There was an extraordinary act of flying skill by Lieutenant Buchanan, RAN, and his crew for which the Australian pilot was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. While engaged in the medical evacuation of a wounded crew member from a South Vietnamese patrol boat, the group came under heavy enemy fire. Another patrol boat, some 50 metres away, exploded following a direct hit from an enemy rocket. Realising that the boat with which he was operating was disabled and drifting toward the enemy held shore, Buchanan, in his own words: “Tilted the rotor, as though I was going to do a skidding take off and the friction of my skids on the deck of the patrol boat was sufficient to drag the boat in the direction I wanted to go. This was in the opposite direction from the trees at the edge of the river and the nasty-minded individuals who were hiding under them and trying to impede my progress with various weapons.”