in dry elephant grass spread to the ammunition dump containing approximately
3600 rounds of 105 mm ammunition.
******Transcriber’s
note.**********
I was there, and I
know what started that fire. One of the men in my section and I watched a
Chinook that had picked up a slingload of trash, saw
it being fanned by his rotors, and decided to set it back down. He set it down
only around 15 feet from a “Cord” of 105 Rounds that were charged, and loaded
and/or fused, or whatever they call it on the gun crews. We called it a “Cord”
because it looked Almost exactly like a stack of
perfect logs for burning in the fireplace. When we saw that pilot set that
sling down, we both knew at the same time that whole base was going up, and we
hollered “Fire” as loud as we could, and lit out for our bunker, and to inform
the rest of the platoon. We scampered and/or drove vehicles back and forth, up
and down from one side of the FSB to the other, all day. There was 105 mm
zipping along at anywhere from ankle to just above waist height. And it was
cooking off other ammo in vehicles it burned, bunkers, etc as the fire took
them over. Almost everything on that base was ripping and exploding. We were
stepping and a fetchin tryin
to keep from getting blowed away, and at the same
time trying to watch out into that tall elephant grass thinking it would be a
perfect time for the VC or NVA to come in there and annihilate all of us. Ended
up wonderin why he never did. They were probably
rolling around out there, too weak from laughin to
start a fight, hahaha!
*******End *******
Battery C and the remaining portion of
Headquarters Battery (all others had been previously air-lifted) tried in vain
to prevent the loss of equipment. Due to the exploding projectiles and the
intense heat the Battalion personnel were forced to seek whatever cover
available. Battery C sustained heavy equipment losses and was forced to return
to
***Note… Boy, I
don’t know. 20 KM??
North of Dau-Tieng??? It took them all day to get there! Not
long after making the turn North, which runs alongside the Rubber plantation,2 of my men and I were stranded in a broken down truck @
the base of Razor Back , or
close to it on the Road…waiting to get a tow to the FSB from the “Last Track”
in the convoy, which didn’t come until barely
enough time to get us there at the last part of dusk. Maybe they had some trouble
up at the front of the convoy with mines, or ambushes, or something, but I
don’t remember hearing anything. Anyway, as I seem to remember it – Which of
course is not that great a recommendation – it was closer to the Cambodian
border than the above document places it, and closer to Katum,
also. Oh, well.