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A patriotic time capsule

YL-37 Vietnam-era helicopter finds a new home in Marshall County

By Robert Maharry 6 min read

STATE CENTER -- Over the last few months, festivalgoers and attendees of various patriotic events may have noticed a massive restored Vietnam-era Sikorsky UH-34D Marine Corps helicopter making conspicuous landings around central Iowa, and if Nicholas and Kimberly Turner of rural State Center want to make sure the trend continues for the foreseeable future.

There's a special reason that Nicholas, a 20-year USMC veteran himself who retired as a Lt. Col. in 2021, is now the proud owner of YL-37, "The Flying Memorial" -- his late father, Philip "Larry" Turner, flew it 11 times during his service in Vietnam with the HMM-362 squadron, also known as "The Ugly Angels." After deploying to the country in 1965, the elder Turner spent 13 months there and was shot down between five and seven times.

"It took some pretty heavy battle damage, and actually, what saved this aircraft was (that) it wasn't that great of an aircraft in Vietnam. They had a lot of problems with it, a lot of maintenance flights and stuff. The tail had sustained pretty heavy damage in a rocket attack when it was on the ground," Nicholas, a native of the small southwest Iowa town of Elliott, said. "Because it was so low on hours, they had decided to send it to the depot in Atsugi, Japan and have it fixed. By the time it got fixed, more turbine engines and better technology had come along with helicopters. So, again, they decided to keep it and send it back to the states because it was so low on hours."

It then flew for two years as a stateside training aircraft before it was decommissioned by the military and sat idle at the Davis Monthan Air Force Base, also known as "The Boneyard," for 15 years. In 1985, it was acquired for parts by an Oklahoma construction company owner named Gerald Hail and again sat idle for another 14 years.

When Hail began to strip the paint off of it, he found bullet holes, patches and an M60 shell casing underneath the floorboards, and word eventually spread to pilots and crew chiefs who looked through the logbooks and realized its unique history. They asked Hail about his interest in preserving it and restoring it to a period accurate appearance, and he agreed.

With help and parts from Larry Turner, Hail completed the project in 1999, and the YL-37 was flown at a military reunion. Hail continued to fly it to reunions, airshows and schools until his passing in 2015, and during that time, it was decided to dub it "The Flying Memorial" as a tribute to the 33 Marines from the squadron who were killed in action in Vietnam.

A father and son duo then took over custodianship for the next decade or so but only flew it about 10 hours a year, and when one of them passed, Gerald Hail's widow Lillie approached Nicholas about taking it over. On April 25, the deal was finalized, and the YL-37 departed Tulsa for its new home in rural Marshall County.

Since then, Nicholas and Kimberly have done their part to make its presence known at events in places like Beaman, Roland, Colo and the Mid-Iowa Antique Power Association (MIAPA) Steam Threshing and Plowing Show held near the Marshall County Sheriff's Office a few weeks ago. The helicopter will appear at the All-Iowa Jeep Show near Garwin on Sept. 10, and they're also hoping to take it to West Marshall schools and the Iowa Veterans Home (IVH) in the future.

"There's something about a preserved machine that looks like it did, because it's like a time capsule. There's something about helicopters. There's something about military involvement, and unless you just have no appreciation for mechanical (things) or history or patriotism. I'd venture to say that 75 to 80 percent of the population has some kind of an appreciation for that. These things just speak to people," Nicholas said.

They're currently planning something special for Veterans Day and teaming up with another 501(c)3 organization, The Final Salute, on Oct. 3. Their stated goal is to fly approximately 50 hours per year for 10 years and then donate the helicopter to the Iowa Aviation Museum in Greenfield.

"The mission since Gerald built this aircraft in 1999 has not changed even though the hands of ownership have changed, and we want to take it to schools and educate kids because a lot of these Vietnam vets, there are very few of them still around," Nicholas said. "You give it another six to eight years, we're not gonna have any."

Turner described his home state as "unbelievably patriotic" and veteran friendly, and he's happy to bring such a unique object of interest to rural Iowa.

"It's important for us to keep going because we've seen, just in the short 3 ½ months or so that we've owned this, the outpouring of support for what we want to do has been unreal," he said.

The annual Reverse Raffle fundraiser is set for Sept. 5 at the Willow Brook Barn in Colo with the hope of raising enough money to take the helicopter to schools around the area. To learn more about the YL-37 and how to donate, visit https://yl-37.org/.

For the time being, the aircraft sits comfortably in a hangar next to the Turners' beautiful country home between Rhodes and State Center, and the couple continues to be amazed by the effect it has on people.

"We don't even know some of these vets that live right here among us, and this aircraft creates that connective tissue and allows us to remember and just appreciate what they've been through," Nicholas said. "A grandfather can take his kids and his grandkids to go and see something that represented a time in his life. It may have been terrible. It may have been great, but they can do that. And just in the 3 ½ months, we've had a couple interactions like that where we've had grown men sit inside there in tears."

Contact Robert Maharry at (641) 753-6611 ext. 255 or rmaharry@timesrepublican.com.

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