Gene went to high school in Paradise  -   Paradise, CA, that is. He lettered in football, earned 2 in basketball, played baseball, ran track, and was a wrestler. He played in the band, was in DeMolay and was an Eagle Scout.

At the Academy he played in the Pep Band and was on the Dean`s list one semester. After pilot training at Laredo AFB, TX, Gene spent 6 months at Davis-Monthan AFB, AZ, for his Combat Crew Training in the F-4. His first operational flying assignment was with the 389^th Tactical Fighter Squadron at Holloman AFB, NM, where he arrived in March 1965. About a year later, the squadron deployed to Phan Rang, AB, South Vietnam. In his 6 months flying out of Phan Rang, he averaged about 25 missions a month. Since Phan Rang was much closer to Saigon than Hanoi, most missions likely were to support ground forces in South Vietnam and to attack targets found by forward air controllers. Some missions could have been up into southern Laos.

On what should have been a routine takeoff on 14 September, something went horribly wrong with the F-4. Academy classmate Will Rudd described what happened.

"I was stationed with Gene at Phan Rang AB, RVN, when he was killed. Gene was crewed with Capt John Crietzberg, the 389th TFS Life Support Officer. Gene and John were flying together when their aircraft took off, and during the normal turning flight rejoin that we did on every flight, the aircraft appeared to overshoot the lead aircraft, roll inverted, and shortly after, crashed south of the runway at Phan Rang. John Crietzberg was picked up by helicopter, but Gene did not survive the crash. Gene was our friend and comrade."

The likely cause of the crash was a flight-control malfunction. On a normal rejoin with a lead aircraft, an experienced pilot wouldn`t come close to needing 90 degrees of bank and never would roll inverted. So something kept Capt Crietzberg from using the normal amount of bank. Such rejoins are immediately after both aircraft take off a few seconds apart. The F-4s would have been just a few hundred feet above the ground. Once the aircraft exceeded 90 degrees of bank, the ejection seats would fire the pilots more toward the ground than up toward the sky. If the aircraft was completely inverted, the ejection would be directly toward the ground leaving virtually no time for a pilot to separate from the seat and for the parachute to deploy. The pilot flying the aircraft would have recognized the aircraft couldn`t be saved before Gene would have independently decided to eject. So when the aircraft commander ordered bail out, only seconds remained for either to get clear, and he likely was only a couple of seconds from dying, as well.

Sadly, Gene went down just one day after John Skoro was lost on a mission out of Phan Rang, as well. Both were buried at the Academy Cemetery on 27 September 1966.

I was serving as an F-4 crew chief on the day Lt. Knudsen went down at Phan Rang. I saw his aircraft bank shortly after takeoff and it went behind a hill and then a boom and a large cloud of black smoke rising. The pilot got out but Lt. Knudsen did not.

We lost a good man that day.                                 David W. Helmke, 389th T.F.S.