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Vietnam 1967-68 - LZ Young - second trip, part 1
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We moved back to LZ young
in a driving rain this time. Not fun; slippery, sloppy red mud everywhere including from head to
toe on me. It seems that LZ Young and several other bases in the area were being mortared every
day. As soon as we arrived the attacks stopped. I guess that being a deterrent was good but
quite
frankly, we would rather have located him and had the artillery "take him out." While on LZ Gator Mr.'T' acquired two metal 8x8x8 storage conexes, had one side of each cut out and then had them welded together. We turned this 8 ft x 16ft metal box into a portable operations center by adding wiring and lights and 'permanently' installed the Radar Control Unit stand, maps, telephones, coffee pot, radios and even a narrow bed. The box could easily be hauled under a helicopter to any location. We would now be able to be fully operational in less than an hour and 'bunkered' in just a couple of hours. When we moved back to LZ Young we had the chinook set the operations center down against the open side of an existing and unused bunker on top of the hill. We sandbagged the box and made improvements to the existing bunker and wound up with a very comfortable setup. We had plenty of room for the cots, mattresses and other comfort items that we brought with us inside the ops center. We even found a spot for our portable shower tank. Moving is a bit of a pain but we seem to wind up with a little better setup each time we do it. The only dim spot was the fact that there was no artillery battery on LZ Young when we got there. The infantry chow that we had to eat was so bad that we often ate C-rations instead. There is a picture on this page of small pizzas made from C-rations that we were cooking using an M60 machine gun Ammo box for a pizza oven and C-4 plastic explosive for fuel. C-4 burns much like sterno so long as it is in the open and lit with a match from the outside; step on it though and your foot is history. The pizzas were not Pizza Hut quality but they were better than the alternative. For the first week that we were there things were completely quiet on the hill and in the surrounding area. On the seventh day a sniper took a shot at an arriving helicopter. Big mistake on his part; A Cobra Gunship was nearby and I got to see at close hand the wrath that one of those machines can unleash on an enemy. First the Gunship expended all of his ordinance by strafing and rocketing the area from whence the shots came. After that everyone on the hill fired at the same area. I do not know if we hit him but all was quiet for quite awhile afterwards. Infantry patrols often picked up a VC or two but this was usually quite some distance from the hill. On the afternoon of Sept.17 things began to get a bit 'hotter'. An Engineer company was working on the road about 1500 meters from LZ Young. Charlie hit it and us simultaneously with mortars and then attacked the engineers on the ground. We located the mortar and called in artillery from a nearby firebase on it. An airstrike was called in on the NVA troops on the ground and a couple of fighter jets and helicopter gunships quickly dispatched the enemy on the ground. No one on the LZ was injured but several in the convoy were killed. We think that the mortar fire on our hill was just designed to keep us pinned down. Shortly after the ground attack on the road crew, another infantry company arrived on our hill. We already had an engineer company, 2 infantry companies, 8 mortars, several 106mm recoilless rifles, a quad 50 machine gun and a number of M60 machine guns.... And, thank goodness, an artillery battery arrives tomorrow. Now we will be able to get some decent food. All of this armament made us a good target for mortars but a poor one for a ground attack. For the last couple of days now there have been airstrikes by fighter jets and B-52 bombers within 2 to 3000 meters of our LZ. On Sept. 21 we learned that the NVA have been using this area for a base camp for some time. We also heard that a number of American Tanks were in the area and that they and the infantry were inflicting heavy losses on the NVA and VC in the area nearby. It is still quiet on our hill. We have gotten a couple of mortar locations each night. So much for 'quiet'. On Sept. 23 Charlie started hitting LZ Young as well as other LZs in the area daily. At about 6:30 PM on the 23rd we were hit by mortars, recoilless rifles and small arms fire. We never actually saw the enemy that night but he was close - within 300 or so meters of our perimeter. He was so close that it was difficult to tell from the sound whether we were hearing our guns and mortars or his. I could have sworn that we took 20 or so recoilless rifle rounds but his weapon could be seen and those who saw it say he fired only 4 rounds before our artillery zeroed in on it and finished it off. During that attack he scored a direct hit on one of our 105 howitzers, injuring five gunners. Only one wound was serious - a stomach wound - but the gun was out of commission permanently. We think that a ground attack was in progress but was broken up because Charlie seriously underestimated our strength. The 25 or so tanks that had just arrived on the opposite side of the hill may have had something to do with this. | |
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The intense mortar attack
lasted about 30 minutes and small arms fire and sporadic continued firing of mortar rounds lasted
most of the night. Our counterattack lasted the rest of the night and continued into the next day
with jets and helicopters strafing the area. We got eleven separate mortar locations that night.
