PFC Jim Lish who was with us at the 6/56th remembers that there was a rubber tree plantation on one side of our base camp. The VC would get in there every night and raise hell with us and anyone that went down the road. They finally had to clear it out using Rome plows.
"Oh my God they dropped an atomic bomb!"
One of the biggest things I'll remember about TET '68 is when the ammo depot at Long Binh exploded. I swear it looked just like the Atomic Bomb when it went off. In fact I could hear a few guys saying "Oh my God they dropped the Atomic Bomb". You could feel the heat and concussion effects of it all the way over to where we were. The ammo dump burned for days and exploding ordnance was flying everywhere.
We remained on alert in the perimeter bunkers for several days but finally I got a chance to go back to my hootch to try and get some rest. We called our compound "Hawk Hill" and that was where we had the HAWK radar equipment for tracking aircraft. It was at a higher elevation than the rest of the unit. Next to it was a counter mortar radar team from the 246th FA (attached to 97th Arty Gp) who did a great job of locating NVA rockets that were being fired at us. They passed on the coordinate information to our units to return fire on them. I wasn't in my hootch more than thirty minutes when there was a really loud explosion the whole wood-frame and metal roof came crashing in. After the dust settled and we were sure we were still in one piece we stared looking around. A large shell casing, from a 155 mm flare round, came through our roof and had landed at my feet and near the head of another guy. That was too close for me so I went back up to the bunkers and stayed there until it was over.
- MSG Larry F. O'Neill
Next: Epilogue
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