FYI

He served with HMM-361 in Vietnam

He also served in VMO-6, 68 - 69 time frame. I am glad I got to talk to him in Pensacola.

Semper Fi

Ed Alexander

Submitted by Bruce Hoffman

Bruce Hoffman,
Tampa
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Community Loses `World's Best Aviator'
WALT BELCHER wbelcher@tampatrib.com
Published: Sep 23, 2003

VALRICO - To his friends and relatives, Darrell Lowe was lovingly called ``The World's Best Aviator.''
The 64-year-old former career Marine, who once flew the presidential helicopter for Lyndon B. Johnson, died Friday from a rare blood disease.

``He loved to fly and was well-known in the aviation community here,'' said son Stephen W. Lowe of Bethesda, Md.

He flew his own Cessna 170 and was director of flight operations for Ye Mystic AirKrewe. He developed the syllabus the AirKrewe uses to train in formation flying for Gasparilla events.

Lowe spent most of his childhood in Minneapolis. He joined the Marine Corps in 1962 and served two tours in Vietnam.

``He earned three Distinguished Flying Crosses for action in Vietnam,'' said son John Lowe.

John Lowe, who is a major in Army air defense and fires Patriot missiles, recently returned from service in Iraq.

He said his father inspired him to seek a military career.

``He was a constant source of knowledge, inspiration and guidance.''

After his tours in Vietnam, Darrell Lowe was assigned to the HMX1 Guards Presidential Helicopter Squadron and spent two years flying President Johnson.

Lowe lived in the Tampa Bay area in 1987 when he was assigned to MacDill Air Force Base. He retired from the Marine Corps in 1988 as a lieutenant colonel.

Lowe then joined the international security firm Wackenhut Corp., working at government facilities in Morocco and Liberia.

``He had to escape from Liberia during a civil war there when the opposing sides thought he was a spy and put a bounty on his head,'' Stephen Lowe said. ``He really loved Morocco and had been a military attache there in the 1970s.''

In the 1980s and '90s, Lowe worked for Wackenhut at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration support facilities at Morocco's Ben Guerir Air Base, which is an alternate landing site in case of aborted space shuttle flights.

He moved to Valrico in 1995 and joined the FBI offices in Tampa as an investigative research specialist.

I enjoyed meeting up with Darrell at a couple of Popasmoke reunions. We first served together during 1964/1965 with HMM-361. He was with the S2 gang. When we finished up our tour in country we both went to HMX-1. It was always a pleasure to be a member of his crew, be it an H-34 or a VH-3A.

S/F
Ernie Needham