While reading James King's "Remembrances" I noted his mention of the awards listing in "Leatherneck".  His question as to whether "Gunny" Hintz' four DFC's was a Squadron record reminded me of an incident involving Gunny.

One of the more popular discussions around the bar was what to to if you suffered a dual boost failure.  The consensus was that the only course of action was to set a landing attitude, reduce power (40-50%), hold on and let the airplane fly into the ground.  It was thought this would work because the dual boost actuators were demand actuators so setting an attitude and not moving the controls should trap enough pressure to maintain control until you hit the ground.

One day in '69, Gunny was the subject of some serious ground fire which hit both boost systems.  With the needles dropping, Gunny performed the maneuvers described above, flew it into the ground, and shut down the engines as soon as they hit.  Not only did they all walk away (a good landing) but the aircraft was able to be reused (an excellent landing).

I wrote Gunny up for a DFC for that one because he had accomplished a really "distinguished" piece of flying that day.  I think the award made it through Wing, but some REMF at FMFPac disapproved it because they "didn't complete their mission".

Had that one gone through, Gunny Hintz would have had five DFC's.

Submitted by:
    Larry "Slick" Britton, LtCol. USMC (Ret)
    Charles J. "Chic" Schoener, III, Col. USMC (Ret)
    Jim "Gunny" Hintz, 1stLt USMCR