Rodney Lynn Strobridge was born on May 22, 1941 in Denver, Colorado, the eldest child of Althea (Lillian Lacy) and George Strobridge, a plumber. The family moved often, finally settling in Torrance in 1952. Strobridge was described as easygoing and he liked to hang out with his friends and play football at El Prado Park. He was a pitcher on the Torrance High School baseball team and graduated in 1959. He attended El Camino and Santa Monica community colleges and worked various jobs.
Strobridge initially received a draft deferment from the Vietnam War due to a skin condition, but was eager to serve. He treated his condition and was drafted into the U.S. Army. He applied to and graduated from Officer Candidate School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma on December 17, 1966. He was with the 2nd Battalion (HJ), 30th Artillery at Fort Sill before going to Vietnam.
The Associated Press reported that Strobridge worked in reconnaissance on his first tour of duty in Vietnam. For his second tour, he was trained to pilot the AH-1G Cobra, an attack helicopter used to support ground troops. He was assigned to Battery F, 79th Artillery Battalion (known as the “Blue Max”), 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division. He was a “bullet catcher” who sat in the Cobra’s front seat, while the commander sat in the rear.
On April 13, 1972, the North Vietnamese attacked An Loc, a provincial capital north of Saigon. South Vietnamese troops and their American advisors were under siege, and Blue Max helicopters were called into action. On April 27, 1972, bad weather forced Captain Strobridge to operate within range of enemy small arms, which he did persistently under fire. For this, he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for “extraordinary heroism while participating in aerial flight.”
On May 11, 1972, Strobridge was flying with Captain Robert John Williams, an experienced pilot. According to the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency, their Cobra (tail number 68-15009) was the wingman aircraft in a flight of three AH-1Gs launched to attack ground targets in support of allied troops. Their aircraft carried HEAT anti-tank rockets and shot at two enemy tanks and enemy troops out in the open on the southeast side of An Loc’s perimeter.
The allied aircraft were under heavy hostile 37mm and 23mm anti-aircraft fire. While Strobridge’s Cobra was pulling off a target, enemy ground fire hit the junction of its tail boom fuselage, causing the tail boom to sever and break away. It was believed that a surface-to-air missile struck the helicopter due to the immediate separation of the tail boom. The helicopter entered a controlled fast “flat spin” to the right and crashed. Search and rescue operations were prohibited by heavy enemy presence in the area, and Captains Strobridge and Williams were never seen again.
Captain Strobridge’s remains were not recovered and he was officially reported as missing in action on May 11, 1972. He was declared deceased on May 15, 1978, and was survived by his parents and his wife Patricia. A memorial service was held for him in June 1978 at the Foursquare Church in Torrance. Strobridge was once thought to possibly be the Vietnam War Unknown interred at Arlington National Cemetery, but a DNA test in 1998 ruled this out.
After the incident Captain Rodney Strobridge was promoted to the rank of Major. In addition to the Distinguished Flying Cross, the Daily Breeze reported that his other awards include the Silver Star, Bronze Star with Valor, Purple Heart and Air Medal with Clusters. Major Rodney L. Strobridge is memorialized on the Courts of the Missing at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific, the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, and the Torrance Veterans Memorial Wall.
Research by Dennis Piotrowski.
