TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

A Tour of Duty in Vietnam
complied. Since we were so close to the ocean, the mission was
assigned to an Australian destroyer cruising off the coast whose
call sign was “Royal Purple.” The adjustment phase went
smoothly. After I called for “fire for effect” on the target, big naval
gun fire rounds not only landed on the target, but some hit on both
our flanks and even behind us. Despite the fact none hit our
position, and we suffered no casualties, it was a very scary event
to have naval gunfire raining down in every direction. In anger, I
told Royal Purple to go back to Australia, and I avoided any
further employment of naval gunfire until much later in my tour
when the big battleship, USS New Jersey, arrived off the DMZ in
October.
My most memorable day in Go Noi was the day the platoon I
was moving with had its mission changed to recover the crew and
black box of an airplane that had been shot down just over the
much smaller southern branch of the river that made the southern
border of the island. The river bed had gone completely dry from
lack of rain, but had undulating ridges of sand carved into its bed
during the previous monsoon season. A four­man fire team started
across. I was planning to follow with my radio operator and an E­
5 sergeant who was carrying an aviation radio and playing the role
of a FAC (forward air controller). We had not seen or heard of any
enemy for quite some time, so we were hoping for an easy
crossing, but we received fire from the opposite tree line just as I
was leaving the river bank. The rest of the platoon behind us
immediately responded with suppression fire while those of us
exposed dove for cover in low spots of the sand. Nobody was hit,
and again I was grateful for the enemy’s poor marksmanship and
stupidity in not waiting until we had entered a kill zone before
opening up.
My first reaction was to call for artillery on the opposing tree
line, but there were too many aircraft in the area, probably because
of the shoot down, it was impossible to get a clearance. The FAC
was talking excitedly into his microphone on my right side and
paused to get my attention. He told me he had some Navy A­4
Skyhawks with full loads of ordnance that had to abort their
mission due to weather in the interior, and they were looking for a
target on which drop their bombs. I told him to tell them to hit the
opposing tree line. The first two or three (I’m not sure if there
were three or four A­4s) did a magnificent job of placing their
500­pounders just inside the tree line straight across from us, but
the last A­4 seemed to have understood the wrong tree line and
was diving on us. It is hard to describe how scary it is to see the
attack aircraft coming straight for you, and the fins on the bombs
deploying as they separated from the wings to slow the bombs
down so that the A­4 can get ahead of their blast as it pulled out of
the dive. We were frantically trying to dig ourselves further into
the sand. I am not sure what happened, but I am guessing the pilot
realized his mistake and jerked his stick just as the bombs
released, because it threw them out into the river bed no more than
25 yards away, and just the concussions through the sand and the
sound of flying metal fragments were extremely frightening.
I grabbed the “hook” from the sergeant and started a stream of
epithets against the pilot using every nasty name I could muster.
When I finally had to stop to take a breath, an answer came back
in a slow southern drawl. “Ah… you must have me confused…
with someone who gives a shit….” I could have chewed nails, but
the relief of having survived unscathed, and the fact we received
A‐61