Brian John Devaney was born on June 14, 1946.

On May 30, 1970, a U.S. Army helicopter UH-1H (tail number 67-17205) from the 170th Assault Helicopter Company was shot down during a SOG extraction in Laos. There are two accounts for this incident: First account - CW2 Brian J. (B.J.) DeVaney of the 170th AHC, a native Canadian, whose last day of flying was the day before. One of his last missions was to insert a SOG recon team from CCC in the “Bra” area of the Ho Chi Minh Trail on May 28, 1970. On May 30th, he learned the team was now in trouble and need to be extracted from the area, he felt it was his responsibility to extract the team since he had inserted them and therefore took the mission. Upon the approach to extract the team, the helicopter came under intense fire from an RPD machine gun, raking the chopper from front to rear while it hovered in an effort to pick up the team under fire. Several rounds entered from the rear of the aircraft. Two rounds hit crew chief SP4 John P. Martin, sitting directly behind pilot DeVaney, one round hit Martin in the left thigh, and one hitting the left tibia and going through the right femur. One of these rounds that hit Martin passed through about a 1/4" inch crack in the armor plating protecting the pilot, hitting CWO DeVaney’s armor chest plate bouncing back into his heart, killing him instantly. The aircraft rolled, crashed, and burned. SP4 Martin came to from being unconscious and found he was under the fuel cell of the aircraft. As he began to crawl away, LT John W Naurot, of CCC's Recon Team, left the safety of the bomb crater and retrieved Martin by pulling him in the crater. How the other crew members consisting of the co-pilot Taylor and B.J got to the crater is not clear, either the co-pilot and other members got to the crater themselves or the other members of the Recon Team exposed themselves to the hail of bullets by crawling out and pulling the crew back to safety. One SCU scout was also KIA in this incident. All members were rescued by another 170th Helicopter that lost 4" of tail rotor in the extraction. (Information provided by John P. Martin and edited by Robert Noe) [Taken from macvsog.cc]

Second account - LT Robert Talmadge, the 1st Lift Platoon leader, provides a lengthy description of the 'life and times in the 170th,' a description of B.J.'s flying skills, and details about his death in 'Unknown Warriors: Canadians in Vietnam' by Fred Gafffen. B.J. was born a Canadian and retained his Canadian citizenship. What follows is an extract of that account: B.J. had completed one year in gunships and was most of the way through his six-month extension. He was a well-respected slick aircraft commander. He had been shot down twice during his time with the 170th. He wasn't scheduled to fly on the 30th because he was due to go home. However, the night before he signed up for one more mission. On the 30th he was Flight Lead on an SOB extraction mission out of Dak To. Talmadge was flying co-pilot in the reserve ship which launched when the call came that 'Lead's down.' The recon team and downed crew were in a bomb crater surrounded by jagged tree stumps in an area of Laos called 'The Bra.' CW2 Rich Glover was the aircraft commander of Talmadge’s aircraft. The recon team was receiving heavy machine-gun fire and didn’t want any more helicopters to come into their area. Disregarding this, Rich made a high overhead approach and hovered near the edge of the crater. As soon as the downed crew and wounded recon team members were on board, Rich started backing away from the crater. He inadvertently hit a tree stump with the tail rotor but managed to maintain control of the aircraft. As they headed for Ben Het, Talmadge got out of his seat and went back to help CW2 Mike Taylor, who had been flying with B.J., and the other wounded. He yelled to Rich that they needed to get to the Evac Hospital in Pleiku. Rich yelled back that he didn’t think the tail rotor would hold up that long but it did. Later inspection revealed almost three inches were missing from the tips of the tail rotor and one blade still had a four-inch piece of wood stuck in it. About 10 minutes after B.J. was taken into the Evac Hospital a nurse returned to say that B.J. didn’t make it. A doctor later told them that a remnant from a large-caliber round had come through the side of B.J.’s chicken plate, bounced back into his body, and entered his heart. [Taken from vhpa.org]