Berg, George Phillip
Army Chief warrant officer

George Phillip Berg, age 24, from Belford, New Jersey, Monmouth county.

Service era: Vietnam

Date of death: Thursday, February 18, 1971
Death details: On February 18, 1971, a UH-1H Iroquois (tail number 68-15255) with four crew members took off as one of four helicopters on an emergency extraction mission for soldiers from a Special Forces camp located on the west side of A Shau Valley in Thua Thien Province, South Vietnam. Enemy troops fired on the Iroquois as it attempted to rescue the ground troops using a stable extraction rig, forcing the pilot to leave the area with three men still attached to the rigs. One of the troops on the extraction rigs fell off into the jungle and was eventually rescued. A short time after he fell, the helicopter was hit by enemy anti-aircraft fire, which caused it to crash and burn with the four crew members and two rescued ground troops still inside. Warrant Officer 1 George Phillip Berg entered the U.S. Army from New Jersey and was a member of Company A, 101st Aviation Battalion, 101st Airborne Division. He was the aircraft commander aboard this Iroquois when it crashed, and he was lost with the aircraft. Attempts to locate or identify his remains have been unsuccessful. After the incident, the U.S. Army promoted WO1 Woods to the rank of Chief Warrant Officer 2 (CW2). Today, Chief Warrant Officer 2 Berg is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.

Source: National Archives, Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, findagrave.com