VIETNAM.

The destruction of Phan Thiet: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-09-24T18:27:00.000+02:00

The Destruction of Phan Thiet

A large part of the town now was beginning to look apocalyptic. There is some strange fascination about watching napalm being dropped. The product itself is utterly loathsome. I had been watching these attacks for some time when jets started dropping what I took to be 1000 lb bombs just across the river from us. When they exploded everybody ducked although we were out of range of debris. The shock waves themselves though played on one's nerves. A member of the recoilless rifle team was taken away with shell shock. Perhaps there comes a moment when one has had enough.

They had flown in a battalion of montagnards. It had been said that neither the Vietnamese nor the Americans wanted to flush out the Viet Cong from the destroyed buildings. Quiet, undemonstrative fellows I had seen them sitting at the airfield earlier waiting for orders. I always felt they were often used by the powers that be as so much unaccountable cannon fodder. They sent them in now against the entrenched Viet Cong. A slow cautious advance. I saw a hand grenade tossed at them by the defending VC. A shell exploded in the river just in front of us. Which side had fired it?

Most of the town’s people had a resigned air to them. It was difficult to say where their sympathies lay. Many certainly hated or feared the Viet Cong but the Americans were causing most of the destruction. It is very easy to be detached when one has no family involved, when one can say, 'I've had enough', and just pop on a plane and fly home. One is not involved. For the Vietnamese people this had been going on in one form or another since 1940. There was a deep ingrained mistrust of anything to do with whatever government was in power. They looked to the village and family for security. With the destruction of village life, village headmen had been one of the first targets of the Viet Cong years before, and still were, it was to the family they looked to.

I went back to the relative security of the airfield carrying a couple of C rations with me.

All is not quiet in Phan Thiet: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-09-12T16:03:00.001+02:00

All is not quiet in Phan Thiet

I crossed the bridge and found a South Vietnamese armoured unit at rest in front of the Provincial Headquarters. I took a few photos and wandered around. They had some US advisers with them but I did not interrupt their conversation. I went off and came across a 106mm Recoilless Rifle team. The whole street was destroyed, a pall of smoke hung over everything, and everyone was alert, although not with that nervous tension that worries me. Everyone seemed exhausted. There was a body sprawled on the ground. I asked what was up with him and somebody said he was sleeping. A good army habit to be able to sleep anywhere. They were largely uncommunicative. The closer to action a soldier is the less he has to say. Some more photos and I wandered off.

I fell in with a mixed group of South Vietnamese. Regular and Regional Forces. With them as escort I continued exploring. Hopefully they knew what areas were secure. We went through some more damaged and destroyed buildings, a school complex I think, and came across dead Viet Cong lying here and there. I started taking photographs. I felt completely emotionless. As I was taking a photo of a particularly gruesome bullet riddled corpse there was suddenly the sound of bullets whipping around my head. The Vietnamese took off with the speed of greased lightning. My reactions were a little slower but not much. Running, I tripped over some piping on the ground and went sprawling. Jumping up I continued in a blind panic. I turned the corner of a building and rejoined my companions who burst out laughing. I joined them in the laughing. When one makes a complete fool of one's self the best thing to do is laugh. Also I was beginning to understand this Vietnamese habit of laughing in happiness if one escapes danger. Much better than visiting a psychoanalysist.

Having had enough excitement for one day I returned to our camp.

A gkoulish corpse: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-09-11T16:05:00.000+02:00

A Ghoulish Corpse

I left the camp, driving slowly down the raised road through the cemetery. I was particularly alert as there were some Viet Cong entrenched in a building at the bottom to my right. I noticed some

fighting going on a few hundred yards away to my left. My eyes were drawn to the corpse of a Viet Cong not far off the road also to my left. It had been there some days, evidently the responsibility of nobody, and as it had begun to smell somebody had poured petrol over it and set it alight. With rigour mortis having set in, it's arms and legs sticking up in the air, it was now also burnt and blackened. Perhaps a cemetery was the appropriate place, but it was rather ghoulish.

Suddenly all the hammers of hell seemed to open up just above my head. My heart nearly jumped out of my mouth and for a moment I was in a state of utter shock. Luckily I had been crawling along, observing what was going on around me, and was able to bring the 3/4 ton quickly under control. I then saw and heard this jet fighter screaming off to my left. It must have been on a strafing run when it opened up with its multiple machine guns as it crested the road just as I passed under it. That is, I imagined later, how one ended up a casualty of friendly fire. I also wondered if the pilot had been laughing or cursing me as he narrowly avoided a collision fatal to us both.

