However, with the Vietnam War heating up, he, along with many of his peers, got their orders to Southeast Asia. Specifically, to the Detachment 2 of the 600th Photographic Squadron located at Bien Hoa Air Base. His job? To photographically document from the air and ground, American participation in the Vietnam conflict.
Four days after his arrival at Bien Hoa in January 1965, he flew his first mission and was hooked. According to his detachment commander, First Lieutenant Douglas R. Burrows, “Winters was remarkable. He would rather fly than eat and readily volunteered for any mission. In addition to his love of flying, was a top-notch motion picture man, which made him ideal for the type of work that is required of us.”
In addition to flying Darryl also covered conflict from the ground by accompanying Army units on search-and-destroy forays. In May 1965, when a series of explosions on the ramp at Bien Hoa destroyed 13 aircraft and killed 30 Americans, He was one of three AAVS cameramen who went into the blazing area to film the disaster. For that action, he was awarded the Bronze Star. He was a young man with a sense of mission and a belief in the importance of his work.
But Darryl really loved the challenges and thrill of flying in the backseat of high-performance
fighter aircraft documenting the air war in Southeast Asia.
By the end of his 12-month tour of duty, Winters had flown through enough enemy ground fire and seen enough aircraft shot down to have a firm understanding of the hazards of tactical operations. Nevertheless, he asked to extend for an additional 12 months.
As his 18th month in Vietnam approached, Winters had flown more than 300 missions–nine over North Vietnam–most of them in F-100Fs, Winters’s favorite aircraft. He had earned a reputation as a superb photographer and as a man who would volunteer for any dangerous mission.
Winters earned 11 Oak Leaf clusters to his Air Medal and had taken 30,000 feet of combat film that was used for tactical and intelligence evaluation of air strikes. Because of the quality of his photography, much of the footage was cleared for use by the news media.
On July 19, 1966 the 27-year-old Winters climbed into the backseat of an F-100F assigned to the 90th Tactical Fighter Squadron, 3rd Tactical Fighter Wing and piloted by Captain John R. Bottesh of Munhall, Pennsylvania to photograph an interdiction combat mission. A few days earlier, he had commented that he had more missions in the Super Sabre than most of the pilots he flew with. “I’m so accustomed to the cockpit of the plane,” he said, “that I sometimes feel I could take over the controls and fly it myself.” He never had a chance to find out.
While making a strafing pass in the F-100, over a target in Long An Province near the city of Tan An, it was hit by hostile ground fire and crashed just short of the target area. Winters and Capt. Bottesh were killed in the crash of the aircraft. It was his 217th mission in the backseat of an F-100.
Captain John Bottesch’s remains were recovered and identified. Airman Winters, the first AAVS combat photographer killed in action in Vietnam, remains were never recovered.
In 1968 The Darryl G. Winters Award was originated by the Aerospace Audiovisual Service (AAVS) to honor the service and sacrifice of this AAVS Hero, Darryl G. Winters, the first of twelve AAVS combat photographers who gave their lives in the Vietnam War. His name has been inscribed in the Courts of the Missing at the Honolulu Memorial, the American Battle Monuments Commission location in Honolulu, Hawaii and on the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial in Washington DC.
Darryl Gordon Winters
Airman First Class
DET 2, 600TH PHOTO SQDN, 7TH AF
United States Air Force
06 March 1939 – 19 July 1966
San Francisco, California
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall
Panel 09E Line 044
Winter’s service commendations were: Bronze Star, Air Medal, Purple Heart, National Defense Service Medal, Vietnam Campaign Medal, Vietnam Service Medal, Air Force Presidential Unit Citation, Vietnam Gallantry Cross, Air Force Good Conduct Medal and the Distinguished Flying Cross awarded posthumously for his extraordinary achievements in assignments that combined the high risks of tactical air operations and the perils of jungle warfare.
By the nature of their duties, combat photographers and their peacetime counterparts in AAVS have to be where the action is, though their acts of heroism are sometimes obscured by the more spectacular work of the aircrews whose operations they record on film they are the unsung chroniclers who preserve a visual record of our history.
The Darryl G. Winters Award is presented annually to a motion picture camera technician, television camera technician or still photographer within the Aerospace Audio Visual Service in recognition of their outstanding achievements.
Starting with the first award to Sgt Vaughn Thurston in 1968, winners over the past 54 years have included TSgt Herman Kokojan, SSgt Larry Blanford, SSgt Michael Haggery, TSgt Mark Rich, TSgt Rosie Reynolds, MSgt Dawn Price, TSgt Scott Reed, SRA Chanise Epps and many others.
The award continues to be presented but has now evolved into the Combat Communications Darryl G. Winters award open to all personnel assigned in the Air Force Public Affairs career field. At Vandenberg AFB, Darryl G. Winter’s first duty station, a memorial plaque was installed on a stone cenotaph in recognition of his ultimate sacrifice. With the passage of years, the all-but-forgotten plaque had fallen into disrepair in front of a rarely used entrance to a base building.
