Vietnam Tet Offensive 1968

                       

Vietnam Tet Offensive 1968

(first time pictures published anywhere)

Deadly 122 rockets (click to enlarge)

Marine Corps Vietnam/ Tet Offensive 1968

Camp Books north of Danang during Tet 1968. 122 mm rockets fired into base almost daily. Sometimes several times a day, and a lot at night. You either lived or you died. Each rocket was six feet long and carried 40 pounds of TNT. It could explode on impact or be delayed to bury in the soil and then explode. All the shrapnel usually went forward from the blast so if it passed over your head before impact, you were usually safe.

(You could be KIA or injured by blast, too. I had a Timex watch and my left arm was outside the bunker when a rocket exploded. The watch stopped at 6:00 and could not be fixed.)

They sounded like freight trains coming at you. If the train sound passed over you, you waited for the blast on impact. If the train sound stopped like it was cut off, you were in trouble because it was close or on top of you. Little different than mortars. If a mortar passed over, you were safe, but the one that lands on you makes no sound. That's why the saying, "You never hear the one that gets you," is true.

Rockets were real bad. They couldn't aim them for accuracy but only point them in the right direction. They had a six mile range. When they hit someone usually died.

In B Company, most rockets passed over us on the North end. We were the blocking force for any ground assault, and almost every other fighting hole had a machine gun. Our numbers were few but our fields of fire were deadly.

The mess hall was at center base, empty at the time at night. One man KIA, could have been 50 during chow. The other two buildings were empty, I believe, or everyone inside would have died.

(The base camp in the movie Full Metal Jacket was Camp Books)

Semper Fi, Marines and all Nam Vets