In town I passed by the Advisor's compound to pick up my C rations. We had been living off them for some time now as nobody was doing any cooking. We had a supply at camp but our sergeant refused to issue them so I was still dependent on my trips down town. There were pockets of Viet Cong on our side of the river and they seemed to occupy, or at least to have created a no man's land of most of the other. The South Vietnamese were holding the Provincial Headquarters and an area around it. The town was full of its own refugees and displaced inhabitants. As was becoming my habit I took off to see what was going on.

The Ammunition Dump. Part 2: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-05-27T10:33:00.000+02:00

The Ammunition Dump. Part 2

I was now aware that objects were falling out of the sky and every time the ammo dump exploded I ducked back down into the bunker. Then up again. My earlier calm had been replaced by a state of high alertness. There are times when I have really loved Americans. When those first helicopter gunships appeared was one. I remember asking them to zap hell out of the Viet Cong. After a while the camp was protected by dozens of them circling around in the sky. I was joined from time to time by one of the more adventurous of our soldiers with his M14. The others, including the machine gunner, remained in the bottom of the bunker.

The sergeant was still off somewhere doing what I don't know. This went on until perhaps 2.30 or 3 o'clock in the morning when things calmed down. The US army habit of suddenly laying down massive bursts of machine gun and automatic rifle fire at nothing in particular from time to time kept one's nerves on edge. I was able to get an hour or two's sleep where I lay and in the morning looked around at the debris scattered everywhere. It really was a wonder nothing had hit me on the head. The airfield was a complete mess with damaged or destroyed buildings everywhere. About a dozen aircraft had been put out of action and after this none stayed on the base over night. Our water storage shed was destroyed and as the town’s water supply had been contaminated earlier the only thing left to drink was beer.

Our major flew up from Saigon and we all got new flak jackets and helmets. We also had a proper new bunker built just outside our door controlling also the access from the cliffs. The previous bunker we had spent most of the night had been a miserable affair. This one was really first class

VFC - Hồn Tử Sĩ (Souls of The Fallen - Bien Hoa Military Cemetery) Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-05-25T15:06:00.000+02:00

The ammunition dump, Phan Thiet: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-03-11T11:40:00.001+01:00

The Ammunition Dump. Part 1

It was about 9 o'clock in the evening when the mortar rounds started coming in. Everybody rushed to their positions. I found myself, alone, behind a low wall. We had no helmets or flak jackets. I had my trusty sub-machine gun. The Viet Cong sometimes sent teams of saboteurs in under cover of these attacks. One of their points of entry was up the cliff at our back.

Suddenly there was a massive explosion and a sheet of flame shot hundreds of feet into the air. I thought to myself what a marvellous firework display. I knew the ammunition dump, situated about 150 yards away, had been hit but my mind refused to register the fact. It was a retreat into one of my shades of fear I have talked about. I took out my pipe and started to calmly smoke it. It was always most comforting under such circumstances. The night accentuated the repeated explosions, but luckily hid from me the mass of unexploded shells and shrapnel that were falling back down to earth. In the morning I would find the base littered with them. At the time I was mercifully ignorant.

Our sergeant however decided it was time to withdraw to a bunker so I rejoined the others. As we made our way there was another almighty explosion and everybody dived for cover. It is strange that a few minutes before, alone, I had not thought of cover, but now the herd instinct was beginning to take over. A 155 shell landed close by but did not explode. I was trying to crawl under a flimsy building; there was a six inch space between the floor and the ground, all fear of cobra's dispelled by a greater one. The corporal next to me was wounded by shrapnel, but not too badly.
We made it to the bunker. The sergeant took off somewhere. The military were in theory responsible for our security but I preferred to remember my Black Watch training. The others kept inside the bunker which was below ground. I stayed half out of the entrance. Somebody had to keep an eye open for Viet Cong. The thought of huddling in the dark not knowing what was going on didn't appeal to me either.

Odds and ends from Phan Thiet: Memories of Viet Nam 1965 1975

2018-03-04T10:50:00.000+01:00

Odds & Ends from Phan Thiet

Phan Thiet had been hit during the recent offensive. The camp barber had been found amongst the dead, evidently leading them as a guide. Our sergeant had shot up one of our own buildings with his machine gun. We went for a ride down town out as far as the hospital. This had a team of Chinese doctors and nurses. When the Viet Cong offensive was renewed they would be cut off. The South Vietnamese and Americans refused to rescue them and a mixed bunch of civilian contractors went in. They were ambushed and one killed. I don't know what the fate of the Chinese was. The town's water supply had a bloated dead pig floating in it. This part of town was absolutely deserted and rather creepy.

