By Ross Colvin

CAMP ANACONDA, Iraq, June 4 (Reuters) - Three U.S. helicopter crews were honoured on Monday for bravery under fire for coming to the aid of a helicopter that was shot down, killing 12 soldiers in one of the worst crashes of the Iraq war.

The Black Hawk transport helicopter was brought down on Jan. 20 north of Baghdad as it was ferrying troops on a routine run to the capital. The military's top medical officer in Iraq and two other senior officers were among those killed.

The downing of the helicopter was the first of a string of crashes over a two-month period in which more than 20 U.S. soldiers were killed, prompting the military to change its tactics and ponder whether militants were getting better, had more sophisticated weapons, or were just enjoying a lucky streak.

The three Black Hawk helicopter crews awarded medals at the sprawling U.S. air base Anaconda near Balad north of Baghdad on Wednesday were honoured for coming to the rescue of their downed comrades, fighting off insurgents and securing the crash site.

The helicopters landed and deployed the troops they had been carrying to set up a perimeter around the downed aircraft until Apache attack helicopters arrived on the scene.

Chief Warrant Officer Jerry Sartin, the pilot who led the rescue, received the U.S. military's fourth-highest decoration, the Silver Star, while three others received the Distinguished Flying Cross, and the rest received Air Medals.

The ceremony, which took place a day after the U.S. military reported the deaths of 14 soldiers, was attended by the top U.S. commander in Iraq, General David Petraeus, and the most senior aviator, Major-General James Simmons.

"It was just another one of the 8,600 combat missions this brigade has flown, but it was a day that has changed all our lives forever," Simmons told some of the assembled men and women of the 36th Combat Aviation Brigade.

Black Hawks are the workhorse helicopters of the U.S. military, transporting troops to bases and into combat. A common sight in the skies over Baghdad, they have two gunners manning machineguns and normally fly low and in pairs.

Chief Warrant Officer Thomas Schroeder, one of the pilots who received the Distinguished Flying Cross, was also flying troops to Baghdad on the day of the crash, flying a few minutes behind Easy 40, the helicopter that crashed.

"We saw the aircraft flying erratically and smoking. After a while it crashed. My first instinct was disbelief. You see them flying around all the time. They are not supposed to crash."

He flew on to the crash site and, along with a second helicopter, opened fire on insurgents that had been seen fleeing the scene in a truck with a mounted machinegun.

One of the gunmen fired a rocket propelled grenade at the other helicopter, narrowly missing it. Schroeder said his gunner then opened fire on the gunman, killing him as he reached for another grenade.

The two helicopters flew in tight circles around the area, keeping up a constant rate of fire, killing three of the gunmen and wounding a fourth, who was later found to have been shot 15 times, the crewmen said.

"The Black Hawk is not designed to be an attack aircraft. We were doing what we had to do to get rid of the enemy," said Sartin, who insisted his Silver Star did not make him a hero.

"We would trade the awards to get our soldiers back. They were very close friends," said Chief Warrant Office Max Timmons, the pilot of the third helicopter.

AlertNet news is provided by