1P FRENCH FORT EXPLOSION
My assignment in the old French fort ended abruptly one morning when the ammo dump I lived next to was blown up by Viet Cong Sappers (guerilla fighters often camouflaged by painting themselves with grease and charcoal dust). The Tay Ninh Province Chief had decided years earlier that the safest place to store his munitions would be in the old French fort located in Tay Ninh East. He must have been thinking about the munitions getting stolen, not being blown up. Besides storing ordnance, the fort also housed Vietnamese Special Forces, plus a mixture of Popular Forces and Provisional Reconnaissance Units. Due to the lack of space, the soldiers had the misfortune of being billeted on the second floor, above the ammunition. When the initial explosion took place, the concussion was so great, I was blown out of my bunk and knocked unconscious. I am not sure how long I was out, but when I awoke, I saw the roof of my shelter had been partially blown off along with the glass from the windows having been blown inside the room. Everything loose in the room had been sucked out (including my uniform) through the roof opening. Looking up I could see a huge mushroom cloud rising thousands of feet into the sky; its brightness turned the night sky into daylight. My first thought was to get under shelter. I began crawling around the floor with only my briefs (I suppose the only thing worse than dying, would be dying naked). I tried to get under the only upright bunk in the room but blocking me were six cases of Coke stored under the bunk. I can still remember stretching my arm under the bunk and in one swing of my arm, throwing those cases across the room. The adrenaline rush was so high, those cases felt like empty boxes. I hid under the bunk for what seemed like hours, and then began the long crawl to the main bunker. While slowly making my way to the bunker, I was leaving a trail of blood behind me. My entire body was bleeding from crawling over the broken glass and pieces of shrapnel from the exploding bombs. If I wanted to live, I had to get to the fortified bunker before an unexploded bomb hit me. The explosions were never-ending as hundreds of 105mm and 155mm artillery rounds were cooking off together, and with every explosion my body was lifted, only to be thrown back down on more glass and shrapnel. The explosions had caused me to lose my hearing and all I could hear was a loud ringing in both ears. When I finally made it to the bunker, I was relieved to find out that all five of my men had survived the initial explosions, but one of them, Sgt. Peterson, had a serious back wound that needed immediate attention. When Sgt. Peterson was wounded, he came running to me yelling he was shot in the lower back. Upon checking his back, I could see a piece of shrapnel sticking out of his lower back next to his spine. I did not want to remove it, but he insisted, due to the pain. I attempted to remove the metal, but his pain was so unbearable that he screamed, and this caused me to jerk my hand and slice my thumb on the razor-sharp metal. Adding to the mayhem, my cut would not stop bleeding, and there was more of my blood on his back than his own. It took two men and a 50-caliber shell in his mouth to get him under control. I had no surgical clamps, so I improvised two bullets and a bootlace to pull the two” long piece of shrapnel out. Once the shrapnel was removed, his pain started to subside, and he got his composure back. I bandaged the wound and checked his pulse. He was alive and semiconscious, thankful that his pain was easing.
There was little blood coming from his wound after I removed his two-inch “lucky charm.” Two hours later he was back on his feet and taking control of the M-60 on the roof of the bunker. When we got him back to Tay Ninh base camp, the surgical team told him that he was one lucky soldier; if the shrapnel had hit him a quarter inch more to his right, he would have been paralyzed from his waist down. The explosions went on for another four hours and it was not until sunrise before we felt it was safe to dig our way out. When we exited the bunker, we could not believe our eyes; the entire compound had been destroyed; our living quarters and work areas were gone. Our compound now consisted only of a huge empty field with an oval-shaped crater thirty feet deep and one hundred feet wide. Unfortunately, the Vietnamese we worked with were decimated. Over two hundred of them, who had been quartered over the ordinance, were killed instantly by the initial blast. The buildings they were sleeping in were vaporized and the only things left were pieces of structural steel and human remains. We searched our compound for classified documents and personal belongings, and then spent the remainder of the afternoon helping the Vietnamese gather the body parts that were scattered over the grounds. The rotting flesh in the 100+temperature gave off a pungent stink that permeated the air and made normal breathing impossible without a makeshift mask. Unexploded ordnance was everywhere; bullets, hand grenades, sixty & 81mm mortar rounds, 105 & 155mm artillery rounds, and 500 lb. dumb bombs. In the late afternoon, we gathered whatever equipment and personal belongings we could find and departed the French fort for the last time. As we were exiting the fort, I looked back at the destruction and realized that the only structures still standing were the four red brick walls and partially collapsed buildings. With all the death and destruction around us, we were lucky to have made it through the night. The ride to Tay Ninh Base Camp was exhilarating; the cool evening breeze was blowing across our bodies; clearing our lungs and helping to get the fine powder from the explosions out of our hair and eyes.
We had beaten death, and as soon as we got into the countryside, the men broke into laughter, thankful to be alive.