A study has been conducted of the morphology of precipitating O+ and H+ ions in the energy range 0.7?E?12 keV during the storm time period from December 16--18, 1971, which encompassed two principal magnetic storms. This paper describes some of the results of this study with emphasis on the temporal variations of parameters characterizing the intensity, average energy, and spatial location of the zones of precipitation of the two ionic species. One of the principal results was the finding that the intensity of the precipitating O+ ions was well correlated with the geomagnetic indices which measure the strength of magnetospheric substorm activity and the strength of storm time ring current. Since the O+ ions are almost certainly of ionospheric origin, the correlations indicate that a previously unknown strong coupling mechanism existed between the magnetosphere and the ionosphere during the storm period. Some other morphological features are apparent in the data: (1) the storm-associated initial increase of the O+ ions on the night side (0300 LT) was found to lead that on the day side (1500 LT) and lag the initial night side H+ increase by more than 1 hour in both storms, (2) a strong correlation was observed between the variation in locations of the O+ and H+ precipitation regions on both the day side and the night side crossings, and (3) the average energies of the O+ and H+ precipitations were significantly correlated on the day side crossings. The implications of these results with respect to some phenomenological models of the O+ morphology are discussed. The total worldwide precipitated ion energy flux has been estimated during the period of the study and compared to the ring current energy content as measured by Dst. The comparison indicates that precipitation was an important loss mechanism for ring current ions with energies less than 12 keV during the December 17--18, 1971, magnetic storm.