Life of a Door Gunner | Vietnam vet ‘Vic’ Smith | RAAF 9 Squadron

Our 2019 interview with Vic Smith. The original video - a proof of concept - received several million views. We are now planning on uploading more interviews on to YouTube through this new channel.

Learn More: https://raafdocumentary.com/9sqn/

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Description
This is a project dedicated to documenting the history of the Royal Australian Air Force and it's various squadrons, featuring interviews and stories from those who were there.

This was an interview with Victor 'Vic' Smith, a Vietnam veteran who served with
the RAAF No. 9 Squadron as a huey door gunner. Despite being a dangerous job, vets who served as door gunners have been overlooked in many interviews, and we felt it was necessary for all of those who served in Vietnam to have their story told. Other airfield defence guards like Vic volunteered to work as door gunners with the RAAFs 9 Squadron, which served in South East Asia from 1966 to 1975 (the end of the war) and worked as medevac (dustoff), attack / support, and 'people sniffer' (a special program for detecting enemy activity by monitoring air components from the UH-1). The importance of the squadron - such as assisting other forces, working with the SAS (and saving them from dangerous situations), and taking casualities and aircraft losses - is not to be understated.

This was a proof of concept video from 2019 for our ‘RAAF Documentaries’ project. Since then, we have begun the project and have steadily collected interviews and stories from other RAAF veterans. The past 3 years has been focused on RAAF 9 and 12 Squadron, however we hope to capture stories from more squadrons in the future.

Video Credits:
   • Danang Dustoff  
   • Vietnam Medevac Helicopter Under Fire, CBS...  
   • 128th Helicopter Gunship Assault Company, ...  
   • Видео  
   • Raw Uncut Vietnam Footage  
   • Vietnam War Helicopter Attack Outfit (Comb...