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50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???
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50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 17, 2020, 7:10 AM

Our Hill 4-11 Firebase was formed on an isolated hill in the middle of the flat coastal plain to allow the artillery to reach further into areas where we infantry grunts patrolled. The first time we had to call them for firepower after I got into country was when my platoon was pinned down at the base of a mountain with VC firing down at us from the steep slope. The first rounds were supposed to go directly over us and strike the mountain but they landed about 100 yards behind us. That meant that if they had calculated their range a little better, the 105 rounds would have been right on top of us. The next fond memory I have of those guys was a time when artillery needed to move deep into the mountains to reach troops operating near (?) the Cambodian border and our company was sent out to give them protection as they set up on a mountaintop shaped like a saddle. My platoon was placed on the high ground above the big guns along the perimeter and dug deep foxholes that we hoped wouldn't be needed. At the end of the time we spent there, the artillery guys decided to have a little competition to see which gunners could actually hit a white-barked tree on a distant mountain which was located in the direction making the rounds go right over my platoon's heads since we were on higher ground than the artillery. They told us to get in our foxholes and cover our ears. Even though we objected, they said they were going to fire and we better be in the holes or maybe get hit. We could feel the air move as the shells went over us. Thankful that one of their rounds finally made a direct hit on the tree and they stopped their fun game.

Message was edited by: clover65®

Message was edited by: clover65®


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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 17, 2020, 7:32 AM

Thank you for your service Sir!!! Go Tigers!

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 17, 2020, 7:37 AM

Sorry (and not to make light of it), but this reminds me of those posters of ‘Murphy’s Laws’ with the one: “Friendly fire isn’t “.

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Whatever choice(s) you make makes you. Choose wisely.


Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 17, 2020, 11:58 PM

Wow that’s just a little dangerous. Did this kind of stuff go on a lot in Vietnam? Several of my friends served in Vietnam. They were about
10 years older than me. I have to confess I use to worry about being drafted and going to Vietnam. I really think you and others who served in Vietnam were brave men and women with tremendous courage.

Keep the stories coming.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 12:44 AM

Clover ..... everyone of your installments brings back a similar memory exactly 50 years ago for me ..... some not so good. Late in 1970 my engineer platoon completed destroying the top of a mountain that the unit we supported, 3rd Bn. 1st Marines, had been using for an observation post to watch for the NVA coming toward DaNang down Elephant Valley. A recon unit had reported that all of the ordinance we had destroyed did not explode and they wanted us to go back up and finish destroying it. I sent one squad that march up the mountain with a platoon of grunts. Before they marched up the mountain they called in 155 howitzers to make sure the top of the mountain was clear. The artillery headquarters said they could not fire because there were friendly troops in the area. No sh*t, it was the grunts that were getting ready to march up the mountain that were the "friendly troops". Anyway no artillery was fired.

As soon as my squad and platoon got to the top of the mountain, unknown to them, they were spotted by a Marine recon unit from another mountain top. The recon unit called for artillery from the same battery that the grunts had called before climbing the mountain. This time one willie peter round landed right in the midst of the platoon with about a half dozen HE round following closely behind. Three grunts were killed a bunch other wounded including two of my men. If it hadn't been for the bravery of the grunt Lt., who stood up right as the rounds were coming in shooting flares, it would have been a lot worse. It was a tragic mistake by the recon unit and the artillery battery, both of whom were never held accountable. I tried to find out who the recon unit was, but even after all of the classified unit diaries were released I could never find where it had been reported. Guess I wouldn't have either if I had called in 155's on my fellow Marines.

I was also in the hospital in Guam with a Marine Lt. who had a couple of his guys killed when he set up his mortars behind his company while out in the boonies and several "short" rounds landed in his camp. He was court martialed when he returned to Viet Nam and I later ran into him on my way home in Okinawa and said he had been found "not guilty" because they could not prove that it was his mortars that killed his men.

By the way, I left Viet Nam on Dec. 22, 1970, so I was a short timer about this time 50 years ago. My mother dropped me off at the Atlanta Airport on Christmas Day 1969 to fly to San Francisco and then off to Viet Nam.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 1:22 AM

That’s horrible about those guys. Families have lived with that loss for 50 years.

