New Equipment Blues II
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I had hoped never to see the name MEMCOR again, but I was
not to be that lucky.
In 1965 I was with the 232nd
Signal Company in Viet Nam. We received two new Radio Terminal Set AN/MRC-69 (V), a
shelter complete with equipment.
It was designed to operate from the bed of a 2-1/2 ton
truck. Most of ours
were ground mounted, with bunkers built around them.
One of the new ones was to go up country somewhere.
The second one was to be taken out to Duc Hoa to replace
an old shelter. SGT
Louis Amacker and his team were there, supplying communications
to the advisory team working with the ARVN (Army of the Republic
of Viet Nam) division headquarters at that location.
I tried to talk captain Shippey into letting me supply
power to the shelter for a day or so to test everything first,
before we took it to Duc Hoa.
That turned into an urgent plea after I discovered
the two AN/TRC-24 radios in the shelter had been built by the
MEMCOR company!
The captain would not buy the request, saying he wanted
to get the new equipment out the next day.
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Besides,
the arrangements had been made for the wrecker to be used that day
only.
I knew there was no use going on about it, but I grew even
more worried when the lifting shackles on the shelter all bent,
and one broke, while putting the shelter on the back of a truck
for transport.
The next day our small convoy drove off into “Indian
country” to deliver the new AN/MRC-69 to Duc Hoa.
Amacker and his team had torn down the sandbag walls
around the old shelter, a major job in itself, in preparation
for the change, so as soon as we arrived we went right to work.
The wrecker operator was good, which came in handy
because the old shelter had to be snaked out around trees, and
the new one put in the same way.
Once the new shelter was in place and all cables
attached, Amacker started putting the communications back in
while his men started the back breaking job of restacking
hundreds of heavy sandbags.
We placed the old shelter on the back of the truck and
secured it, while all our people waited to get back to Tan Son
Nhut, wanting to be off the roads long before darkness.
I took a few minutes to talk to Amacker, telling him I
did not trust the new radios, and for him to keep a close eye on
them. We
went home and back to our regular routines. |
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The peace did not last long. About
2100 (9:00 PM) captain Shippery came looking for me.
Duc Hoa had had both transmitters fail.
They had called in through an advisor radio link saying
they needed replacement. I
had to get two replacement transmitters and take them to the
airfield where a helicopter was waiting for me.
We flew out to Duc Hoa in the dark, little below us but
swamps and Viet Cong. Amacker
had borrowed a ¾ ton truck and had it at the helipad, flashing
his lights to show the pilots where to come in.
The pilot used his flood light on and off to help spot the
pad, but kept it off as much as possible to prevent having a
bright target for “Charlie” to aim at.
We landed, without incident, on a pad I thought was too
small for a UH-1. I was grateful for well-trained aircrews.
I asked the pilot if I could have some ground time,
mentioning fifteen minutes, and he said okay.. We
loaded the two replacement transmitters on the truck and drove to
the shelter, where we replaced the “new” ones.
It took close to thirty minutes all together, trying to
repair the defective equipment before I gave up and we drove back to the pad.
I was afraid the pilots would be wanting to get off the
ground. |
When we arrived back at the Huey the two pilots were
nowhere in sight.
As we loaded the transmitters the crew chief and his assistant said
both pilots had wandered off to the advisors officers club.
I was hoping they were making do with cold sodas, not alcohol.
They came back in a few more minutes and started up, lifting off
almost at once, back into that dark Vietnamese night.
Captain Shippey's driver met me at the Tan Son Nhut pad and we took
the two transmitters straight to maintenance.
Our electronic maintenance operated twenty four hours per day so that
saved time getting the equipment turned in.
Over the next few weeks almost every piece of equipment in that new
shelter failed, and Amacker replaced them one or two pieces at a time.
At least the items went out slowly enough so that we did not have to
make any more night flights. I never received any more MEMCOR made radio equipment.
Only AN/TCC-7 carrier equipment made by Elgin.
But that’s a different story. |
Training Areas II
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Grafenwoehr was the one major training area
every soldier in Germany could name, even if they had never been close
to it. "Graf" was the Army's Combined Arms Training
Center, with plenty of room for artillery, armored personnel carriers,
and tanks. I made it into Graf only once or twice, and then only for
short times. Graf was the place where the German Army had
perfected the Panzer tactics they used in World War II.
Graf had a sub post named Vilseck. It was
mostly one large artillery range. In October, 1959, Company A,
123rd Signal Battalion was called upon to supply two radio
terminal and carrier teams to support 3rd Infantry Division artillery
units scheduled for live firing at Vilseck. I was a SP4 at the
time, and going to GED classes each afternoon at the Education Center at
Leighton Barracks. Sergeant Brooker was newly promoted. He
had been working at Division Supply for a long period and had to come
back to the unit and work before he could be promoted. Because he
had been away from his normal job for a long time, he was not too sure
he could handle the job when his team was selected as one of the two for
the Vilseck job. He was short an operator anyway, and asked that I
be allowed to go with him on the mission. The job was supposed to
be over before the GED tests were scheduled, and I assured the platoon
sergeant I could miss the classes.
