More Vietnam Pictures
Posted: Sun Nov 13, 2016 8:58 am
With this being the Veterans Day weekend, and me laid up rehabbing my knee replacement, now two weeks out, and going well, thought I would put up a few pictures of a typical combat operation in IV Corps, deep in the Mekong Delta, during my second six months there in mid-72. One lazy day, we heard shooting coming from across the river, from the direction of a small compound protected by about 30 or so local Vietnamese troops. So we rounded up a rescue team, and hopped into some local sampan boats, and headed that way. It was the usual, typical VC/Main Force operation. Leave a local outpost alone, so the local troops would get lazy and complacent, and then just after lunch, when the Vietnamese troops would cook lunch, and then nap for the afternoon, just walk in the front gate. It would only take a minute or so to run thru the compound, tossing grenades into the bunkers where the troops and their families would be sacked out, grab the commo equipment and weapons, and head back into their territory.
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[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
It didn't take long to get to the compound. Note the smoking and damaged bunkers.
All dead, troops, children, wives, so we set about pulling them out of their burnt and blasted bunkers. [URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
In a few minutes, heard the Vietnamese rescue team hollering and jumping down into the burnt bunkers, and I asked my interpreter what was going on, he told me they had just given our supporting 105 artillery the wrong coordinates, and incoming white phosphorus was coming in, so I jumped into a bunker, and then poked my head out see how close "friendly fire" was. As usual, they were off 50 or more yards. We cleaned up and headed back to my own compound.
[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
[URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
It didn't take long to get to the compound. Note the smoking and damaged bunkers.
All dead, troops, children, wives, so we set about pulling them out of their burnt and blasted bunkers. [URL=http://s663.photobucket.com/user/h ... .jpg[/img][/url]
In a few minutes, heard the Vietnamese rescue team hollering and jumping down into the burnt bunkers, and I asked my interpreter what was going on, he told me they had just given our supporting 105 artillery the wrong coordinates, and incoming white phosphorus was coming in, so I jumped into a bunker, and then poked my head out see how close "friendly fire" was. As usual, they were off 50 or more yards. We cleaned up and headed back to my own compound.