50 years ago today -Vietnam Part 4 - Tragedy

Jul 17, 2020, 8:17 AM

After "breakfast", our mission of the day was to provide security for a company of armor on patrol which we had joined the previous day. My squad was assigned to ride the 1st tank ( the kind with the big gun ) and I was positioned at its front close to the treads. Only a couple hundred meters from our night position the column of armored vehicles had to pass between the flooded rice paddies and the steep slope of the mountain ( not much room between the two). There was a ditch running from the hillside to the paddies and when the driver stopped to change gears I looked down and saw that it was filled with bamboo and realized that there was none growing anywhere in sight. I looked up at the tank commander and told him that I was concerned but he laughed it off saying they had passed over the ditch for several days and there was nothing to worry about and told the driver to go ahead. I rolled into the fetal position thinking that if anything blew up, I would already be against the top of the tank and would not have to absorb the impact of it coming upwards. The tank rocked back and forth a few times while getting over the ditch but made it easily. After getting to the other side, I sat up and turned to watch the second vehicle cross safely and decided that the tank commander had been right and assumed my duty of watching for snipers along the hillside. But then I heard the loudest explosion of my entire time over there and turned to see a huge ball of fire and black smoke with an APC (Armored Personnel Carrier) about 10 feet off the ground. The crater the bomb made was so wide and deep that the APC almost went entirely into it as it came back to the ground. The entire crew from the APC was killed and several soldiers from our company also died - the engine of the APC was blown out the rear cargo door and somehow met the Tank commander in the air - he was found about 30 meters from the explosion sitting upright on the ground with his arms and legs wrapped around the engine as if he had just managed to catch it intentionally. One of our guys had fallen to the ground at the top of the crater before the APC came down to pin him down. The APC was carrying untold amounts of ammunition for the .50 caliber machine guns and rounds for the tanks big guns and it was exploding as the vehicle burned, but one of our guys was trying to dig his buddy out from under it with his steel helmet. This was with a hole in the side of the APC big enough for lots of shrapnel flying out just above his head. By the time he got him out it was too late to save him - I knew he was dead when I ran up to help him pull him out. The APC burned for a long time and was so hot that we had to wait until the next day to remove the driver's remains from the wreckage. My most vivid memory of that incident was the words of the tank commander of my vehicle after the explosion as he yelled at my squad, " What are you waiting for? Go help them." And my thought was that if he had heeded my warning that it would not have happened.

Message was edited by: clover65®

Message was edited by: clover65®

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Clover ..... as a combat engineer our main job for my first six months in country was sweep roads and other areas for mines. Our class leader in Engineer's School, Lt. Wally Reitmeier had lost both of his legs and an eye clearing a minefield, so I was especially respectful of mines and areas that could be mined. My platoon thad three mine detectors and we never had more than two of them working at the same time. However, we had an old saying that "the best mine detector is an alert Marine" ...... which was so true. You did your job and you detected something that was out of the ordinary. The tank commander should have never crossed over that ditch. When we accompanied the grunts or on any operation we were always called to the front if something unusual was discovered. On roads we were always out front, but in the boondocks on trails the grunts always had a point man and security ahead of us.

Were the first two vehicles lucky or do you suspect that the mine was command detonated and they were waiting for a vehicle with the most soldiers on it?

50 years ago today -Vietnam Part 4 - Tragedy

Re: 50 years ago today -Vietnam Part 4 - Tragedy

TigerLinks, do you sit right behind me in Sec UN row P?***

Re: TigerLinks, do you sit right behind me in Sec UN row P?***

I have always figured we were just lucky

Re: I have always figured we were just lucky

damm... thanks for sharing. I got no stories that can touch that.

Re: damm... thanks for sharing. I got no stories that can touch that.

Thanks for your service

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