At night I remember sitting on a bunker with a cold beer watching a duel between a Viet Cong machine gun and one our Puff the Magic Dragons. The fire power was most impressive with their three six barrelled machine guns firing up to eighteen thousand rounds a minute.

There frankly wasn't enough work for ten men on a station. Two could have handled it perfectly well. We spent a lot of time on the firing range. I never did get to like the M60 machine gun but loved the M79 grenade launcher. A very dangerous weapon though. I remember reading of a GI who accidently fired one in the air in a crowded market. What goes up must come down and it killed and injured many people.

One of our GI's shot a cobra on the path between our living quarters and ops room. I can remember driving slowly down some isolated road in Phuc Thuy province when an enormous cobra suddenly reared up in front of me. Like some idiot I found myself slowing down not to run it over. I can understand the expression to be paralysed with fear. That was to happen to me once when shooting erupted at some Viet Cong. It can happen once. Twice is not wise. It’s funny how one can spend hours on a rifle range and when the moment one has to squeeze a trigger for real one can't. As I said I believe once is allowed.

We didn't have very good relations with the local people nor any chance to develop them. The town had not yet felt the full force of being liberated by the US army, but that was to come. It was at Ben Tre in the Delta that an American general had said the town had had to be destroyed to save it.

Phan Thiet being liberated by Montagnard soldiers

Phan Thiet being liberated by the US airforce

Decca Phan Thiet: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-02-27T17:58:00.001+01:00

Decca, Phan Thiet

Decca, Phan Thiet, was known as Green South since the development of the central chain. It was one of the three slave stations. It’s personnel had originally been housed on station but at one time in the past considering themselves the subject of Viet Cong sniper fire had moved down town. By the time I arrived there was only one Decca technician left and due to the deteriorating situation in town he had moved back on station. We now had a detachment of eight members of the 16th Signals Company who more or less ran the station. I feel our role now was purely advisory although we did shifts along with them. The isolation we had known, and perhaps were jealous of had gone. I once heard a story of a Decca technician, who, left alone too long on an island in the Persian Gulf, had opened fire on a relief ship.

A view from our camp with the cemetary in the foreground and part of Phan Thiet in the background.

A damaged Chinook being flown out of camp.

US army jeeps in front of damaged building.

We had no problems in any case with them, and their sergeant was a very keen fellow. Messing was difficult for me. My fellow American Decca technician used to wear US army green fatigues and just walked in to the mess on base and was never questioned. With my beard and khaki drills I was not admitted. Officially Decca was attached to the Provincial Advisory Team which was based down town. Actually this pleased me as it gave me an excuse to drive down town three times a day to eat and get about. I had had enough of living on army bases when I was a soldier. Van Kiep had been different as it was largely a Vietnamese base.

Phan Thiet: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-02-25T11:08:00.000+01:00

Phan Thiet

Phan Thiet

I was posted to Phan Thiet a few days later. I caught an Australian piloted Caribou. Always pleasant fellows to fly with. As I suffered from some form of vertigo their habit of flying just above the trees was most comforting as the fear engendered completely drove the vertigo away.

Phan Thiet was on the coast in 2 Corps, in the southern part of Central Vietnam. It was known for it's 'Nuoc Mam', that pungent fish sauce that accompanied almost all Vietnamese cooking. 'Nuoc' is a Vietnamese word that means liquid, the 'mam' is the fermented fish paste that is the base of the sauce. The best is said to come from the island of Phu Quoc. I would agree. I'm quite sure though that the smell of the fermenting fish is of the same quality in both towns. I like it, the sauce that is, and those that do not should not venture to Vietnam.

The Decca station was at the airfield which was on high ground to the south of the town, with a high cliff on one side dropping down to the sea. Between the airfield and the town was an unkempt cemetery with a raised road going down through it. The town itself was cut in two by a river.

The airfield was a base of the 101st Airborne Division when I was there. A very small company sized camp with a battery of South Vietnamese 155s, a field hospital in an old French building covered with lovely tiles, all of which would be blown off during my stay.