Some were firing at us and some at other LZs in the area that were also being hit. To add insult to
injury the rain that was falling caused the front sandbagged wall of our bunker to partially
collapse. Needless to say we had to do a lot of work first thing in the morning to repair it before
nightfall. During the most intense early portion of the mortar attack our generator ran out of fuel. As soon as we realized that the generator shutdown was the reason for our radar's shutdown, Mr."T" ran out of our bunker, sprinted the 50 meters to the generator, changed fuel drums and restarted the generator. As he re-entered the bunker he told several of us to "knock him out" if he ever did anything stupid like that again. I don't know if he ever recieved recognition for his timely and heroic "stupid" act but he should have! Mr. Anthony E. Trovatos's brave act under the intense fire we were getting at the time allowed us to continue to operate, locate the attacking mortars and it contributed materially to the successful repulsion of the enemy that night. "Puff, the Magic Dragon" visited LZ Young for several hours on that night. "Puff" was a C-47 (DC3) twin engine prop aircraft, armed with 3 miniguns as well as a large supply of flares. Unlike helicopters and jets who must refuel frequently, this slow and lumbering beast was able to stay on station for hours and carried the ammunition to fire continuously for a very long time. That night "Puff" circled LZ Young for several hours and filled every square inch of our perimeter with bullets. The next night, September 24, we got hit again; and this time "Charlie" sent a suicide squad in with grenades and 'Satchel Charges', as well as all of the other fire from the outside. At least one succeeded in getting through our perimeter without being spotted. Unfortunately for his comrades he destroyed their advantage of surprise by throwing grenades before they were inside and a number of others were killed "in the wire". The worst damage that he caused was to a bunker with a 106mm recoilless rifle on top. The grenade that he threw into the bunker injured six people. The satchel charge he threw on top destroyed the 106. All of our guys did "yoeman" duty that night. One that deserves a special mention is J.W.(The Abby) Abruzzino. He manned our M60 machine gun from the roof and fired so much that he literaly burned up the barrel on the weapon. We were not a perimeter defense bunker and his firing was close over the heads of the perimeter bunker in front of us. At times he stood and fired "from the hip" so as to clear that bunker by a few more feet. I am certain that no enemy would have been able to get thru the fury that he unleashed on the perimeter in that area. Yours truely was at a firing hole inside of our bunker most of the night and periodically fed ammunition to the guys on the roof. During that attack we took a dud round through the roof of the operations portion of our bunker that continued on through the floor and into the ground. It brushed the back of SSG Parks flack jacket on the way through and knocked him across the room but did not injure him or damage any equipment. I shudder to think what would have happened if it had detonated. Although the temptation was great to get out of the bunker, we correctly reasoned that the one that went through did not explode and probably would not and the ones hitting outside were exploding and therefore it was still safer inside. Also our Radar was badly needed to continue to locate the enemy and was still able to do so. All of us got medals for our actions that night. | |
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The next morning an EOD (Bomb disposal) man was called. When he arrived he walked into the
ops center, looked at the entry and exit holes, said "hmm" and went back outside. He came back
a minute later with a long whip antenna from a jeep. When I stopped him and asked him what he
planned to do, he said that he was going to bang on the round with the antenna and see what it
sounded like. I got out of the bunker very quickly!! He came back outside and told us that it
sounded like an American illumination round and that it was probably safe to continue to
operate on top of it. 'Probably!' - We made the decision to move our bunker ASAP. As he
walked around our bunker he spotted a small B-40 rocket stuck in our front wall. He pulled it
out, threw it up in the air, caught it and then put it in his pocket! I suppose that they knew what
they were doing but it seemed like they had a death wish and were tempting fate all of the time. I
decided that I would never get close to an EOD man again. On Sept. 26 four of the eight people in our section finished their tours and left for home. This left us with only four people since we had yet to receive any replacements. Trying to run a 24 hour per day operation was difficult to say the least. Operate it we did though - 18 mortar locations in the past 5 days. |
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No. I am not still in the army; I was
discharged in November of 1969 after completing my 3 year enlistment. I don't have a set of
Jungle Fatigues so these Stateside Fatigues from 1969 will have to do here. The shirt fits; the
pants....Oh well.... Click here to contact me by
Email. This site is best viewed with a maximized 800 x 600 size and a high color display setting. Placing your cursor over any of the pictures will display a description for that picture. The music that is playing on this page is 'Wooly Bully', a song from the 60s that was used in Full Metal Jacket, a movie about Vietnam. |
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