First Air Commando Sergeant Pilot Ed "Murphy" Hladovcak had crash-landed his L-1 aircraft with three wounded British soldiers on board.

Taxing his YR-4 helicopter to its performance limits, Harmon made four flights to the site, making the final hasty liftoff just as shouting soldiers burst from the jungle.

The emblem was selected by the government to be used as the official logo for Air Rescue Service until the branch had disestablished and Pararescue was created.

The guardian angel and Latin phrase Ut Alique Viva, (trans) That Others May Live, are still used in the current logo for the United States Air Force Pararescue.

The Aerospace Rescue and Recovery Service peacetime force was not equipped, trained, or structured to meet the demands of war in Southeast Asia in the early 1960s.

The LBR concept also included a fire suppression role, with an external AFFF foam bottle and firefighters as part of the flight crew.

It was eventually replaced with the armored HH-43F model, which had additional internal fuel tanks, for use in Area Crew Recovery (ACR) mission.

With the introduction of the HC-130P/N, the air-refuelable HH-3E "Jolly Green Giant" in June 1967, and the delivery of the air-refuelable HH-53B "Super Jolly Green Giant" (the first helicopter specifically designed for combat search and rescue (CSAR) operations) later that year (the latter two aircraft both being dual-engined helicopters), the now-renamed Military Airlift Command (MAC) and ARRS judged that they finally had the right force structure for combat rescue operations in Vietnam.

Unfortunately, the institutional Air Force failed to learn this lesson well and ARRS assets experienced the same neglect and lack of funding which plagued its ARS predecessor.

After Vietnam, a few notable rescue operations took place, such as the deployment of ARRS helicopters aboard the USS Saipan (LHA-2) in June and August 1979 in support of a possible emergency evacuation of US personnel in Nicaragua following the Communist Sandinista takeover.

As 1976 began, the ARRS had its headquarters and staff at Scott AFB, Illinois, and commanded three wings and numerous separate squadrons, detachments, and operating locations.

The aborted mission to rescue the American Embassy hostages in Teheran, Iran in the spring of 1980 dramatically demonstrated the need for close, realistic coordination and planning of joint-service operations.

While it is easy to speculate after the fact about what could have been done differently to make the mission successful, there was little doubt that the ARRS MH-53J Pave Low III aircraft was better suited to the operation.

In multiple analyses of the aborted rescue attempt, two possible reasons for the use of the RH-53D have been postulated: (1) either the Pave Low system was not yet ready for this type of mission because it had just finished lengthy operational testing or, (2) the RH-53D was used to placate the U.S. Marine Corps so they could participate with an aircraft that more closely approximated their own USMC CH-53D Sea Stallions.

Certainly, one must concede that Pave Low aircrews, who were trained in the CSAR arena and routinely relied on HC-130s and MC-130s in their daily operations, were the logical choice for this type of mission and had a better aircraft with which to conduct it.

This transfer signaled the end of the ARRS's role in CSAR and precipitated the present distinctions between "rescue drivers" and "special operators."

In August 1989, ARRS was reorganized and reestablished as the Air Rescue Service (ARS) at McClellan AFB, California, again as a subcommand to Military Airlift Command (MAC).

In 1993, concurrent with the disestablishment of MAC and the transfer of peacetime and combat search and rescue responsibilities to ACC, the AFRCC moved from Scott AFB to Langley Air Force Base, Virginia.

Guardian Angel squadrons consisting of pararescuemen, survival specialists, and combat rescue officers execute all five tasks of personnel recovery: report, locate, support, recover and reintegrate.

Enlisted Pararescuemen and commissioned Combat Rescue Officers (CROs) in Guardian Angel recovery teams deploy into uncertain or hostile environments independently or in conjunction with rotary- and fixed-wing aircraft, watercraft, and overland vehicles in order to locate, authenticate, and recover isolated personnel for return to friendly lines.

Like their A-1 Skyraider and LTV A-7 Corsair II predecessors, the A-10s, designed for close-air support, continue to use the "Sandy" call sign and are woven tightly into CSAR operations.

When involved in the CSAR mission, A-10s can neutralize enemy threats to friendly survivors on the ground, engaging hostile forces, with their GAU-8 30 mm Gatling gun, which is unique to the A-10 Thunderbolt II.

In the Air Force Reserve Command (AFRC), the ACC-gained 920th Rescue Wing at Patrick Space Force Base, Florida is structured for both CSAR and peacetime SAR, to include principal DoD responsibility for crewed spaceflight rescue support to NASA's John F. Kennedy Space Center, as well as Defense Support to Civil Authorities (DSCA), such as those the wing provided in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Among these various remaining CSAR forces, the 23rd Wing is now considered the principal CSAR organization for the U.S. Air Force[10] and carries the heritage and banner of the renowned Flying Tigers, which fought against the Japanese in World War II and earned fame by advancing tactically against Japan's multiple successes early in the war.