Fire Support Base Tomahawk, Phu Bai, the Imperial City in Hue, Khe Sanh and Gio Linh, Part I

On January 28, we left Da Nang in our bus for the ride to Hue. The trip has been so run together at this point, that I cannot tell you how long this drive took, except to say that I think it was 3-4 hours, including two important stops for me, along the way. Anyone who was in I Corps north of Da Nang knows about the Hai Van Pass, the “Ocean Cloud Pass.”  Although there is now a tunnel that avoids the dangerous twists and turns of Highway 1 that traverses the pass, our trip planners chose the historic route so that I could visit two sites of import to me: the old French base directly at the top of the Pass and Fire Support Base Tomahawk, a 101^st and artillery outpost on top of two small hills just north of the Pass. On the way up to the Pass, we drove along the South China Sea and saw many extremely beautiful fishing villages that looked like the kind of places where you could happily live out your life. Scenic simply does not do justice to the views we had on that part of the drive. And the raod was just as dangerous as I remembeed it.

We stopped at the summit of the Pass and two things were immediately obvious. First, it has become a major tourist trap with street vendors following you no matter where you went and insisting that you buy whatever they were hawking. I must admit that I eventually became very irritated because they were interfering with the reason why I had wanted to stop there and I finally yelled at one persistent guy to get away from me. He did. Across the road from the tourist trap area, are the remains of the old French bunkers built during the late-1940s and eventually used by America forces, I’m guessing the 101^st and, previously, the Marines. My memory, which I admit is not what it used to be, is that there was also an ARVN checkpoint in the Pass. However, whenever we made the run from Phu Bai to Da Nang and back, they always waved us through because they understood the distinctive red fenders of an EOD vehicle. Ah, the perks of war. There were many steps leading up the hill that the French bunkers are on and I was unable to make the climb because of now aching knees from all the walking we had done, already. However, as you can see, I did get some great pictures of the bunkers.

Apparently, the Vietnamese government does not want people to get off the stairs or the beaten paths because there is still a lot of unexploded ordnance in the area and I do not doubt that. One of the things we ran into a lot during my time with the 184^th in Qui Nhon and the 287^th in Phu Bai, were a friggin’ ungodly number of French Bouncing Betties. The French planted these bloody devices everywhere and left no maps or other markings to show their locations. Even the VC and the South Vietnamese Army marked their mines. Of course, with the VC, you had to know what you were looking for. It wasn’t as if they planted signs that said, “Dung Lai!! Min!!” I can remember blowing dozens of these devices near several small hamlets, usually after an unsuspecting farmer set one off with a plow or a water buffalo. In one small hamlet we got called into by a Marine CAP Team near the coast east of Phu Bai—I think I was with Tom Miller—we ended up finding and destroying about two dozen of these things and there is no question that we probably did not find all of them.

We left the Hai Van Pass and continued on to the site of the former 101^st base called Fire Support Base Tomahawk. This was a bad place, in a terrible and virtually indefensible location, that was hit all—and I mean all—the time. Our team was in and out of there, blowing dud 82mm mortars or RPG-2s after an incoming attack. There was a self-propelled 155 unit and a signal outfit up there, along with some engineers, as well. It was not, by any measure, “the high ground,” and you have to wonder what moron in the 101^st chose this site. In 1969 and 1970, the hill across the road was manned by the men of the 1^st Battalion, 327^th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 101^st Airborne Division. Tomahawk was heavily attacked twice: first on June 19, 1969, and then, again, in June 1970. The June 19, 1969 attack is infamous because most of the men killed that night were Kentucky National Guardsmen from the same town—Bardstown. It was the most men killed from the same town from the same unit during the entire war. They were from C Battery, 138^th Artillery Regiment, a self-propelled 155 unit and were on the hill on the west side of the road, across from the 101^st base. Ten of their men were either killed the night of the attack, or died within a few weeks from their wounds. Thirty-five others were wounded, all of this out of a unit of 117 men.

I was in and out of Tomahawk twice when I was with the 287^th in Phu Bai. Our tour guide planned the trip so that I could stop there and it was a very powerful experience. I crossed Highway 1 and, with help from two of my friends, was able to cross the drainage ditch on the side of the road and make my way a few feet up the side of the hill. I stood there for a few minutes and really broke down and I’m not really sure why. The times I was there, it was to blow duds from an incoming attack or some bad ordnance from the 155s. Maybe a booby trap or mine found on the perimeter. I really don’t remember exactly what it was that took us there. I think I was crying just because it was another spot of “holy ground,” if not for me, then for the men who died there, as well as their families. I just realized that I never put up the picture I have of my chip from “The Wall,” or explained how I got it. I just put it on the blog.

Dick Steen is the Commander of the National EOD Association and was at an event where he met a woman who had helped assemble “The Wall.” She saved some chips and gave four of them to Dick, who sent me one. This was about a month before I left for Vietnam and, of course, I had no idea when I got it that it would be an important relic to have with me. A local jeweler shaped it for me, and polished the marble and added the white gold cap. I wear it around my neck and now have added a small Vietnam carving made from the leg bone of a deer. As I did at the site of Marlene’s husband’s death, I laid the chip on the ground at Tomahawk and let the men who died there know that we had memorialized them at “The Wall.” Given all of the things that happened on this trip in terms of the Buddhist beliefs about the spirit and the soul, I have a feeling that they know.  We burned some incense and several of us said some private things to those, from both sides, that perished, there. It was a very palpable sensation, just being there.

We left Tomahawk and continued up Highway 1 toward Hue, leaving the mountains and moving into beautiful, green and very lush farm land. I dozed off and was awaken by the bus pulling off the road onto the shoulder. I looked out my window and saw masonry walls, extending down the open area off the road; I knew immediately that these were the walls that had surrounded the west side of the Phu Bai Combat Base and I got off the bus for a better view. Song took me a little way and pointed to a runway several hundreds of meters away to the east: “That runway was built on the same runway that was there when you were here.” As we stood there, a large Russian transport came flying down the runway and lifted off into the western sky. What a trip and there will be more about the Phu Bai Airport, later, when I talk about leaving Hue for Ha Noi.

There's something screwy going on with the program, so I'm going to publish this in two parts.