You made it back and survived for 50 plus years since. Such is war. I was fortunate to never experience it.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 7:00 AM [ in reply to Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT??? ]

Imagine having to live with the thought you killed fellow Americans? That’s the worst sentence ever!

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 11:52 AM [ in reply to Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT??? ]

I should have mentioned that we should have never been sent back up on the mountain, as the ordinance that had "not been destroyed" was expended 106 recoiless rifle rounds that had been put back in their cardboard tubes and 81 mm mortar illumination rounds ..... none of which would have been useful to the enemy. The unexploded ordinance had been reported by another recon team that was passing over the mountain. If any of those recon guys had bothered to pull a 106 round out of the tube they would have known it had been fired. If you are not familiar with a 106 round when the projectile is fired the firing pin "seats" the entire primer and does not put a dent in it like some shells. Therefore, if you only look at the back of the shell it does not look like it has been fired.

Thanks to another recon unit the grunts and my guys were on the mountain needlessly! I had a lot of classmates that were in recon, one of whom (John Hoff) won the Navy Cross, but in large measure they forgot their mission and were more interested in getting kills than providing intelligence which was their primary mission.

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I have already posted about the mountain top that had been


Dec 18, 2020, 6:46 PM [ in reply to Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT??? ]

an ARVN base complete with US mines like Bouncing Bettys and others that were left there when they abandoned the site. Our company was choppered up there in waves using around 5 Hueys. The 1st group got off the choppers and they stepped on a couple of the mines - one Bouncing Betty took both of one guys legs and one arm. Instead of pulling out, they sent the choppers back into the valley 2 or 3 more times and took the rest of us up there - the choppers would not land - just hovered and had us jump out amid boulders from about 8 or 9 feet with guys already on the ground pointing to the prongs on the Bouncing Bettys even though we didn't know what was going on and couldn't see them anyway.( Try that jump holding an M-16 and wearing an 80 pound rucksack on your back). And what did we do after everyone got up there? We went all the way back down the mountain on foot to the same valley we had come from. Found a booby trapped 12 gauge buckshot shotgun shell along the trail that had been there so long that the trip wire had rusted away.

Also previous post of mine told of the airstrike that was called in on my platoon that landed perfectly on the creekside rocks where we had been resting- but just a few minutes late as we had just started back up a ridge and had the jet dive over the top of the hill right over our heads to drop his load of bombs where we had been.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 4:17 AM

In my last post to one of your threads I mentioned the movie memorial day, but this post is making me think of an amazing movie done by Mel Gibson, we were soldiers.


Message was edited by: Lowcntry_Tiger®


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Those artillery guys love to have their sport........Y'all


Dec 18, 2020, 6:49 AM

should have seen who could get a round closest to their latrine....

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Considered retaliation but their guns were


Dec 18, 2020, 6:47 PM

much bigger than ours.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 9:34 AM

It still blows my mind how accurate CFF could be during Vietnam.

Today we have GPS, DAGRs and JBCPs to ensure we always know where you are with an accurate grid. Then we call up the FDC and they have a computer tell them how to adjust the weapons systems.

You guys were trudging through the jungles having to maintain where you are on the map. Then you had to rely on some guy to accurately do the math.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 11:43 AM

When I first got my platoon in Tam Ky, we swept the main road (HWY 1) both north and south for IEDs (landmines) until we met the sweep teams coming from the other directions. We stopped all traffic behind us until the road was clear. I picked out about a dozen places off the side of the road (abandoned buildings/churches, etc) where I though were logical spots for us to be ambushed. I recorded all of the coordinates on my map and assigned each one of them a number (or letter .... can't remember) and submitted them to our FDC (Fire Direction Center), so that if the **** hit the fan, I wouldn't have to try and figure out the coordinates while under fire. We learned how to bracket mortar and artillery in basic school and were competent to zero in on enemy positions once the arty started dropping.

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Re: 50 years ago -Vietnam - Artillery SUPPORT???


Dec 18, 2020, 8:58 PM

Mr. Collins, I presume?

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ClemTigs


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