It has been 9 years since writing about C battery.
A story that I want to tell is how in my first few days in Nam
in HHB I was on guard duty at the main gate (perhaps 100 yards from
Phuoc Vinh), 3 men on guard in that large bunker. A convoy had
been ambushed and 4 or 5 APCs in single file each packed tightly with
infantry came to the gate and stopped - the sergeant on guard told me to
open the gate, so I did (this is much as how the story ends).
During that week the battery commander expected an attack so he had me
and another new medic issued rifles immediately. Once during that
week a machine gun in our bunker line commenced firing, in order to turn
a man who was trying to run from the ARVIN police. Also during
that week a siren blared to get us to man the bunker line - a rectangle
of bunkers surrounding HHB. Also, one day, I went in an ambulance
to get a man from Bravo Battery who had fallen off his gun and hit his
head on the spade (he was sitting up when we got there).
After the first week I was assigned to
Charlie Battery, on the opposite edge of the base camp, because an
attack was expected. But in C Battery everything was relaxed
(though heavy artillery is noisy) - some sandbags from around the tent
nearest the wire had fallen off. The view extended for a thousand
yards of open land. After a few months an
F-100 Super Sabre was flying by in the distance and the BC (Battery
Commander) took a Polaroid picture of it to prove to his wife that he
was in the war.
For the last few months of my time
there, things got tighter/ more dangerous/ more active.
Less than a month from the end of my
tour (which ended in early June, 1967) all 4 guns of the battery (2-
eight inch and 2- 175mm) went a few miles outside the wire to be in a
position to support an infantry operation. A few hours later,
after not yet firing in support, a VC bunkered base camp was discovered,
so we relocated to fire on it. We fired, but it was late in the day.
Most of the unit went back to base but one of the eight inch guns had
broken down and so was rigged to be towed by the other eight inch.
It was almost dusk and we were so few troops (I was standing alone in an
APC) for such a tempting target that I had already taken off the safety
on my rifle. Then, surprise, an F-100 fighter/bomber came over my
right shoulder, low, and a few seconds later it was shooting in the
direction my rifle was pointing, then another F-100 came over my right
shoulder, low.
The tow of the eight inch was successful - During this I
remained standing on the sandbagged floor of the APC, the other
passenger, an infantryman, apparently confident, calm and relaxed, sat
on a slanted back corner of the (wall); and I felt my time too short for
this, but I didn't tell him that opinion. We got thru the gate
just before dark. Along the left side of the road were 4 or 5 APCs
packed tightly with infantry. Then in the battery area, a soldier
came hurrying out of FDC and told me the (infantry scouts) had seen the
VC coming in our direction, and so "we" had to call in the F-100s.
In my last week I took some pictures as
a finishing gesture. Here are photos of (Photo
1A,
1B,
1C) a
newly arriving artillery unit moving-in near the air strip (the mayor's
house is a landmark), (Photo
2A &
2B) a
helicopter (pilot) posing for me, and the final two overlapping
photos (Photos
3 & 4)
are taken from the wire at C Battery, the mayor's house is seen to
the right in the second overlapping photo.
I wanted to take a picture of the bunker
at the main gate where I had stood guard, but there were about 10 men
standing in a group a few feet north of that bunker (HHB was on the west
side of that road), so I chose to turn 180 degrees and take a picture of
the empty road, with the mayor's house perhaps 50 yards further north (Photo
5) - another picture I wanted. I had walked the round trip
between C Battery and HHB more than 100 times, usually to bring in a man
or two on sick call to see a doctor. On "today's" trip on that route (by
myself) I was walking toward the mayor's house when I saw a helicopter
landing, and veered right to look closer (it was all very quick).
Next I kept going east to get around the end of the air strip. but an SP
artillery gun then drove in between me and the mayor's house (Photo
6). After getting around the air strip and heading north I saw
the activity -- orders and running and a helicopter -- but I didn't want
to just stand there, so I continued north, back to C battery.
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