Origin of The Centaur Radio Call Sign
We have the page where Tony Robinson (Photo MP2) creates the logo for the Centaurs based on the sculpture on the Cognac Bottle. Was that when the Call Sign came about, or was it before back in1965?
15Aug2025: Mike Peake: Up until May 1966, there was no mention of Centaur, or very few uses of call signs. I searched every entry up to 2 May 1966, and given I had already transcribe a number of logs that month, I did a search to discover there was a 2 May 1966 "Cent Power 14, D Trp" that was apparently Dusk Patrol. The next that popped up was "UH1B (Centaur 20)" on 5 May 1966. There was zero mention of Cent/Centaur prior to those dates. All references were to D Trp, including when D Troop aircraft went down.
Some of the call-signs I encountered included Duplex 3, Slick Plow 808, Slick Plow 814, Lightning 33, Lion 33 and Liberty 33. All these appear prior to May.
14Aug2025: William Carroll: My best guess is we started using Centaur in about April 66
14Aug2025: Richard Stegner: I would think it was in 1965. I’m assuming the pilots who flying us rifles around in the helicopters then were assigned to D Trp. I don’t know how many there were because they only flew the rifle platoon around. Gunships dont know as I was a lowly PFC then. The helicopters were the old banana choppers. Probably from the 25th Avn Battalion
6Aug2025: Bill Hull: I could not find any dates or documents showing when D Troop was stood up. I arrived at Schofield Barracks in July of 1965 as new recruit fresh out of AIT. I believe the troop was still being stood up at that time. CPT Frank Delvy was the Troop Commander with 1SG Roland Petty. We did have the infantry platoon at that time and did jungle training. I believe we only had a couple pilots at that time As I recall one of our young warrant officers tried to buy a car and was told he needed a note from his parents or his commanding officer because he was too young to sign for it himself. I recall that the Troop did a lot of op force training of units being deployed, that was about Cpt Delvy's forte.
It would be interesting to see the pre Vietnam deployment history of D Troop.