Brownie has his picture taken
(or
holy shit I’m gunna die)
By
Peter “PJ” Brown, 110 Sig Sqn, South Vietnam
(18 Dec 1967 - 19 Dec 1968)
Preamble
Death is not a popular subject of discussion and even less so in the
war zone. The thought, however, of getting your photo taken when
you die was never talked about in my training.
The Parties in Play:
The opposition, mostly
officers, sometimes the enemy.
The nightly Piquet on
patrol as a lively twosome armed with 7.62 mm SLR’s or anything else
that came to hand, and sometimes did.
The Guilty Party: From the land of the big PX an aircraft called a Grumman OV-1 Mohawk. Cool looking plane, twin engines sleek and quite as a mouse. The said aircraft was a secret; we knew that, because we were told so. One of its rolls was photo reconnaissance.
The Place:
110 Signal Squadron lines,
Vung Tau, SVN on a sand hill, barbed wire and sand bags - you know
the stuff.
The Time:
After midnight
The Date:
Sometime in 1968 no rain so must have been the dry season.
A little back ground:
There was a feller or gal, we
never knew, who would take pot shots at us from an old French Fort
down by the airfield. Not regular but every few weeks or so. The
workers (troops) thought that if we put a few sand bags down as a
rifle support rest and we popped a flare, that we could get a good
shot at our VC friend. It was suggested during the planning that a
50 cal machine gun would do a better job of nailing him but getting
access to the 50 cal, was a problem.
Hanoi Hannah:
The
enemy had English propaganda broadcasts on Radio Hanoi. The most
famous broadcaster (the announcer) was known as Hanoi Hannah. She
uses to play requests for poor Charlie, out there in the boonies,
sheltering from us vicious signallers. The music wasn’t anything to
write home about but the story lines took an interesting turn.
We were forbidden to listen to the enemy broadcasts. So naturally
we all did! Mostly on transistor radios, purchased from the Yank
PX, down at the airfield but we also had access to our own very cool
military radios. Somebody reported, in the Sandbaggers Inn, that
they had heard Hanoi Hannah saying that a brave VC soldier from the
Vung Tau Liberation Army, had shot and killed two running dogs of
Australian Soldiers. Hmmm couldn’t have been ours we weren’t
allowed to have dogs.
The enemy launched two major attacks, TET and later a second
offensive. Sadly, we surmised, that one of those caused the demise
of our friendly shooter. I say sadly because he/she was replaced
by a small group armed with AK47 (automatic rifles).
So the
scene has been set for my story, with the troops a bit on edge with
the intermittent shooting and always the possibility of mortar or
rocket attack.
Piquet Patrol
I was part of the two man nightly piquet patrol and we had reached
the end of the road, at the airfield end of our lines. We turned
left at the end of the Sergeants lines onto the road towards ALSG HQ
and keeping parallel with the huts and the barbed wire fence. The
patrol was separated by about ten metres and trying unsuccessfully
to keep quite on the gravel and sand road. Our job had duel
functions, one to be a fire watch in case of fire in the camp and to
be a trip wire alert in case of any attempt to penetrate our wire.
So there we were towards the end of our piquet shift, the mind is
drifting off to a place far away and the physical body is still
working the task. The wire has been checked, huts checked and the
eyes drifted back ahead and up the road.
Mortar Attack
The far end of the road is suddenly lit in a brilliant white blue
flash
Flash again, probably in less than a second from the first. The
space between the last and the piquet hut is now clearly visible.
Flash again and the end of the COMCEN building now highlighted
brilliantly. This flash seems to have its centre point over the
wire.
Brownie to self; “It’s a
mortar attack, can’t hear anything - Shit I’m gunna die.
Should Brownie sacrifice himself by turning and throwing his body
over his mate? Ears are starting to hear again, a faint
buzzing sound coming closer”
Mohawk
Looking up, the stars are partly blocked out by the silhouette of a small twin engine plane overhead.
FLASH Click Mohawk OV-1 photoflash pod
Now I’m bloody blind, however I can hear the sound of engines
receding towards the airfield. I swear I hear the sound of a
photo flash going off. But that may be my imagination. I
can’t run anywhere, I can’t see and there is a bloody big barbed
wire entanglement very close by.
Somewhere in the archives of a foreign nation are pictures of 110
Signal Sqn lines, Brownie and his mate bravely defending the unit, a
rice paddy, a small French Fort and the end of the Vung Tau
Airfield.
The aircraft was, of course, very, very low.
Conclusion
No damage or casualties but clean underwear required by both piquet
patrol members and a good story for the Sandbagger Inn troops, over
a tinnie, the following night.
2013