Reunion in a War torn Saigon: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-02-10T18:46:00.001+01:00

Reunion in a War torn Saigon

The next day I went to find PB. Our separation had not been entirely smooth. The letters from each other going rather to extremes. No telephoning possible. In fact in all the years I was in Vietnam I was never able to make or to receive an international call.

The fighting had died down although there was still some going on in Cholon. Of course in cities like Hue the issue would not be resolved for many more weeks. As nobody knew what the situation was and solid news was always unobtainable one had to use one's own judgment. The streets were mostly deserted. The only people about were those that had to go somewhere. I passed a destroyed house. I had to walk as there was no transport at all. It was a most strange feeling.

As I walked down her street and saw PB coming towards me a pair of South Vietnamese Air Force AIE Sky Raiders passed overhead at roof top level. Were they trying to support the morale of the local population or frighten the Viet Cong out of hiding ? I always felt there was something frightening about very low flying aircraft even if they were on your side.

Later I would go to Cholon where the fighting was still going on. There as one first entered the deserted streets one could hear hushed voices behind the closed shutters. Then silence as one went along roads that had been completely abandoned by their inhabitants. It was not the silence of a Sunday morning because such a thing did not exist in Saigon. Then one passed through an area where the buildings had been damaged by the fighting. The further one went the greater the destruction. As I had become completely lost at that time I just headed on towards what I don't know. I think I was very scared. There was something very vulnerable about being the only person about. The streets were at times very long and as a foreigner I did tend to stick out in a crowd. Not that by myself I made very much of one. I knew there were Viet Cong still entrenched, but not where. I could hear the sound of gunfire but it is often difficult to tell direction in built up areas, even if built up was no longer an appropriate word.

I was only driven on by my own curiosity. I had my camera and took photos and fell into my role of photographer. At that time I did not know that a jeep load of four journalists had driven round a corner and run into the Viet Cong. The journalists had called out 'Bao chi, bao chi', which means press reporter, but the Viet Cong had shot three dead anyway although one had managed to escape. They had fired on Boy Scouts working with the Red Cross to help the wounded. The fighting had been very bitter. There were few rules when the Vietnamese set about killing each other. Finally I came across a group of Field Police, very distinctive in their own shade of camouflage and old M1 Garands. I had always found them very pleasant people. I say that as there were some Vietnamese units that gave me the willies. I stayed with them the rest of the day before making my way back. Not a relaxed walk either but gradually improving as I took the right direction back to civilisation.

My reunion with PB is not the concern of this story, but there could not have been a more dramatic background than this Saigon of 1968.

Saigon at War: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-02-07T11:07:00.000+01:00

Saigon at War

Tan Son Nhut airport was deserted. Not a soul. No immigration, no customs inspectors, no police, no visible military. No hope of recovering my luggage. I found a telephone, called the office and was sent an armed escort. I spent a rather uncomfortable night on the office floor and the next day moved down town to a house the company now kept for personnel in transit.

I had not been expected, nor exactly welcomed back. The whole atmosphere had changed. Perhaps this had to do with the ongoing Viet Cong offensive, or with the fact the military had more or less taken over. The 16th Signals Company of the US Army would appear to be running things now and we were in an advisory role. I would get to know and not like the new area manager.

Saigon itself was virtually deserted. A city that one had known to be full of hustle and bustle. It had always amazed me the amount of energy that there was in the east. People had always seemed to be on the move or sitting down in cafés. Talking, shouting, and laughing. Now nothing. We didn't have much to eat either. The Vietnamese, who had stocked up for the New Year festivities, were not too badly off for food but for us there was nothing as all the shops and restaurants were shut. A tin of spam doesn't go very far between four grown men. On the roof of a house opposite two Orang Outangs were kept in small cages. Looking up when I heard their pitiful cries I saw one of the biggest rats I had ever seen outside their cages. Why keep them in two cages? Why keep them caged at all? How could one be a neighbour and live with it? Their cries went on all the time I was in this house, or when I visited it later.

Nobody seemed to know what was going on or what would happen. It is probably often the case in war that those outside the theatre of operations know more of the overall picture than those on the scene. Conversely those not present can also get a false picture. A photo of a flattened street in Saigon can give the impression to a loved one at home ten thousand miles away that there is great danger. If you are on the scene you note in passing that it had happened two or three days before, or in any case it was the next street and not the one you were in. Danger is always relative. I remember being very alert, very sober but not unduly worried. I had recovered my sub-machine gun and pistol from the office without which I would have felt most vulnerable.