Until January 2014 when Jeremy Eggers, public affairs chief for the 30th Space Wing at Vandenberg was made aware of its existence. Eggers said, “Winters is well-known among those in the Air Force’s combat camera and public affairs career fields because an award is named after him.”
On that visit, Eggers saw two hard-to-read plaques that showed their age. “It was badly tarnished green, and the birds in the area had clearly done some target practice there,” Eggers said. “It had been all-but forgotten. We decided, for lack of a better term, we were going to adopt the site, which would involve cleaning it up and restoring it, best we could, to its original condition.” Later the public affairs staff gathered to restore the memorial, removing the grime and polishing the plaque.
Friends from Vandenberg and Vietnam shared their memories of Darryl Winters
A friend, former A1c Harvey W. “Huck” Finn remembered him from their Vandenberg and Vietnam days:
“I was a DOC cameraman, at Vandenberg, and good friend of Darryl in the DOC section and later followed him to Vietnam where we flew in the F-100F together at Ton Son Nhut and Bien Hoa. We were flying and swapping back seat mission at Ben Hoa when I was sent to start-up a detachment at Cam Ranh Bay and flying in the F-4C. Though Darryl was senior I was selected for Cam Ranh because I had been checked out in the F-4C and Darryl wasn’t. A few days later I returned from a mission and was told that Darryl had crashed. I was designated to return to CONUS with his body, but his body was never found. Darryl was my best friend at VAFB and Vietnam.”
A memory came from Tom Hable, a friend from Vietnam; remembers celebrating the birth of his daughter with Darryl:
“I knew Darryl and often shared a beer with him at Bien Hoa. His hooch was kitty corner from mine near the flight line. I worked in the Bien Hoa control tower during my time there and got to work just after he crashed. I remember a night that we drank beer out’a my bush hat because my wife just gave birth to our daughter. He shook every guy’s hand in the airman’s club that night.”
His former roommate Duane Turnbull, Major, USAF, Retired, remembered Darryl:
“He was a wild man. He was my first roommate along with Joe Ferrier- my other roommate. I was an 18-year-old Airman and I slept in the top bunk over him. I have often heard the line- “I want to slide into home base with all my parts used up”. That was Darryl- he lived his life hard. I recall one Friday night when Darryl came in around 2AM in the morning and tore the sliding doors off the room locker I shared with him. That was after he turned the ceiling light over my face. Joe and I finally got Darryl into bed and spent the rest of the night fixing the locker for morning inspection. When my mother had a stroke- I left Vandenberg – Darryl treated me to a meal at the cafeteria-our last time together.”
Friend and Vietnam veteran, Denny Lewis shares these recollections:
“I first met Darryl in March of 1966. He was a combat cameraman for the 600th Photo Squadron at Bien Hoa. I was a crew chief with the 29th Troop Carrier Squadron flying C-130B’s out of Tan Son Nhut. That day he had come to fly with us to film an off the ramp combat load jump of ARVN paratroopers. He had a black eye and scratches to his head, I asked what had happened and he told me he had gotten into a fight with some Army guys at a bar in Bien Hoa the other night because they had bad mouthed the Air Force. he immediately became my hero.
He flew with us several times during March and April of that year and I remember him telling me that he had recently had his tour extended at his request and had been in-country 15 months, that the F-100F was his favorite plane to fly in, but that he had flown all thatwould carry more than one and had flown more than 300 missions. nine over North Vietnam. When I asked him about his most dangerous mission, he told me the story of May 16, 1965 when a bomb prematurely exploded on a B-57B waiting to take off at Bien Hoa and set off a chain reaction that killed 30 Americans and destroyed 13 aircraft. I later found out that for his actions that day he was awarded the Bronze Star. The films he took that day may be seen on YouTube.com, enter Bien Hoa into the search box. We rotated back to Clark Field at the end of April 1966 and I never saw Darryl again.
He was killed in action on July 19, 1966 while flying a mission in his favorite aircraft, an F-100F. He was the first Air Force combat photographer to be killed in Vietnam. His body was not recovered. He remains a hero and role model for all Air Force enlisted men and women and he lives on with the “Darryl G. Winters Award” given yearly by the Air Force to its most outstanding AAVS member.
In 1999 his name was added to a microchip and placed aboard NASA’s Stardust Spacecraft and will remain in space forever.
This above photo is Darryl with the 5th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment during Operation Hardihood in Phuoc Tuy Province, Vung Tau, RVN 24 May – 4 June 1966 shortly before his death. Darryl and I shared some life in ‘Nam in ’66. He was on his 302nd mission when his aircraft, an F-100F, serial number 58-1217, was shot down. His body was vaporized on impact at over 300mph. Remembering our long talks together I feel that his last words may have been “WOW! WHAT A HELL OF A RIDE!”. Darryl was like that.
He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Bronze Star (For Heroic Achievement on Sunday, May 16, 1965), eleven Air Medals, and the Purple Heart. He lives on with the “Darryl G. Winters Award” given annually by the Air Force to its best AAVS member. Even after 41 years in my brain I see his face again.
Denny Lewis – HE WAS A FRIEND OF MINE