Rocket Shots and Foggy Spots

By March, heading for April, we'd been on Hill 861 long enough to file for "squatter's rights." While "Luke" never tried another SERIOUS attack, he DID "probe and check" our defenses from time to time. One day around noon, the 1st Platoon machinegun team opened fire from the Northeast point of the hill. The call came down the trench for "ROCKETS UP! I don't recall where THEIR rocket team was, but John Snowder and I responded quickly from OUR sector.

"Wow" I thought, I'm finally gonna get in on some rocket work. We grabbed the big 3.5 "stovepipe" bazooka and a couple of rockets for it, and we also took a couple of the smaller compact LAAW rockets, and would decide which one to use when we got there.

It took us a minute or so to make our way down the trench, where Bob Canape and his M-60 crew where chewing up a belt of ammo, across the draw and up the other side to a wall of rockpile, where "Luke" was returning the favor. One of our patrols had stumbled onto a "Luke" machinegun nest, and were exchanging fire with them. They radioed in, and Bob's team started pinning them down from OUR side, while that patrol quickly made its way back to the hill.

There was a dug-out shelf just above 1st platoon's machinegun position, but the shortwall behind it would easily reverse the backblast from the big 3.5 and could injure both shooter and assistant gunner (me).

The big stovepipe can hurl a 9-lb rocket out to about 1300 yards if need be, and will penetrate enough armor to take out a tank. Although there is little recoil, there is a lot of noise and a tremendous backblast that can kill anybody BEHIND it at the time. The gunner shoulders it, then the Assistant gunner loads the rocket from the rear, pulls the safety clips, rotates the rocket into the arming band---------THEN gets opposite of the gunner and taps him on the helmet, signalling that "the rocket is armed, I am out of the way of backblast, nobody is BEHIND us, you are cleared to fire." Takes two guys to effectively operate it.

Snowder was senior to me, and was the team gunner. As there was no armor, just some rocks to contend with, and the range wasn't that great, he handed me one of the LAAW rockets, and said "Take the Shot, Brad'"

This was very BIG for me.....the "seasoned bazookaman" letting me get my "15 minutes of fame", and trusting me to "git' er done" (actually, he wasn't taking too much of a chance with the "new guy"). We DID bring a second LAAW, and if I missed, John WOULDN'T). John Snowder was very good with a rocket launcher and could probably hit you on the run with one!

The smaller LAAW rocket was a ONE-man weapon, accurate out to about 550 or so, and was more than enough to blow up that rockpile that "Luke" was shooting from behind. It also didn't have the backblast that would richochet back from the dirtwall that was about 20 feet behind me. I crawled up on that dirt shelf and laid down with it. I saw our guys "chipping away" at those boulders and saw the muzzle flash from "Luke's" machinegun. I remember to this day, yelling down to Bob............."CANOPE! WHAT'S THE RANGE?? He quickly glanced at his gunner's rear sight on that big M-60, and yelled back up to me............."ABOUT THREE FIFTY, BRAD!

I laid my rear sight grid on the target with the "350" mark near the top of that rockpile, trying to allow for drop, without shooting over the top of them. I pulled the secondary safety off, took a breath, let half of it out (like we were taught with rifles).....and eased down on the firing bar.

BOOM! As the backblast still kicked dust and dirt all over everywhere, the rocket hit the rockpile with a resounding "WHAM!!". The hit was a bit LOWER than I where I was trying to put it. But the shooting STOPPED. I scrambled back down into the trench. I was REALLY excited and elated! Old "Snow", however, who rarely ever showed any emotion, just smiled and said "Nice shot, Brad, let's get on back." John was a cool head, and getting his "nod of approval" was important to me. His tour would be up a few months ahead of mine and I wanted him to know I could step up and pick up where he'd left off.

For ME, there'd be other rocket shots before MY tour was up, including ONE with the "stovepipe."............but that first one is always the one you remember most.

I was really wanting a confirmation of how many were in those rocks, but they never sent another patrol out there, in case there was a LARGER force on the other side. So, we just called in the Phantoms from DaNang and they laced the whole backside of that little valley with napalm--------burnt everything up.

F-4 strikes were always impressive. Sometimes they'd come in very fast and low, drop whatever they needed to drop, then roar back out of the valleys. B-52 strikes were awesome, too. You could see the shock waves and feel the ground rumble under your feet from MILES away!

For ME, the most unforgettable air strike machine was "Puff The Magic Dragon", a fleet of converted old C-47 (DC-3), twin-engine propeller-driven aircraft that were re-fitted with 7.62 miniguns, and infra-red sensors and screen that could "SEE" the enemy at night. The pilot would put the airplane into a 360-degree left turn, steep bank, and the miniguns would rain fire from above. They could put a bullet on every square inch of a football field with just one pass! Every fifth round was a tracer, yet the rate of fire was so fast, it looked like one long string of red coming out of the night sky!

Nightime was spooky on the hill, especially on foggy nights when you couldn't see much further than the first string of barbed wire. It was deathly quiet on watch, as you listened for EVERYTHING. It's really true that sound tends to travel further at night. When I think about it, I can still hear the "whistles."

The "Lukes" had these whistles, reported made from pieces of reed. At least once a week, two or three of them would get out there in the middle of the night, at various spots down the slopes. One of them would give two very short blasts on his whistle. Then another one way over on the other side would answer with two short blasts of his own.

I think the idea was to keep us thinking they were gonna attack in the middle of the night.............or at least doing SOMETHING out there. We couldn't see them, only HEAR them. There were only two of three of them, but the kept the whole hill on edge after dark. Especially on nights that were so foggy, you could barely see anything in front of you. During the day, we'd build up more tripwire traps out there, including wires that led back toward the trenchline with empty C-ration cans with small pebbles dangling from them. Nobody slept well at night.

You also had to guard against "target fixation".......focusing on a bush out there, that's BEEN there for years, but gradually starts looking like a MAN if you gaze at it too long. The LAST thing you want to do, is panic and open fire, thus giving your own position away. However, if you just scan the area back & forth occasionally, and suddenly realize that "bush" has MOVED...............

It was definitely NOT "Mr Rogers' Neighborhood" On Potrero Hill, we "Black Barts" were sneaking up on cars with hubcaps in the dark of the night. On THIS hill, the "Luke gang" was sneaking around on US.