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I have tried to remember the name of the other
team chief, without any luck doing so. That man was a senior E-5,
one of the best radio terminal chiefs we had, as well as being easy to
get along with. In May, 1959, when it appeared that we might go to
war over Berlin, I had been loaned to him as a senior operator for ten
days. His senior operator now was a man named Fannin. I
would run into Fannin later, in 1974, when we served together with the
32nd Signal Battalion. The junior operator on their team was
a man newly arrived in Germany, and young. I cannot remember who
the other operator was on Brooker's team.
We were taking two teams, each having a 2-1/2
ton truck with a home built shelter on it, and each with a 1-1/2 ton
trailer with two generators. Because we were going to have to
operate without our normal unit support, we were also taking a 1/4 ton
truck (Jeep) for our own support. I would be driving the Jeep, and
the new man would be my assistant driver.
We went to Kitzinger, where Division Artillery
(DIVARTY) headquarters was located and joined up with their convoy to
drive to Vilseck. 1959 had been a beautiful year so far, one of
the best ever in German history. It had stayed warm until the
first of October, but it was cooling off now. The jeep, as
was normal for our vehicles except for dead of winter, did not have
doors or sides on it. The new man was cold from the moment we
started. By the time we reached Vilseck I wondered if he was going
to survive. But I have to admit he was game, if young and a little
talky. |
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We spent ten days at Vilseck, one of the most
enjoyable periods I had in Germany. DIVARTY fired some of their
guns we never saw (probably 155mm or 8-inches) and they also fired two
"Honest John" rockets. The Honest John was the division
level nuclear delivery weapon. They were 762-milimeter, mounted on
a rail-launcher on a 2-1/2 ton truck. The ones DIVARTY were
to fire had dummy (concrete filled) warheads. Otherwise, they
fired them just as they would have the real thing.
We never knew for sure what was going on.
We would be given locations to go to and general instructions.
They never told us who was shooting what. One day Brooker's team
was set up on a hilltop overlooking the artillery impact areas down in a
wide valley. We had a fine view of artillery rounds impacting
below. We just never knew which impacts were caused by our guns
and which ones came from other units. Another time we were in
a medium-size field and could see almost nothing. A German team
came into the field and set up 81-milimeter mortars and spent time
firing them for a couple hours, giving us a good view of their
operations.
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Vilseck had dirt roads. The summer had
been fairly dry, by German standards, and whenever we drove anywhere
great clouds of off-white dust clouds went with us. I usually
followed Brooker's truck. The new man was gone with the other team
so I was alone in the jeep most of the time. I always knew the
truck was ahead of me, but the dust would get so thick I would lose
sight of almost everything except the dust and a little of the road.
One morning we were told DIVARTY was getting ready to
fire their Honest Johns and we set out for their area. The other
team went to the hilltop observation area. We were to put in a
system between the firing site and the observation point (OP) to give
them telephone communications. I was following far enough behind
Brooker's truck to avoid most of the dust cloud, but close enough to not
lose them, as I did not know where we were going. We came to a
place where there was a huge open area on the left of the road. In
that open area were six or eight 280-milimeter "atomic
cannons." Those were the first delivery systems the
Army had for tactical nuclear devices, dating to just about the end of
the Korean War. They were huge things, being moved on two
prime-movers, one on each end, which gave them good mobility, regardless
of how big they were. When they set up to fire they had a large
center piece which lowered to the ground as a mount, and the
prime-movers were removed. |
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The guns were pointing up in the air, and
directly across our road. When I saw them I started hoping
they were not going to fire anytime soon. That hope was dashed
just as the jeep came even with the edge of the cleared area. One
of them fired a round. Everything shook, the ground vibrated, and
even more dust went straight up into the air over the entire
field.
I thought for a few seconds I might lose
control of the jeep, but the steering wheel settled down and I continued
to follow the truck. I noticed the dust cloud was growing smaller,
as if they were slowing down, and I wondered if they were going to turn
in front of the guns. Which is just what they did. They
turned right and drove directly away from the guns, but in line with the
direction they were firing. I had nothing else to do but follow
them. |
We drove about a half-mile down that road and pulled into a small
field. There we were to set up our site. At that
time it was about 1100 (11 am). For the rest of the day,
until 1700 (5 pm), the guns fired a round every fifteen
minutes. We could not see the guns, but we sure could hear
them, and feel the results of their firing. Each time they
fired the ground shook. We were raising the antenna, having
it about half way up when one fired.
The antenna and mast shook like a tuning fork for several seconds.
In addition, if we looked up when they fired, we could see the massive
shell going over, making a sound like a train in the distance. |
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