Air Commandos and the Fire at the MGM Grand Hotel_Side Note 1
Maj Gen Frederick “Boots” Blesse was the United States’ leading jet ace during the Korean War, scoring 10 kills flying the F-86 Sabre. In his book, Check Six: A Fighter Pilot Looks Back, (Ballantine, 1987), he recalls his and his wife, Betty’s, experience that day.
After all the 30-or-so brushes with death growing up, 4 combat tours in Korea and Vietnam, and 30 years as a USAF fighter pilot, including 2 overwater bailouts, Blesse found it hard to believe his final moments would be trapped in a burning hotel room on the 25th floor of the MGM Grand Hotel. Finding the hallways choking with acrid smoke, he and Betty slammed their hotel room door shut, put wet rolled towels along the bottom of the door to try and block the smoke, and then moved to the balcony to wait for help. There, they watched desperate people leap to their deaths. Another man fashioned a rope from sheets but lost his grip while climbing down and he also fell to his death. As they were watching the horror unfold, Boots told his wife, “If we get out of this, it will be with whatever we have on. Go in the room and put on the dress you like best; when you’re finished, I’ll get dressed up, too. If we make it out of here, we’ll have something to wear to the Thunderbird reunion—if we don’t at least we’ll go out first class.”
As Boots and Betty waited on their balcony they felt like animals trapped in a cage. They could not go back into their room because of the smoke, they were not going to try and climb down, and smoke from the rooms below was making their situation treacherous. Every 5-10 minutes they used towels they had soaked with water to wipe the soot and grease from each other’s faces and out of their mouths and throats. Suddenly, one of the USAF helicopters appeared—he doesn’t say if it was a 20th SOS Huey or a 302nd SOS H-3. Boots then stood up, gave the pilot his best salute, which was returned with a thumbs us, and the helicopter departed. Minutes later, one of the CH-3Es, Pony 1, returned and there, on the penetrator was TSgt Jerry Fletcher, one of the flight engineers, with a rope wrapped around his waist. After several attempts to toss the rope to the stranded couple, Boots final caught it and pulled the FE to the balcony.
In the noise, wind from the downwash, heat, and smoke, Fletcher began motioning Betty to get on the penetrator seat. “Me, get on that damn thing? You must be out of your mind!,” she said. Betty finally got on, though. Just before the FE radioed the pilot to start hoisting her up, she leaned over to her husband and told him, “I’m not have a very good time.” Boots and Fletcher remained on the balcony as Jim Hodges, the FE on board Pony 1, hoisted Betty to safety. It wasn’t long until the penetrator was back down in front of the balcony. Hodges swung the hoist cable back and forth so they could grab it. Boots went next, followed by Fletcher.
When Pony 1 landed in the parking lot to drop the two survivors off, Betty had to climb down the cabin ladder in her fancy dress and high heels. She lost her balance and fell off the ladder into Fletcher’s arms—so he saved her twice that day.