Vietnam War Resources

Discussion in 'Vietnam' started by David Layne, Nov 22, 2011.

  1. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    I couldn't find a place to on this site to put this, however here is a comprehensive site about "my" war.

    Vietnam War Resources
     
  2. Owen

    Owen -- --- -.. MOD

    Moved to the Postwar section of forum .

    Postwar

    Cold war, military & political history of the period after World War 2.
     
  3. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    Thanks Owen.
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 12, 2019
  4. Jonathan Ball

    Jonathan Ball It's a way of life.

    That's an excellent, in depth website David, thanks for sharing. Straight into the bookmarks!
     
  5. mimike

    mimike Junior Member

    Thanks, Bro, it was " my war" also.
     
  6. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    Spooky, when I opened this post 'Fortunate Son' by Creedence was playing on the radio...
     
    Last edited by a moderator: Mar 12, 2019
  7. gunbunnyB/3/75FA

    gunbunnyB/3/75FA Senior Member

    awesome site
     
  8. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    What a fantastic site, David. And plenty on my favourite cold War Jet aircraft, the F-105 Thunderchief!!! Nice find.
     
  9. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    Thought I would post a little more about "my' war.

    This is Tower 4 Phu Loi Vietnam. Our camp was ringed with these towers, I don't recall how many, perhaps 10. Between the towers were fortified bunkers.
    I spent many hours in Tower 4 keeping watch for my comrades in arms. We were equipped with an M60 Machine gun, an M79 grenade launcher and our own personal M16. From the picture you can see how close the village was that we were guarding ourselves against.
    Many hours of boredom were endured in these towers. There is nothing like a bored creative G.I. to get something started.........
    more to follow,
     

    Attached Files:

  10. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    To us well fed G.I.'s our side of the fence must have smelled like heaven because the villagers dogs were always attracted to us, and therefore came to us, right through our mine fields! We would whistle to them , shout , hoot and holler and blow them away with our Claymoor mines. Hey we were bored, just wanted to blow something up!

    That's what I was trained to do!
     
  11. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    Up there in Tower 4 we also had parachute flares! Oh boy what fun they were! A parachute flare comes in a perhaps 18" metal tube that the operator fires by stricking with his hand, a flare is fired that rises to perhaps 300' and illuminates the terrain below dangling under a parachute.

    Well us well trained G.I.'s used to take the parachute out of the flare tube, reassemble it without parachute and fire it at the villaage outside the perimeter. That always used to get them running, and to us it was fair as they were shooting rockets at us too. C'est la guerre
     
  12. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    We did not experience full scale NVA attacks through the wire. Victor Charlie would infiltrate through the wire and place satchell charges where ever he could but that was rare. More common was for Victor Charlie to shoot rockets at us. In response we would call "Puff The Magic Dragon" and a C47 (DC3) would show up and with his mini guns a roaring to lay down a field of fire just outside the wire. We G.I.'s would be up on top of the bunkers screaming and yelling just like we were at a football game!

    Tower Duty was always sort after, especially by the dopers in the company. It was one of the few places where one could be truly isolated. To his front the soldier would have a mine field that had perhaps 4 rows of concertina barbed running parallel to him. To his rear the perimeter road. Perched "high" in his tower the on duty trooper could see everything that was taking place around him and it was basically an impossibility for the Duty Officer to catch him unawares. Not that the Duty Officer would try too hard. In those days there was a very poor officer enlisted relationship. While fragging never took place in our company I do recall the officers quarters receiving a CS gas grenade for a present.
     
  13. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    Oh yea and we had night vision binoculars in the tower. They were called "Starlight Scopes" and they were crap.

    Another tower tale.
    It was another boring hot day in the tower. There were no village dogs outside the wire to entice into the mine field. What to do? Just outside the wire was a little pagoda structure with some type of religious icon contained in it, about 5 feet high, the villagers would visit it on occasion. Says one G.I. to the other "Reckon I can hit that thing with my M79 before the Officer of the Day gets here?" So we were on! We took turns at taking pot shots at it with our grenade launchers until we saw the officers jeep come tearing out of the company area and race down the perimeter road in our direction. Pulling up the lieutenant shouted up to us an enquiry as to what we were firing at. Not us we replied, but we thought we heard something down at Tower 6. So the officer jumps back in his jeep and speeds off to Tower 6 in a cloud of dust. Just too funny!

    In case your wondering, when I was there no enemy was shot from Tower 4. Just VC dogs.
     
  14. David Layne

    David Layne Well-Known Member

    So one more Tower 4 story. I wasn't in the tower for this one, I was manning the bunker next to it. I told earlier how we could take the parachute off a parachute flare and then fire it as a projectile that would burn on the ground for a while. Well this G.I. in the tower removed the parachute from a flare with the intention of firing the flare into the village to piss off the locals. Well he fired the flare but it did not clear the roof of the tower. It hit the inside roof did a 180 and hit the guy who had fired it before exiting out the door. Cries of great pain came from the tower and it transpired that our friend had a huge gash in his leg that was bleeding profusely and would need immediate attention. We made the required calls and the officer of day turned up and then the medics. We made up this story that the flare had been fired from the village. An alert was called, the whole base was awoken and sent to their posts, helicopters took off and menaced the village and Puff the Magic Dragon turned up. By dawn things had quietened down and the sleepy G.I.'s made their way to work while this G.I. who was just coming off duty laughed himself to sleep. Boy we had some fun. My buddy in the tower by the way got a purple heart for the incident!

    Maybe a quick explanation. When I arrived in Vietnam I was assigned to a Replacement Company and from there to my duty station at Phu Loi. On arrival at my duty company I was assigned to the security platoon until they could figure out what to do with me. As it implies the security platoon was responsible for the security of a section of the perimeter. I would have been in the security company about two weeks which is the time frame of these storys. My first day with the security platoon we had to go into the minefield and repair barb wire or something. Anyway one fellow stepped on a mine and blew his foot off, had been in country like me for 1 day! Victor Charles would move mines and turn Claymoor mines around so they were facing the firer.
     
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  15. 26delta

    26delta Senior Member

    I must admit that POL facilities were the sacred cows of Vietnam. The evening after the attack against 3rd Ordnance Depot in Long Binh (10-11 Feb 1968), a rocket landed just outside the perimeter of the yard. The OD decided to let the round burn, as it would provide an excellent back light for any potential targets approaching the fence.

    The following morning, as I returned to the battalion HQ compound, I was approached by one of the hooch mammas who gave me a piece of paper with a neatly typed message in Vietnamese characters. She kept repeating "GI, you give G2! You give G2!" Following her instructions, I took the message into the battalion S2 office. The lieutenant in charge took a look at the message and started laughing. He then told me that the message was a letter from the Victor-Charlie commander for the region, apologising for the short round that fell outside the tank farm/POL yard. It was intended for 3rd Ordnance Depot, another half-mile to the south. (When the enemy apologises for errors in the field, you know you are safe.)

    Too bad the safe zone of the tank farm/POL yard didn't apply to our trucks. During my time in-country, the battalion lost five tanker trucks in convoy. VC would destroy the cab of the truck by dropping an RPG-7 round squarely on the fifth wheel while the vehicle was travelling at 40 MPH. Standard protocol for the tow truck would be to recover the cab unit and return later for the trailer. Depending on the model of trailer, 2500-3750 gallons of fuel would remain in the undamaged sections of the trailer. Obviously, upon return, the tow truck would be recovering an empty trailer.
     
  16. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    Puff the Magic Dragon AC 47
    Call sign, Spooky

     
  17. davidbfpo

    davidbfpo Patron Patron

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