Col. Bernard F. Fisher, who received the first Medal of Honor awarded to an aviator during the Vietnam War for a daring rescue of another pilot in the face of enemy fire on an airstrip, died on Aug. 16 in Boise, Idaho. He was 87.

His son Bradford confirmed the death.

Colonel Fisher held the rank of major on March 10, 1966, when, despite the warnings of fellow pilots and radio controllers, he landed on an embattled airstrip where another flier had crashed, taxied under heavy fire to find him, and got his comrade and himself out alive.

Major Fisher led a small squadron of planes that had been sent to help Special Forces commandos who were under attack that day at an isolated camp near the South Vietnam-Laos border, according to the Air Force. While they were strafing North Vietnamese positions, a shell destroyed the engine of one plane, forcing the pilot to crash-land.

Major Fisher saw the plane skid and burst into flames and the pilot, Maj. Dafford Myers, leap from the wreckage and disappear into the underbrush. He radioed for a helicopter, then decided there was not enough time, telling radio controllers he would get Major Myers himself. Enemy soldiers were everywhere, he told an interviewer for a 2011 oral history of Medal of Honor recipients, and “they weren’t taking any prisoners.”