It was after midnight on June 19, 1968, when U.S. Navy Lt. Clyde Lassen and his helicopter crew flew into the jungle of North Vietnam to rescue two Navy aviators whose fighter jet had been shot down.
Taking on enemy fire in the predawn darkness and wary of the thick vegetation, Lassen attempted several difficult maneuvers to rescue the stranded pilots, at one point striking a tree and losing a door, but managing to keep his UH-2A Seasprite airborne. After several attempts, Lassen brought the aircraft to a low hover, his crew retrieved the men on the ground and Lassen piloted the group back to a waiting ship, landing with less than five minutes worth of fuel in the tank.
For his bravery, Lassen was awarded the Medal of Honor, the U.S. military’s highest decoration, by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1969.
Lassen, who retired from the Navy as a commander and died in 1994, was honored Sunday afternoon by the Naval Helicopter Association Historical Society with a plaque at the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial. The ceremony concluded with a flyover by three helicopters from Helicopter Sea Combat Squadron 21 and Helicopter Maritime Strike Squadron 75 out of Naval Air Station North Island.
The Mount Soledad ceremony wrapped up a weekend of events honoring Lassen. On Saturday, Naval Base Coronado and Naval Air Station North Island held a dedication ceremony for a new helicopter memorial that now sits outside the main gate of the base. The monument, a full-size formerly operable helicopter, is known as the CDR Clyde E. Lassen, USN (Ret.) Medal of Honor SH-60F Oceanhawk Memorial Display.
Lassen is one of only 3,526 Medal of Honor recipients, and one of just three Navy pilots to receive the decoration during the Vietnam War. He is the 32nd Medal of Honor recipient with a plaque on Mount Soledad, where the privately owned memorial currently features more than 6,600 plaques made from the same black granite as the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C.
Retired U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Maj. Neil O’Connell, the executive director of the Mt. Soledad National Veterans Memorial, said there is no particular wall dedicated to admirals or generals or other high-ranking leaders.
“If you look on these walls, it’s a mosaic of our society,” O’Connell said. “Every era of conflict and history and sacrifice is represented at this beautiful memorial.”
Retired Navy Capt. Sandy Clark told the gathered crowd that Lassen was a humble, modest man who was a 26-year-old lieutenant when he piloted the rescue flight that early morning in Vietnam. He praised Lassen and his crew, who were awaken in the middle of the night and believed initially they were being sent on a training mission, only to end up instead conducting the harrowing rescue.
“Nothing ever good happens in Naval aviation without the help of a lot of people,” Clark said. “Clyde didn’t fly there by himself, he had a whole crew there… Clyde was brave, but it took the whole team to make it work properly.”
Clark praised Lassen and his crew for never quitting.
“There were ample opportunities to abandon the rescue,” Clark said. “They were low on fuel, they were being shot at, the aircraft was severely damaged, but he was focused enough to be able to pick those guys up and save them from certain death.”
The Navy named a guided missile destroyer after Lassen. The ship was commissioned in 2001 and was originally homeported in San Diego but is now stationed in Lassen’s home state of Florida. In addition to the helicopter memorial bearing Lassen’s name now situated outside Naval Base Coronado, there are buildings named after Lassen on Navy bases in Florida and Tennessee. There is also a veterans’ nursing home that bears his name in Florida.
