Bruce Crandall, an Army helicopter pilot who belatedly received the Medal of Honor in 2007 for his role in the daring rescue of besieged American troops during the Battle of Ia Drang, one of the earliest and bloodiest clashes of the Vietnam War, died on Sunday in Tempe, Ariz. He was 93.
His death, at a retirement community, was announced by the Congressional Medal of Honor Society. He was the second oldest surviving recipient of the medal, after Royce Williams, a Navy pilot who received the Medal of Honor in February, at 100, for his service in the Korean War.
On Nov. 14, 1965, Major Crandall was in one of several unarmed helicopters ferrying soldiers to a remote part of Ia Drang Valley in South Vietnam for a search-and-destroy mission. On their fifth trip, his and seven other helicopters came under attack by enemy mortars, rockets and automatic weapons.
The ground commander ordered the helicopters to abort the mission and return to their command post. According to military records, Major Crandall decided without formal orders to organize a mission to return to the combat site after learning that medevac assistance had been suspended.
“The medevac pilots were all great pilots,” he later said. “But they weren’t allowed to land on a landing zone until it was ‘green’ for a period of five minutes” — meaning safe from incoming fire.
In subsequent landings, he and his wingman, Major Ed Freeman, delivered ammunition to soldiers trapped there and evacuated the wounded. They were credited with saving the lives of about 70 injured soldiers.
“Major Crandall’s voluntary decision to land under the most extreme fire instilled in the other pilots the will and spirit to continue to land their own aircraft, and in the ground forces the realization that they would be resupplied and that friendly wounded would be promptly evacuated,” the Medal of Honor citation read. “This greatly enhanced morale and the will to fight at a critical time.”
In the wake of the battle, Major Freeman received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and Major Crandall received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award for valor. A group of veterans who had fought alongside both men later called for them to receive the Medal of Honor, the military’s highest decoration.
In White House ceremonies, President George W. Bush presented the medal to Major Freeman in 2001 and Colonel Crandall (his final rank) in 2007.
“Fourteen times he flew into what they called the valley of death,” Mr. Bush said of Colonel Crandall. “He made those flights knowing that he faced what was later described as an almost unbelievably extreme risk to his life. In the course of the day, Major Crandell had three different choppers. Two were damaged so badly they could not stay in the air. Yet he kept flying until every wounded man had been evacuated.”
Bruce Perry Crandall was born on Feb. 7, 1933, in Olympia, Wash. His father was serving in the Navy at the time, and his mother was a welder in a shipyard. After his parents divorced, his maternal grandmother helped to raise him.
He was attending the University of Washington when he was drafted into the Army in 1953, during the Korean War. He stayed on as a commissioned officer and graduated from a program training pilots to fly fixed-wing planes and helicopters.
In 1965, he deployed to Vietnam and commanded an assault helicopter battalion. The next year, during a rescue mission, he landed his helicopter using only its flashlight beam as a guide in the evacuation of 12 wounded soldiers from a combat zone.
Following his first combat tour, Major Crandall attended the Armed Forces Staff College in Virginia and then returned to Vietnam. His helicopter crashed during another rescue attempt in January 1968, four months into his second tour, and he was hospitalized for five months while recovering from a broken back and other injuries.
His flying career ended when he suffered a stroke in the early 1970s, and he was later stationed at stateside bases. He retired with the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1977, was inducted into the Army Aviation Hall of Fame in 2004 and was promoted to full colonel in 2010.
Mr. Crandall received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Nebraska in 1969 and a master’s degree in public administration from Golden Gate University in San Francisco in 1977. He later served as city manager of Dunsmuir, Calif., and public works manager of Mesa, Ariz.
He married Arlene Shaffer in 1956. She died in 2010. He is survived by three sons, Robert, Steve and Mike; four grandchildren; two great-grandchildren; and a sister, Tauna Clausen.
The story of the battle of Ia Drang Valley was recounted in the 1992 best-selling book “We Were Soldiers Once … and Young,” co-written by retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore, who had commanded American troops in the battle, and the United Press International correspondent Joseph L. Galloway, who was decorated with the Bronze Star for helping to rescue a wounded soldier at Ia Drang.
The book was adapted into the 2002 film “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson as the future general and Greg Kinnear as Major Crandall.
“I still think about Vietnam a lot,” Colonel Crandall said in a 2007 interview with Soldiers magazine. “I have wonderful memories of the people I served with.”
Ash Wu contributed reporting.
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