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MOUTHS OF THE MEKONG...OPERATION MARKET TIME

ON THE LINE, AGAIN Intended to engage US Naval Forces in combat with enemy infiltrators who used inland waterways to shuttle munitions, Operation Market Time served as our second campaign. Operating in the Mekong Delta, the Clarke joined in to halt the flow of arms into South Vietnam. During daylight she was mother ship to PFCs; at night, a patrol vessel, acting as one big mobile cop, checking out sampans and junks for contraband. On board: a Vietnamese policeman who served as an interpreter and investigator. It rained and rained and rained...

PCF (Swiftboat)

These heavily armed (3 x.50 cal MGs, 81mm mortar, grenade launchers, 20mm cannon) patrol craft had 6 man crews and a speed of 28 knots. They patroled the coast line engaging enemy vessels and supplying support firepower. For more details on Swiftboats and PBRs, link to Dan Wither's ,who provided this grahic image, at his website.

http://www.combatantcraft.org

PCF Making Preparations For Night Patrol

--Photo captured from 8mm film.
Courtesy Bill Stute.

THEY PATROL...WE PATROL. HERE'S ONE ROUTINE NIGHT PATROL A fast moving skunk appears on radar. We change course to intercept it. I'm the BMOW, so when we reach the suspect vessel, a junk boat with 8 passengers, the OOD sends me to investigate. Once alongside the skunk, I order the occupants to tie-up, to extended a mooring line. Seaman Blair covers me with a .30 machine-gun while I demand identity papers, sort of like a hghway patrol cop. Responding to my demands, the frail papa-san extended a long pole, one with a fishnet basket that contained a pouch and papers. One of the papers read "Cong." So now what? The boat people looked harmless, but what's with this cong business? Is anyone that stupid? I take the documents to the CO on the bridge. But he can't read Vietnamese either. So he sends for the Saigon cop. In the meantime, I head back to continue checking out the "suspects" ID cards. Minutes later, the RVN cop arrives. He stood beside me with pistol in hand as he began to interrogate the boat people. First, he counted heads and IDs. Then, afer discovering one head too many, he cocks his .38 (strange weapon in war) and appears to be ready to shoot one of the boat people. "Wait!" I screamed, since the missing ID was tucked away in the corner of the pouch. "He's okay," I said. Whew! That was close. I was sure he was going to plug somebody. And so, too, the boat people who sighed in relief and made a plea for medicine for one of their ailing family members. Doc Lynch, our corpsman, gave them a small amount of APCs, the Navy cure-all. With that done, we moved on, into the darkness--save the ever present amber and red starshell flashes--searching for gun-runners. Another night: According to one of our PCF crews, a Russian built trawler was hugging the shore line and trying to snake up river with a load of munitions, materiel for the Viet Cong. After spotting the fake fishing boat, two of our swift boats moved in to investigate. They were immediately taken under heavy small arms fire. They fought back and eventually destroyed their attackers with phosphorous mortars (WP). In yet another memorable night incident, a spotter plane reported a fast moving contact and advised us of its location. The skunk was apparently very close to us. So the plane proceeded to our position with the intent to illuminate the contact by search light, making it easier for us to "nab" the suspects. In the meantime, while we were waiting for that to happen, the suddenly sky lit up and I was nearly blinded by the plane's searchlight. Snafu--all along the spotter plane had been chasing us. Good thing they didn't open up. I think it was a Spooky. Oh well! "Stanley, here's another fine mess you got us into..."

Pullover, Let's See What's Below

Civilian boats like this one were virtually everywhere within the Mekong Delta, smuggling contraband into the South to be used against GIs. It was our job to intercept them.

--Photo captured from 8mm film
Couresy Bill Stute.

Half-Inch (.50cal) Bullets Blaze

Starboard side aft machine-gun crew. As coppers used to say in the movies: "Let 'em have it, boys."



--Photo captured from 8mm film.
Courtesy Bill Stute.

PBR (River Patrol Boat)

Looking for a fight. Many times they found it, and most of the time they won. Yet winning was not without costs.

--photo captured from 8mm film
courtesy Bill Stute.

PBR 750 ABLAZE AFTER ATTACK

Three men died on this boat. They were three of more than 1600 Navy war combat deaths, eleven hundred of which were in the Brown Water Navy/Riverine Forces.

--Photo by Ralph J. Firies, courtesy of Kent Hawley. Visit Kent's award winning "Brown Water Navy" pages at:

http://hawley.hispeed.com/vietnam/vietnam.html

TIME IS UP! ROTATE! Get 5 days R&R in Taiwan, 3 weeks upkeep, then rejoin the squadron for another assignment in Vietnam. Where will that be? How long will that be? How bad will that be?

Where Are You Going Harry?

CS2 Jackson (left) and
BM2 Harry (Bud) Douglass.

--Photo captured from 8mm film

Where Are You Going Bill?

DC3 Bill Stute on the beach. I couldn't have put this site together without your search for crew members, my friend. Bill is the official WebRing and re-union organizer. He's still using welding rods to keep the ship water tight and its crew together. "You bookoo (beaucoup) chop chop Number One," as they used to say in 'Nam.


--Photo Bill Stute

TAIWAN (UFOs?)

"Me love you long time. Me so horny. "

During the 2003 Clarke County reunion at Mobile, Alabama, only a few guys recalled the strange occurances at sea (just before our arrival) and in the air during our R&R stay at Taiwan.

I vividly recall that one night the ocean was milk-white. And during the morning of our departure from Taiwan, there were certain unidentified flying objects in the sky and on radar. I was the BMOW and CIC was right behind the wheelhouse. The on-station radarman RD2 Hunter and I had a conversation about the...U...uh...flying objects. And years later, 1980, I mentioned this "X-Files" sort of incident at work, where one of my associates, a guy named Jack Boyle, instantly recalled the event. He named the date and place of the sightings. "I was there, in Taiwan, and serving with the U.S. Army" on that unforgettable day in April, 1967, he said.

"Mulder?"