TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

A Tour of Duty in Vietnam
off was an unknown, but it certainly could have been catastrophic.
Despite my order, Cpl. Hickey, after making sure his troops had
evacuated, risked his life over and over by running back into the
inferno to retrieve the exposed rounds and roll them away from the
fire. The last exposed round was a Firecracker round that cooked off
as Hickey was trying to retrieve it. Several of its little bomblets
detonated causing many fragmentation wounds on Cpl. Hickey’s body.
Eventually, I nominated Hickey for a Navy Cross, but it was
downgraded to a Silver Star.
The fire had melted the howitzer’s sight and destroyed its tires. The
latter, of course, had little function on the mountain. With the
installation of a Ferrari­scrounged backup sight, the howitzer was
back in action in nothing flat.
But the tide of battle had definitely changed in favor of the Marines.
Now with the full help of supporting arms the infantry began engaging
and whipping the enemy. The battery was now shooting at real highvalue
targets, and the BDA board was expanding exponentially. Even
though the monsoon weather was no longer a problem, the tide of
battle changed so much, I think the powers that be decided the
airborne was not necessary and kept them home.
A couple of memorable melodramatic moments on the mountain
occurred when two large helicopters tried to auto rotate onto the
landing pad after taking fire. Both spewed fuel on us from bulletruptured
fuel tanks as they circled over the battery on their way down
to the landing pad, which had been built on the very edge of the ridge
top. The first was a Marine Ch­46 Sea Knight, and it was able to make
a successful landing on the pad. The second was a huge Army CH­47
Chinook that only slightly overshot the pad. Its rear wheels touched
down on the pad, but the center of gravity and forward momentum
sent the Chinook nose­first down the cliff where it burst into flames
and, sadly, all aboard perished.
By the waning days of February, everything was going our way. The
regiment was destroying enemy bunkers right and left, uncovering
huge unprecedented caches of arms and supplies, and drastically
interdicting the North’s supply lines. 1st Prov even shot missions
against and was credited with destroying enemy road graders.
The generals decided they needed to expand our heavy artillery
coverage to the south and west. 1st Prov needed to move. I assembled
our recon team and was flown to about five clicks south/southwest to
LZ Erskine to create us a new firing position leaving Lt. Ferrari in
charge of the battery. This was difficult for me even though I was
getting very short, and I knew Ferrari would succeed me soon, but I
was still the commander and responsible for everything the battery did
or did not do. Erskine was already cleared and functioning as a
firebase, so it did not take us very long to dig the gun pits and build a
new FDC, but we ran into several days of delays in being able to move
the battery. I think the problem was the availability of the CH­54 Sky
Crane. I spent the time glued to the radio trying to keep abreast of
everything that was happening back on Cunningham, but I felt
completely out of control and frustrated.
Erskine did have a few memorial moments during my wait for the
battery. The mountain sides were steep, but the NVA were constantly
trying to get in position to conduct a night attack. For that reason,
noise discipline was at a premium. We had built an FDC bunker that
was connected by a short trench to my hooch and potential exec pit. I
had a speaker of sorts next to my cot so I could hear everything that
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