Visit to Bangkok: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-02-04T18:10:00.000+01:00

Visit to Bangkok

Bangkok airport was a hive of activity. Related to Vietnam or just normal tourist activity I can't remember. I tried to find out if there were any flights to Saigon. Nothing. All cancelled. The airport at Tan Son Nhut closed.

I went to the section that dealt with US personnel. There was nothing to Vietnam..... The last aircraft they had sent in had been fired upon and all further flights were postponed.

I then went down town and had a shower and some food. Feeling refreshed I returned to the airport and hung around for some time. Upon further enquiry I found out the Americans were going to attempt to send a plane into Tan Son Nhut. No places. Full up. I was as usual in a suit, tie, carrying my trilby hat and the inevitable furled umbrella. Maybe this helped. Always put the opposition in doubt as to who you are. The opposition of course being any kind of authority which stands in one's way. I also produced my very impressive travel orders obtained from the US Embassy in London earlier. As I had a grade of GS 12, the equivalent of major, I must have outranked a fair number of people on the flight. Whether the one I bounced off was happy about it I don't know but there wasn't one smiling face amongst the men who boarded that flight. A mixture of US army personnel and government civilians. It was a three engine Caravel. Belonging to what airline I have no idea. One of those that serviced the US government in any case.

The flight to Saigon was uneventful but there was no slow descent from the coast as usually happened. The pilot had one of those slow reassuring American drawls that I so love. Utterly relaxed. The kind of person one would give one's whole hearted support to. He announced that due to the events below and that any aircraft that attempted to land was being shot at he would do a corkscrew landing. The only thing he promised was that it would be quick.

We did land, the right way up, a few moments later. It had been quick. My heart took somewhat longer to descend from the 10,000 feet where I had left it moments before. I had arrived back in Saigon. A Saigon that was later to become my home.

Karachi, Pakistan: Memories and photos of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-31T12:28:00.001+01:00

Karachi, Pakistan

In Paris I thought the best thing was to get to as near to Vietnam as I could so I took a flight bound for Thailand. I had no clear plan in mind. My own return had been rather upset by these developments. In Washington I had sent a telegram to the Saigon office asking them to reserve me a room at the Hôtel Majestique, and another to PB saying I was on my way back.

These had arrived well before the offensive, although I discovered later the office had done nothing about reserving a room. Our local secretary had been replaced by some utterly incompetent American woman who was there for whose pleasure I'm not sure but certainly not for the benefit of Decca employees.

On the plane to Bangkok I tried to analyse my thoughts, but I think they had become frozen. They should have been on PB, who was perhaps the real reason for my return, but I'm not sure that a desire to be part of the unfolding events wasn't uppermost in my mind. The job, although agreable, was not my priority. My initiative was perhaps stronger than that of most of our personnel, but the motivation behind it was entirely different. I stayed stone cold sober, not having even a beer, as I tended to do when faced with major developments.

As we approached Karachi the Captain came to see me and asked me if I had a visa for Thailand. I said no as I had no interest in visiting the country and was only stopping over at the airport to hitch a lift to Saigon. He seemed to take this lack of visa very seriously, whilst I couldn't give a damn. The result was he put me off the plane at Karachi. I spent a miserable few hours on some camp bed in a very depressing room, with only a glass of orange juice. I have mentioned earlier that I hadn't even had a beer on the flight, but it is always irritating to arrive at odd airports in the night and find everything closed. To name a few, it had happened in Hawaii, Midway and Wake Island before.

In the morning I went to the Thai Embassy and thankfully obtained a visa in an hour, went back to the airport and took a flight to Bangkok. I hadn't even had the desire to spend a day there, which is what I usually did when I found myself stuck in strange places.

A long and difficult journey: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-30T16:30:00.001+01:00

A long and difficult journey

I spent the night in the Hilton, Washington. I have always believed that when in doubt first class hotels are always the best. Small family hotels are lovely when you have time to get to know the people. A curious thing happened whilst checking in though. When I had registered they asked me what credit card I would be using. I said I would be paying cash and immediately they asked for my passport as though cash was a dubious way to pay and made one a suspicious character.

I went to the office the following morning and by evening that day was on a plane on my way back to Vietnam. Not for me this time a month's wait for a flight.

