Ivan L. Slavich Jr.
United States Army officer
Ivan L. Slavich Jr. (September 9, 1927 – October 20, 2012) was a United States Army colonel who helped pioneer the use of the HU-1A "Huey" helicopter as a tactical close-in support assault ship, and commanded the first armed combat helicopter unit in American military history. He served in World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War; his military service also included an early enlistment in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Slavich served from 1951 to 1975 as a U.S. Army officer. He served from 1945 to 1947 as an enlisted U.S. Marine.
Early life and education
Slavich was born on September 9, 1927, in San Francisco, California. His father, Ivan Slavich, Sr., was the Clerk of the San Francisco Municipal Court and a Democratic ward politician, and his mother, Mary Foley, hailed from Ireland. His grandfather was a Croatian barrel maker in the California wine country. He grew up in San Francisco, attending the St. Ignatius College Preparatory School and the University of San Francisco where he graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree.
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This entry incorporates text from “Ivan L. Slavich Jr.” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.