This is an interesting photograph of a rather battleworn Shark gunship. The white square in the middle of this Shark's "mouth," at just about the EXACT center of the mouth, midway between the chin bubbles, is a bullet hole repair patch from an AK-47 round the Shark took during a gunrun. On it's very next flight, after maintenance had patched the bullet hole but before they'd had a chance to paint the patch, WO1 Jim McDaniel was flying this Shark when it took another round (visible in the lower portion of the right chin bubble). No one was injured by either bullet, but at this point Jim, who had moved up to guns from the slicks within the month, was wondering whether ten pounds of red-and-white paint on the front of an otherwise olive green helicopter was such a good idea. (Photo by Jim McDaniel, Duc Pho, Nov 67.)
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