16 Apr 99: Here are a few photos that were taken of the 192nd AHC ...


Company Headquarters 192nd Aviation Company (Airmoble Light) and Hangar at Ft. Riley, Kansas early 1967.

Some of the 192nd and 607th maintenance mechanics and crew chiefs at Ft. Riley.


This photo was taken aboard the USNS General Walker steaming at 19 knots toward Vietnam Oct 1967.

Enlisted men of the 192nd and 607th

192nd AHC


Construction of hooches at Phu Hiep in Nov. 67.

Important supplies arrive for the EM club. Remember the rusty cans?

Maintenance tents for the 607th Transportation Detachment on the right.

Maintenance tents and slabs for future building sites. Phu Hiep.


192nd AHC


This all wheel utility vehicle had a mean streak. You started the thing by pulling on the starter rope while standing in front of it. If it was in gear (and it was hard to tell if it wasn't) it would climb right over you. One of our Sergeants learned the hard way. It didn't stop until it had taken out the lower Plexiglas windshield of one helicopter and came to rest against the storage containers used for the foundation on the maintenance tents. In my letters home I indicated on 17 Nov. 67 the 192nd received their first eleven aircraft at Phu Hiep. I'm not sure if that is correct because I have another date I'm not sure of (27Nov) in a note home saying that one helicopter was shot down near a place called Miami Beach. One crew chief was shot in the back.(names?), one grazed in the neck, and another crew member grazed in the ankle.

Nose art on our maintenance helicopter.

Thanksgiving day the mechanics were given half a day off. Most of us went down to the beach at the end of the runway. The undertow was terrific and most of us could hardly stand up against the breaking surf. In an instant your pockets would fill with sand. For one person from another company it was fatal. He was able to swim out beyond the breakers but then got in trouble. The helicopter tried valiantly to save him but was not equipped with water rescue equipment.


More of the 192nd at Phu Hiep, Nov. 1967


Perhaps this photo was taken of the 192nd Company area in December or early January 1967. The dirt road outlined our company area. The runway in the background is where on about the first week we were in country that sappers set off 3 charges and destroyed at least 3 aircraft. It caused a lot of confusion with our outfit. We had no plan of action, our rifles were locked up in the supply hooch. We had no bunkers to run to. I sat up in my cot, looked out through the open flap of the tent to see the people in the company next to us run out of their hooches into bunkers. It was plainly discernable that there was no room for us in the bunkers. I tried to get up to get dressed but my legs wouldn't hold up my weight. In all my life I never experienced or reacted to fear like that. All I could do was sit at the end of my cot and slip my pants on. I guess I felt I didn't want to die in my underwear. No one else in my tent knew what to do so we just sat there. Soon a Sargent came by and told us to sit tight, he would get back to us with any information. Well, with my feet on the floor at the end of my cot, I laid back and waited. I fell asleep immediately. I woke up that morning with my feet still on the floor.

Army Base at Phu Hiep with Airforce base 3 miles north near Tuy Hoa. Nov.- Dec 1967

The village at the South end of the runway at Phu Hiep.


192nd at Phu Hiep


To obtain lumber for our hooches at Phu Hiep, I drove a duce and a half with several other "volunteers" to off load ammo from the large landing craft. The 2X4s were used as cribbing between layers of 155 howitzer projectiles. It must have been 120 degrees in the hold of the boat. We worked fast in shifts to prevent heat exhaustion. For unloading the ammo, we got the 2x4's. We called this place Vung Ro but I saw this picture in a VIETNAM magazine and it was called something else. I know work with a guy who lived in one of the hooches near the beach about this time. (Nov. 1967).

This bridge was on the way to Vung Ro. I saw these same pontoons in films about WWII.

For the short time I was assigned to the motor pool I had to pick up the civilian workers in Tuy Hoa. This was the bridge over Song Ba river in route to Tuy Hoa. I would depart the company area at 0600 hrs. pick up the workers, then drive all day between getting rocks for the mess hall sump or driving to the Air Force Base. At 1600 I would leave for my return trip to Tuy Hoa. I would buy ice and then return back to Motor Pool by 1900hrs. The next day I would have to fix the one or two flat tires caused by driving over expended casings from 7.62 rounds. Then it was off again to Tuy Hoa. On 21 Nov. 67 a truck was blown up on this road. My last day in the motor pool was 30 Nov.


192nd, Nov-Dec, 1967

Downtown Tuy Hoa. It was amazing to see these yellow buses going down the road with people hanging on all over the outside.

Tuy Hoa in the late afternoon. The two guys in the flack jackets were my shotgun riders for that day. I wonder why the guy with the hat didn't want his picture taken?

...

Can anyone remind me of the significance of the ruins at the top of the hill overlooking Tuy Hoa?


192nd AHC at Phan Thiet

On 18 Jan 68 members of the 607th Maintenance Detachment and members of 192nd arrived at Phan Thiet. The unit that occupied this area previously lived like rats in bunkers underground. Many of them were booby trapped with crude methods to cause injury to some careless trespasser.

The engineers cleared all the bunkers to make ready for our new home.

Members of the 607th, while attending to maintenance of the helicopters, began construction of the wooden frames and erection of the tents. The mess hall is the large wooden structure in the center of the picture. To the right of our mess hall was a mess hall for some of the infantry across the road. I remember standing in line for chow at noon and watching an argument between a couple of infantry in the adjacent building. The next thing I see is one of the guys goes back to his tent and brings back his M-14. He shot the guy and wounded him. Our mess hall doors opened at that time. Everyone went inside like nothing happened. I don't know what ever happened to the poor guy that got shot.


Phan Thiet, Feb 1968


Tents are almost complete. We now have a water tank supplying cold water for showers. Prior to that, the daily routine for the 607th evening platoon was to start work at 1800hrs working on helicopters. At midnight we got 30 minutes for a breakfast meal of hotcakes and re-constituted eggs. Work continued until 0600 hrs when you got to back to the mess hall for a repeat of the midnight meal. Covered with oil that was known to have killed two sunbathers (from another unit) that thought engine oil would make a good sun block, we would make it back to our cots. You pealed the top blanket off that served as a dust cover. The red dirt was about an 1/8 inch deep and you could watch the rivers of the stuff pour off your blanket as you pulled it carefully off your cot. Knowing that at the wind would begin to blow again at 1100hrs and the dirt would be on you instead of the dust cover. A trip down to the beach to clean off was in order. The salt water was not much cleaner than the grime we were covered in. About 1300 or 1400 hours you would wake up. To late for lunch, but if the Sargent found you, off you would go filling sandbags, erecting tents or spreading Peter-Prime to control the dust.

These bunkers were built to late to protect us from the ammo dump explosion that occurred on 24 Jan 68.

The mess hall is on the right, the base Command Post and medical facilities were in the white building. The infantry tents and mess hall on the right. One night, VC came through the perimeter and set up aiming lights for a motar attack, set up claymore mines that when set off, blew holes in the top of the empty tents ( the infantry unit was out in the field) the motars landed harmlessly in the road. There is more to this story. Someone has a lot more to say that was on guard duty in the bunkers overlooking the water. // Dan Hertlein


.................THANX DAN, GREAT JOB!!!


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