Photo By Lori Stewart | On 27 February 1996, the fifth anniversary of Sgt. Belas’ death, DLIFLC named the...... read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
HELICOPTER CRASH CLAIMS LIFE OF VOICE INTERCEPTOR
On 27 February 1991, Iraqi ground fire brought down a UH-60A Black Hawk helicopter, killing all eight soldiers on board. One of those killed was Sgt. Lee A. Belas, an electronic warfare voice interceptor assigned to D Company, 1st Aviation Battalion (later redesignated D Company, 4th Battalion [Provisional], 1st Aviation Regiment), 1st Infantry Division.
Born in Burbank, California, in May 1968, Lee Arthur Belas moved to Port Orchard, Washington, with his family while still a child. As an outgoing and high-achieving teenager, he was on the swim team, in the drama club, and played trumpet in the high school band. He studied the French language in high school also, but after graduation, while living as a Rotary Club exchange student in Belgium, he truly found his passion for learning languages. Before returning to the United States, he had studied German, Latin, and Flemish. With this love of languages, he dreamed of one day working for the State Department as an ambassador.
On 14 October 1987, Belas enlisted in the U.S. Army, which promised him training at the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center (DLIFLC) in Monterey, California. He graduated from the forty-seven-week Russian basic course in February 1989. He then transferred to Goodfellow Air Force Base, Texas, where he was one of nearly one thousand Army students enrolled annually in the 98G electronic warfare voice interceptor course. Upon completing his advanced individual training and airborne school, Belas was assigned to the 1st Infantry Division at Fort Riley, Kansas.
Initially in the division’s 101st MI Battalion, Belas learned about the QUICKFIX intercept and jamming systems mounted on EH-60A helicopters. Intrigued, he volunteered for QUICKFIX duty and was reassigned to D Company, 1st Aviation Battalion, and sent to Fort Huachuca for QUICKFIX flight training. Upon his promotion to sergeant in September 1990, he was serving in two positions. He was assistant team chief and jamming team crew member in the Collection and Jamming Platoon, A Company, 101st MI Battalion. He was also a crew member of the QUICKFIX Flight Platoon, D Company, 1st Aviation Battalion. (As in other active Army divisions, the QUICKFIX company was under the operational control of the division’s MI Battalion.) At this point in his short Army career, the ambitious 22-year-old Belas could not decide which he wanted more: to learn additional languages or to become a Black Hawk pilot.
After Iraq’s invasion of neighboring Kuwait in August 1990, the U.S. Army began preparing for what would be known as Operations DESERT SHIELD and DESERT STORM. To prepare for deployment, in November, Sergeant Belas joined all Army linguists at Fort Riley in DLIFLC’s basic Arabic language training via teleconference. The 1st Infantry Division’s deployment came on 8 January 1991.
Over the next six weeks, Sergeant Belas clocked forty-six flight hours in the QUICKFIX, monitoring Iraqi communications and movements for 1st Infantry Division and VII Corps ground forces. Around noon on 27 February 1991, just one day before a ceasefire was declared, he boarded a UH-60A in Kuwait that was transporting troops and supplies between assembly points. At about 1730, the helicopter inadvertently flew over Republican Guard forces and was shot down by an enemy ZXU-23-2 antiaircraft gun. All eight personnel on board were killed. In addition to Belas, three other members of his QUICKFIX platoon died in the crash, including platoon leader 1st Lt. Donnie Tillar (a UH-60 pilot), CWO Jack Morgan (a UH-60 pilot), and S. Sgt. Jonathan Kamm (a UH-60 repairman).
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| Date Taken: | 02.23.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 02.23.2024 16:17 |
| Story ID: | 464605 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 479 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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