This was the first military helicopter rescue ever

In April 1944, an intrepid pilot swooped into the jungle in Burma and scooped up three wounded British soldiers and began to fly them out. It would have been a grand escape, a small part of the growing story of air ambulances in World War II. But this story isn't about that pilot, Tech Sgt. Ed Hladovcak.

An L-1A Vigilant similar to the plane piloted by Tech. Sgt. Ed Hladovcak before he went down.

​(U.S. Air Force Museum)

Or at least, it's not primarily about him, because he crashed. He would later acknowledge that he might have been flying too low, but he couldn't be sure. And, regardless of the cause, Hladovcak's landing gear snapped off during the landing. His plane wasn't taking off again, and the group was 100 miles behind Japanese lines. He moved the three wounded into the jungle before Japanese patrols found the wreckage.

They were alone behind enemy lines. Low-flying planes of the 1st Air Commando Group, of which Hladovcak was a member, found the struggling survivors. But while the air commandos had planes specially made for jungle and short airstrip operations, even those planes couldn't get the four men out of the jungle they were in. So the order was given to send in a YR-4B, the first military production helicopter.

The YR-4B was an experimental aircraft, but it worked and went into production. The early models had bomb racks and were used in a variety of combat trials while the later R-4 had the racks stripped off. There were so few helicopter pilots in the world in 1944 that there was only one qualified pilot in the China-Burma-India Theater: 1st Lt. Carter Harman.

1st Lt. Carter Harman, standing at left, and other members of the 1st Air Commando Group medical evacuation mission.

(U.S. Air Force)

Harman had joined the Air Corps to avoid being drafted into the infantry, but fate steered him into helicopter flight. Despite Harman's martial misgivings, he took to the "whirlybirds" and became just the seventh Army pilot to fly a helicopter solo. When he shipped to India, he was the only one who could fly the "eggbeater."

And he was needed 600 miles away, over mountains and through thin air which his helicopter could barely traverse, as fast as possible if the four men on the ground were going to get away without being captured or killed by the Japanese troops already searching for them.

Harman packed the YR-4B with extra fuel and took off on a marathon flight, hopping through the terrain until he reached a jungle airstrip known as "Aberdeen." Then, despite the jungle air inhibiting the performance of his air-cooled engine and the lift of his rotors, he took off over the trees.

A liaison airplane, one of those models built to perform in the jungle, led Harman to the downed airmen. But thanks to that jungle air mentioned above, Harman could only lift one patient at a time. So, he landed April 24 and spoke to Hladovcak, and Hladovcak helped load a British soldier. It was Hladovcak's first time seeing a helicopter.

Harman carried him and then a second British soldier back to Aberdeen and came back for the third man, but his engine gave out under the strain. He was forced to land on a small sandbank as Japanese troops prowled the nearby jungle, searching for him. Alone behind enemy lines, Harman slowly repaired his engine. On the morning of April 25, he was back in the air.

He quickly got the third British soldier to a waiting liaison plane and then pulled out Hladovcak, flying his 1st Air Commando counterpart to Aberdeen. Harman would later receive the Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions. This and other rescues in World War II proved the value of helicopter evacuation, leading to its extensive use in Korea and then Vietnam.

It was there, in the jungles of Vietnam, that the helicopter cemented its place in military aviation. It didn't just serve medical evacuation; it was used extensively to move supplies and troops, and Bell Helicopters sold the Army its first dedicated attack helicopter, the AH-1 Cobra.