Saigon via London. By some logic that escaped me I had to pass by the US Embassy in London to pick up my travel orders and various other documents. I wasn't even a resident of the UK any more. In London just before I was to get my flight the Viet Cong made massive attacks all over Vietnam in what was to become known as the Tet Offensive as it was during the New Year celebrations. All flights to Saigon were cancelled. I was still in my very gung ho period. Another Englishman who was meant to travel out to Saigon was held back by the London office and took six weeks to arrive. I was brought up in a different school.

I decided I had better have some more cash so went to the London office of my American bank and asked to withdraw some dollars. They said I wasn't allowed any dollars and it was against the law to have a foreign account anyway. I had to produce my United States Defense Department identity papers and explain my position before I could withdraw any money. Governments and I have never got on. I haven't got on with banks and head offices either.

I decided to take a flight to Paris.

Adieu to the Bahamas: Memories, notes and photos of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-28T16:21:00.001+01:00

Adieu to the Bahamas

I was sitting on the beach of the Mantagu Beach Hotel. This was well known to Decca personnel. It had a swimming pool and below that a bar. In fact the wall behind the bar was a glass partition at the deep end of the swimming pool. An American honeymoon couple had found this out to their cost on entering the bar after coming down from the pool. They checked out of the hotel in five minutes.

I had in years gone by met a Canadian girl on this beach. She was part American Indian and had the most intriguing eyes I had ever seen. A deep brown, almost black, with flecks of green and gold. She wrote me the most beautiful letters in French when I had gone back to the out islands. We only received our mail once a month when the sea plane arrived with our food and beer. I had to wait to the following month to send the reply. It had been a very slow pace of life. Cut off from the world, no telephones and only the BBC foreign service. The most utterly lovely swimming where one would spend up to three hours in the water at a time scuba diving.

I saw my sister walking towards me down the beach. She was dressed for the office and had a purposeful stride to her and I immediately knew what she was going to say when she was ten yards away. I was to call Washington immediately. I went to the local office, called the head office and two days later was on a plane to Washington. The goodbyes were untroubled this time. No tears. Even Susan came along. She was to move to Paris later, but maybe she will enter another blog I'm writing.

Going Slowly Home: Memories and photos of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-26T15:54:00.002+01:00

Going Slowly Home

When I was in the army the regiment went off to the colonies or various wars by troopship. They also came home again by troopship. The French had used the 'Messagerie Maritime' to sail from Marseilles to Saigon and back again. It is the slowly going back home again that is important. I do not believe it is either good for the person concerned or indeed for his family to step straight off a plane from some distant war and suddenly appear on one's doorstep.

As a tourist ship from Bangkok was the last thing I wanted if indeed there had been one, I had flown from Saigon to Bangkok and then taken the train down to a small distant town on that narrow part of the country that is between Thailand, Burma and Malaya. I went to a place on the eastern coast that had a practically deserted hotel where I took a wooden hut on stilts for a week and drank whatever was bothering me out of my system.

I then made my way back to our office in Washington, stopping off here and there but not hurrying. Just slowly winding down. When about three weeks after leaving Saigon I reported into our office I was bright eyed and bushy tailed and feeling in fine form. I had an agreeable meeting with the powers that be and then flew down to the Bahamas via Miami.

The greetings at home went off perfectly and I settled in for a long leave.

Hue, South Vietnam, 50th anniversary. Vietnam notes & photos 1965 1975

2018-01-25T10:49:00.003+01:00

Goodbye Van Kiep: notes, photos and memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-24T18:27:00.000+01:00

Goodbye Van Kiep

At about the time the new colonel arrived there were some US army engineers doing some construction work on the American compound. They were very undisciplined and amongst other things either didn't shave or tried to grow beards. The new US colonel blamed this on my beard giving a bad example. He banned me from the mess. I had been on the base for over two years and he only two weeks.

I was by this time rather tired. I had only had one proper weeks leave and needed a breath of fresh air. I could probably have carried on quite well without the messing facilities but we had always had very good relations with the army at the camp but were in no way subject to their dress code. I had always considered myself very correctly dressed, always in clean pressed khaki drills when I came on or off duty, plus my beret or bush hat. So I said good bye to Van Kiep never to set foot there again. When a year later I was ordered back I refused and went to Tay Ninh instead.

I went to Saigon and became one of those odd bods who hung around the office for some time before deciding to leave the country on long leave.

During this time the new colonel killed himself whilst driving down the road to Vung Tau at night without lights at high speed and slammed into a broken down lorry. Rather a waste to get killed that way when he could have been honourably killed in battle.

Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-23T15:30:00.002+01:00

Phan Thiet 1968: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-22T17:15:00.001+01:00

Photos taken in Phan Thiet in the begining of 1968.
At the time I was working for Decca Navigator on the airfield but messing down town with MACV.

A wedding in Saigon: Memories of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-22T14:57:00.001+01:00

Scenes from a wedding in Saigon in the late 1960's

The Two Colonels: Notes and photos Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-21T17:25:00.000+01:00

The Two Colonels

I have mentioned earlier that we had two colonels living in the camp. One was the adviser to Provincial Headquarters, and the other ran the US camp at Van Kiep. We were under the latter. The provincial adviser was old army and I doubt if I said two words to him the whole time I was there. He hated the camp commander who was a member of one of America's minorities. I found him very decent and got on very well with him. He only used his authority on me once when after some row with my girl friend in Vung Tau I had ridden a motor scooter up to the base at about ten o'clock in the evening. I was none too sober and he wouldn't let me drive back to Vung Tau at midnight.

What usually happened was life in a small camp depended on the colonel's tastes. If the colonel drank everybody drank, if the colonel didn't drink, nobody did. If the colonel required everybody to use the rifle range everybody did. I'm sure I became a much better shot there than I ever did in the army. We certainly had a much wider choice of weapons to choose from.

Anyway there was an incident involving our colonel, his sergeant, who belonged to yet another minority, and two female Vietnamese soldiers. The colonel who was the provincial adviser broke our colonel, and I believe destroyed his career, who was replaced by another old army colonel.

Memories, photos and songs of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-20T10:32:00.001+01:00

Flight Instructors: Notes & photos of Vietnam 1965 1975

2018-01-19T08:03:00.000+01:00

Flight Instructors

This was a rather hazardous job. Spending one's time flying around Vietnam during the war with all the dangers attached was not to everybody's taste. We all had to do it to move from A to B from time to time but not on a daily basis. Some of the younger pilot's, and most seemed very young, were rather wild.

I knew a flight instructor from the Bahamas. His mother had been a racing car driver. He had been sentenced to death in Cuba for gun running, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment, and then had been released under the Tractor/Bay of Pigs deal with the Americans. I had tried to see him when I was in Cuba, but as he was in the Isle of Pines nobody was very helpful, and I had enough of my own problems at that time.

Jerry Degnan, another flight instructor went missing in 1967. There was an investigation as to where he had gone and nobody had a clue. Flight Instructors led their own program, rarely if ever, informing the office where they were going. If I had done quite a lot of unauthorised travelling by road, they did it officially by air, and nobody the wiser. And I had told my mother if anything happened to me she would know within twenty four hours.

I believe the mystery of his death was only cleared up a few years ago. There had been a mix up of bodies from a helicopter that had been shot down and as with many cases only a determined insistence by his family had resolved the issue. I felt our own HQ in Saigon had been pretty useless.

Puff the Magic Dragon: Vietnam notes & photos 1965 1975

2017-08-12T19:41:00.000+02:00

Puff the Magic Dragon

I have a CD of Peter, Paul and Mary. I can't remember if they were the original group who sang the song, 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. It has always been one of my favourites. There was also another song by an Irishman about a Unicorn that I rather liked. Puff was also a Gun Ship. A DC3 armed with three Gatling type six barrelled machine guns each of which could fire six thousand rounds a minute making a total of eighteen thousand rounds. At night with their tracers it gave the impression of a dragon shooting tongues of fire. There was also a lesser known twin tailed C119 version.

It was in this war that the US first introduced the C130 Gunship, armed with a 105mm howitser. There was also a ten thousand pound bomb used to clear landing areas in the jungle and killing everything directly or indirectly in its path. The old Huey choppers were used with all sorts of combinations of armaments.

Napalm seemed to be accepted as a normal means of warfare, perhaps until a certain photograph of a young girl fleeing its destruction was taken. Flying over certain areas of Vietnam one could see a pocked marked country ravaged by the bombs of the B52's and the spoliation of Agent Orange. I have always felt that such photos, even the sights themselves, have much more of an effect on those outside the zone of conflict than those in it. A self protective mechanism has kicked in which switches one's emotions off to preserve one's sanity. Of course there is another slow insidious creep of fear, revulsion and disgust that slowly builds up in one's unconsciousness and takes its toll.