Thursday - February 26, 2004
Another Perspective from Someone Who was There
My dad sent me some poignant recollections of his
two tours in Viet Nam that I think fit very well with my last rant. I've
invited him to share his memories on my rant page.
First some background. Dad spent 25
years in the Navy, retiring as a Chief Warrant Officer 4 around the time I was
in college. I'm very proud of his Naval career, he enlisted in 1956, went
through boot camp at Great Lakes, where he so excelled to be put into the high
tech rating of Sonarman. He made chief in seven years and did two tours in Viet
Nam. His later career is of great merit, but that's a story for another day.
Today's rant is from his time aboard the USS Brownson, DD-868
while it was with Destroyer Squadron 20, and with the Seventh Fleet. She
provided naval gunfire support for allied ground operations, and also provided
plane guard escort duty for carrier operation in the Gulf of Tonkin. The ship
spent the first 20 days of February 1967 on the "Gunline" off the coast of South
Viet Nam. She fired over 3200 rounds of ammunition in support of allied troops
and the harassment of the enemy, in the area around the mouth of the Saigon
River. Dad was the Sonar Chief, and here are his stories.
Dad writes:
I probably told you this before, but here
goes again.
My first encounter
with this type of “action” was on my first tour to Viet Nam on the
Brownson. After “plane guarding” for a carrier for weeks on end
we finally got a chance to go in for “H & I” in the northern
part of South Viet Nam. H & I is “Harassment and
Interdictment”, firing the 5-inch guns for a few minutes every hour around
the clock. We did it sporadically, never on a schedule. We were
anchored off the inlet of some small river and would go to a modified General
Quarters and fire either the forward 5-inch or the aft 5-inch to give both crews
“training”. During this phase of the tour, I was assigned to
Combat Information Center where we decided what time that hour to fire and where
in our assigned area we were to aim. This type of action was meant to keep
the enemy sleepless and terrified. The Modified GQ meant only the gun
crews, fire control crews (computerized gun aimers) and CIC would be involved in
the task while the rest of the crew continued doing whatever, sleeping at night,
sunbathing during the day, etc. Of course for safety the vicinity of the
gun mount being used would be off-limits to the rest of the
crew. When I wasn’t on duty I would be sleeping or sunbathing
also. In the early morning hours, the single or double occupant bumboats
would come out and do their net fishing all around us and we didn’t bother
them and they went on about their business. Also at this time the Navy
swift boats would come alongside and get ice cream and fresh baked bread before
going upriver. The Army helos would come and hover over the Helodeck to
give us their itinerary and swap daily radio codes so we could converse with
them. Most of the time the radios were not compatible because we
didn’t have the same frequencies as the Army so we couldn’t
communicate with them anyway. One morning while I was coming off watch and
setting up for sunbathing, the Army helo departed from us and went skimming off
toward shore. The cocky gunner hanging out the side would usually fire a
few rounds from his machine gun to insure it worked before going “feet
dry” as we called it when an aircraft went over land. This time he
was shooting at the bumboats and sinking them as he went along. No reason
for it that I could see. We did nothing about the incident that I know
of. Possibly the CO did something, but what would that be? I thought
of those men and women in those bumboats a
lot.
But I had my own problems. I
didn’t have time to think about some ignorant fishermen. One morning
after firing the aft gun mount all night I was told that the cable for lowering
the Bathysphere used for acquiring the water temperature for sonar was overboard
and may have fouled the ship's propellers. The firing of the aft gun had
broken off the framework that held the cable about 3 feet away from the ship
when we lowered and retrieved the BT. When it went overboard it took the cable
with it because the winch had not been locked. As the senior Sonarman
aboard, this was my responsibility. I was in deep doodoo. The cable
was all tangled up, so we couldn’t just winch it in, we had to pull it in
by hand. We are talking about hundreds of feet of cable. Fortunately,
when we got to the point where the wire finally got taut, up came the framework
and we were in the clear. The ships welders welded the framework back onto
the ship and all was okay except for the kinked cable that we had to
replace. The ships welders then went back to their daily job of welding up
the cracks in the ships main deck after firing the guns all
night. That’s another story. When it got dark, no lights
were allowed “on” in the spaces below the main deck in the vicinity
of the gun mounts, because they would shine up through the deck and hamper the
vision of the lookouts who were supposed to be watching for approaching boats
and swimmers. Our ship was 23 years
old.
On another day a couple swift
boats got their ice cream and such and headed up river. It just so happened
that the Skipper of one of the boats was a young LTjg. that used to be on the
Brownson and we knew him well. Just as they disappeared around the bend we heard
a lot of gunfire and then smoke rose up in puffs, reminding me of the old
western movies when the Indians sent their smoke signals. Only this was
black smoke from an oil fed fire and we were told it was one of the swift boats
that just left. Weeks later we got word that Ken Norton had been killed
when his boat was fired upon and sunk. I never did find out if that was the
incident we observed, but it really didn’t matter
“when”.
At night, our
air search radar would occasionally pick up the Air Force B52’s
approaching. Some nights they flew right over us and several minutes later
the mountainous jungle lit up and the ship shook from the bombs that they
dropped.
Almost every night we
would observe a trio of Army helos fly inland. One of them would be
separated slightly and somewhat higher than the others and would have a red
beacon on for a few seconds and fire off a bunch of tracers. Then tracers
would fly up from the jungle towards the helo and the other helos would then
zero in on the area and really tear up the place. It was like the Fourth of
July every night.
War was hell in more
ways than one could relate. When we returned to Newport after seven months
of war duty we were shunned and did not wear our uniforms outside the Newport
area. Life for a military man was now different from the time I joined in
56 when the people were proud to know a serviceman and a young sailor was proud
to wear the uniform of his country. I am still proud I wore that
uniform and I would do it again in a heartbeat. I only Know What I Know,
too.
I ramble too
much.
Dick Rentner,
a.k.a. Skyler's Dad
No, Dad, you don't.
Thanks.
Go Back to the Start, Do Not Collect $200 Send me your two cents
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