Welcome to another edition of FTA- Last issue's story of the HMS Buttercup has turned up at least one member of that team. What I have learned since then is that nearly every ADA unit had some sort of "riverine" presence, Dusters, Quads, Vulcans and probably searchlights. Any more "Brown Water" ADA people out there?

As promised, here are the holdings for the 4^th Battalion, 60^th Artillery. There are 31 boxes of information at the Archives, more than any other ADA unit. This is largely because there are some 16 boxes that are specific to the Headquarters Battery and four field Batteries: A, B, C and D.

Box 1 holds the organizational history for the Battalion including lineage. Box 2 contains some of the General Orders for 1968. There are names of 4^th/60^th men on lists for Good Conduct Medals. Box 3 contains Daily S-2 (intelligence) Journals for 9/l/67 -12/31/69. Boxes 4-9 contain Daily S-3 (operations) Journals for 2/l/67 -12/20/71 when the unit stood down at Tuy Hoa. Boxes 10 and 11 are the ORLL (Operations reports - Lessons Learned) for 1/l/68 -10/31/71. Note: ORLLs are also found at the following location: 472/270/28/8> Box 16.

Boxes 12, 13, 14 are Situation Reports from 4/1/67 - 12/31/67, 1/1/68 -7/31/68, and 8/l/68 - 12/31/68.

Box 15 contains Daily Journals for HHB for the period 1/1/70 - 3/31/71. Box 16 contains Daily Journals for A Btry for 8/69 -12/69.

Boxes 17 thru 25 contain Daily Journals for B Btry from 9/67 thru 11/71. The breakdown is as follows:

Boxes 26,27 and 28 contain Daily Journals for C Btry for the periods:12/l/70 - 12/31/70; 1/1/71 - 3/31/71; 4/1/71 - 5/24/71.

Box 29 is listed as ORLL for C Btry 8/31/69 -3/14/71. C Btry was absorbed into B Btry in mid 1971

Boxes 30 and 31 are Daily Journal from D Btry for 6/1/71 - 7/31/71 and 8/1/71 - 11/19/71.

The other DQS Units serving II-Corp were Battery E, 41^st Artillery (Quad M-55) and Battery B, 29th Artillery (search lights). There are some limited holdings for these Units:

Box 1 contains the organizational history and box 2 containsthe Daily Journals for the period 1/14/70 - 10/31/71.

Box 1 contains the organizational history and Box 2 contains the Daily Journals for the period 1/l/69 - 12/31/69.

As you can see the historical information is very spotty. There are very few references to individuals in these documents. However, it is possible to reconstruct the movements of individual tracks, quads and searchlights through the ORLLs and Daily Journal logs. Particular Daily Journals will have an-notations and attachments when there was an attack at a base on a particular day. But you pretty much have to know what you are looking for before you can hope to find any information about it.

I am interested to hear about what might be available from the archives or museum at Ft. Bliss. If anyone has first hand information I would appreciate an email or letter.

Next issue we will close out the Archive holdings with the 1^st/44^th Artillery, and remaining Quad and Searchlight units.

There are things called "After Action Reports" that are scattered in different places at the Archives. I have not found any great compendium of AARs for DQS specific actions. Most DQS teams were part of larger military units and when a base was overrun or there was a big firefight, it was the larger unit that conducted the interviews and made the AARs.

For your information, the Archives contain much more than paper records. Another wonderful aspect of the Archives is the Motion Picture, Sound and Video Branch. And YES, there is existing footage of Dusters, Quads, Searchlights and Vulcans. Actually there is more film footage on Vulcans than there is on all the other units combined. Unfortunately much of the Vietnam era material is still on 16 and 35mm film. I have viewed most of the available footage and will be trying to connect individuals with filmed events. If you have or know of film footage of DQS action, please contact me. I would like to have a compendium of available file footage ready for the next reunion.