A wounded Marine, his face wrapped in bandages, is gently loaded aboard a HRS-1 of HMR-161 for transport to a medical facility. This photograph is reported to have been made into a painting by artist Bradley Smith (1910 - 1997), an image of which I have, as yet, been unable to find .

Pictured from left to right: Arlie Green, Vice Admiral Charles Turner Joy, Capt. Cross and Capt. Gilchrest at the Panmunjam Peace talks in 1952. From July 1951 until May 1952, Admiral Joy was the senior United Nations Delegate to the Korean Armistice talks. His experience in this role led him to write a book, How Communists Negotiate. In the book he detailed a number of different tactics that were used during the talks to delay, frustrate, and create useful propaganda for the North Koreans. Goes to show some things never change.

Authors of the After-Action report on Operation Bumble Bee compare notes. Capt. Joseph Strain of HMR-161 shows Marine 1st Division platoon leader Lt. James M. Brannaman the route that the HRS-1 transport copters used in flying up to Hill 884 on October 11, 1951. In the largest operation the squadron had yet undertaken, 958 combat Marines were transported into combat in a little over six hours. Twelve HRS-1's flew 65.9 flight hours in the operation which made front page headlines in the U.S.

The HRS-1 helicopter is level - the terrain is not - as Marines load a wounded comrade aboard.

 

HMR-161 executed Operation Windmill I on September 13, 1951. The mission that day saw one day's supply airlifted to the 2d Battalion, 1st Marine Division, making it the first mass helicopter resupply operation in history.  As quickly as the HRS's of HMR-161 arrived at Hill 673, their essential cargo was unloaded and carried uphill to the front lines by Korean soldiers. 

A typical "improved" landing zone for the HRS's usually consisted of nothing more than a cleared area large enough to provide adequate rotor  clearance and safe ingress and egress routes. As is the case here, the area along the sharp ridge has been built up and levelled thanks to the liberal use of sandbags and back-filling.

The life of an aircraft mechanic in combat is not one of glamour. Here an HRS-1 of HMR-161 has been forced down on a frozen river somewhere in the Korean Eastern Central Front and is seen undergoing engine repairs in January 1952.

The same would apply to all ground crew members who suffered the weather extremes of Korea. Here HR-13 is about to have the snow removed from its main rotor blades.

"How does it look?" Twelve year old Kim Dong Nae asks her playmates their opinion of the new ski pants the Captain is offering her. Inside the HRS, dressed in a cowboy outfit is Ijungi, a Korean orphan adopted as a mascot by the men of Marine Helicopter Transport Squadron 161.