Bruce Crandall, Part of a Heroic Rescue Mission in Vietnam, Dies at 93

“Fourteen times he flew into what they called the valley of death,” President George W. Bush said in awarding him the Medal of Honor in 2007.


Bruce Crandall in 2007. He and a fellow pilot were credited with saving the lives of some 70 injured soldiers. Larry Steagall/KITSAP SUN, via Associated Press

By Richard Goldstein
Published June 2, 2026
Updated June 3, 2026, 5:54 a.m. ET

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 piloting 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, they 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.”


Major Crandall in 1966, a year after arriving in Vietnam. He had recently received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Army’s second-highest award for valor. U.S. Army

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