Mortar Attack

 

The first mortar attack came after I had been in country for a few weeks. Those who had been around for a while were getting concerned because it had been a while since the last attack. They knew one was coming and intelligence seemed to have confirmed it.

The problem with the 116^th Assault Helicopter Company (116th AHC) area was that it was near the center of the Cu Chi base camp. That meant that the enemy, who wasn’t all that well trained, aimed for what we would call the center of mass because a long or short round would hit something on the base.

When the first round hit, sometime after midnight, I was asleep, in the top bunk in the small room I shared with another pilot. When I woke, there was no one around. I hesitated until I heard another explosion close by. I rolled out of the bunk, crouched down, and then dodged into the short hallway that would lead outside, to the bunkers.

As I started to move, a round hit no more than twenty-five feet from me, striking the roof of the hootch just outside the door. I dropped to the floor, rolled up against the wall and waited. There was dust swirling everywhere and I could hear the shrapnel rattling against the corrugated steel of the hotch’s roof.

After a moment, with no more impacts, I leaped up, hit the door and was outside. I headed for the first bunker entrance I saw. These were narrow, dug into the ground, and covered with perforated steel plates (PSP). On top of them were 55-gallon drums, these covered with another layer of PSP and then sandbags. The idea was that the sandbags would detonate the mortar round, absorb most of the shrapnel, with the other layers protecting the soldiers waiting inside.

There were electric lights inside and because our generator had not been hit, the lights were on. There were only a couple of others in the bunker with me, and I don’t remember who they were or if I knew them. I hadn’t been in the company all that long and hadn’t worked with the pilots of the other platoons. The enlisted soldiers’ hootchs were on the other side of an open field with their own bunkers.

The 116th AHC (The Hornets) company area in the center. Beside the brown fence is the
company headquarters building. To the left are the hootchs of the officers and to the right are
those of the enlisted soldiers. The helicopter across the road and to the right is sitting on the Hornet 
VIP pad and the dark area are the revetments and the Hornet's Nest where the aircraft are parked.

I have to admit that I was a tad bit nervous. I didn’t know what to expect or how long the attack would last. Counter mortar had already been launched so that those firing the mortars were now in danger. The muzzle flashes of the weapons would give away their positions. I learned later that these attacks didn’t last all that long.

After ten minutes or so, which seemed longer, someone came around and told us that the attack was over. We came out of the bunkers. I was told that I had gone to the wrong one and those who lived in the same hootch as I did, wondered where I was.

Five members of the company had been hit. One of them, an FNG lieutenant was badly wounded and had to be evacked, eventually making to The World (our term for the US). He had taken a long, dagger-like piece of metal to the throat. We learned that that he had survived, and although they though he might not be able to speak again, he recovered completely. He never returned to the company.

One of the others was hit just as he stepped through the door of the outhouse liberally referred to as the latrine. Wrong place at the wrong time, but he was treated at the 12^th Evac Hospital and returned to the company.

Damage to the company area was minimal. The aircraft, parked in revetments, in the area we called The Nest, because, what else would you call that area for a company known as the Hornets.

The only scheduling change for the days’ missions was to replace the two pilots injured with two who would have been off that day. The overall effect was to teach me to ignore the mortar rounds unless the impacts were coming toward you. Rockets, on the other hand, were more dangerous because they were larger and their impact sites sporadic. You couldn’t predict where they would hit.