Cruise 6 Sea Stories
Navy Red Tape
When I arrived in the Delta during April 1968 and took command of Tom Green, I called upon the Commander of the Riverine Force, Commodore Salzer, a man whom I have the greatest respect. He was in command of a force that took huge casualties in 1968. When we met he told me the reason the Tom Green, with 2000 tons of ammo in the tank deck, was anchored 1000 yards from the other ships was that he wanted to ensure that if we exploded we would not take the rest of the force with us. Needless to say that in my second day of command this was not a reassuring discussion.
He said that in his view the VC could probably destroy any or all of the ships anytime they felt like it and he was not sure why they had not put any effort into it. I asked where the idea/plan had come from and he responded it was originally a plan by the French. My reply was "They have not had a good idea in 200 years" and putting this size ship in this size river was nuts.
I recommended that the Navy immediately get causeways that LST routinely carried and load them on the sides thus creating a barrier to rockets and recoilless rifle rounds. About an hour after I got back to Tom Green I received a call from the Riverine Force staff asking "what is a causeway?"(There were not many/any Gators on that staff) I responded with an overview and the suggestion was forwrded to Washington.
A week later I was called over to the staff and shown a reply from the states which said they had taken a causeway section from Little Creek to a weapons testing site and fired a B40 rocket at it and it went right through the causeway. My reply was "No sh--". A B40 round is designed to go through armor plate but please note that on the other side of the causeway is the outer hull and the inner hull of a ship which is probably not enough to stop a round but it was better than nothing. I further recommended the causeway be filled with water and thus stop anything the VC had.
This plan was evaluated and the next call I received from the staff was the idea had been rejected because it would increase the ships draft by 11 to 13 inches. My next visit with Commodore Salzer resulted in a discussion during which I stated "Me and my crew would rather go aground 100 times rather than blow up once". The Commodore agreed with me and sent a strong message to the states which resulted in the arrival of the requested causeways, which had individual water pipe fittings.
The causeways were installed by a floating crane and filled with water from the river. When the relief ship arrived the water was drained and the causeways were transferred to the new ship. No LST was ever attacked from the side that had the causeways attached. The problem was "THEY HAD ONLY SENT ONE SET".
The following November(1968) Tom Green arrived back in the delta and the Whitfield or Vernon County had the causeways so we did not. Our first trip up the Bassac River we got hit with between 7 and 9 rockets(depending on who was counting)which went into the starboard side and into the tank deck, but did not hit any ammo. We had some people wounded but none seriously.
The last time I met Commodore Salzer he was Admiral Salzer and he came aboard the USS San Bernadino just after I took command in 1972. He remembered the causeways and told the story to his staff
Contributed by Mick Reidemann
The Large Slow Target
I assumed command of the Tom Green on the 13th of April 1968 when we had a fire on the tank deck, amidst all the 2000 tons of ammo and supplies. Capt. David Dally couldn't get to GQ due to paralysis, which we later learned was Gilluame-Barre Syndrome, a virus that causes a slow spreading paralysis usually beginning with the legs. I called the flagship, notified Commodore Salazar and requested a medical evaluation, with the result he was airlifted to Saigon immediately.
As I recall, Commodore Salzer came over to the Tom and we met in my cabin, the huge Commodores cabin, when he wasn't aboard. Remember we were configured to that extent, and I had to move to another cabin and displace another officer if the flag rode with us for any extent. Anyway he asked me if I could assume command and handle the job and I said I could, and that we had an outstanding crew and group of officers. Before he left he said to go ahead and follow the procedures in Navy Regs for assuming command and send out all the necessary messages.
I met with the officers in the Wardroom, told them what had transpired and ordered them to begin the inventories of the supplies, crypto pubs, etc and to prepare the notifications by Top Secret Flash Message to CNO etc of the assumption of command. Boy was I scared.
A Lieutenant doing this, even though I had the orders from the Commadore and his "blessing". It just so happened that the Duty Captain at CNO in the Pentagon was an old acquaintance of mine from Phibron 6, when he was commanding the Oglethorpe, an old AKA. When he got my message, as he related to me 20 years later here in Orlando, his reaction was "What has Roger Phillips done now?" because my message got to the CNO before the Commodores and caused some kind of consternation.
Two days later, at about 1300, we got hit while at anchor and very close to the riverbank. I was lying down in my cabin, as I had not as yet moved into the Captains Cabin(which proved fortunate) when we were hit with several rounds of RPG. The first round hit the Captains Cabin and a piece of shrapnel as big as a small dinner plate was lying on the pillow, smoking, right where my head would have been had I been there.
Also at the time, over the starboard bow was a painting party on a Bosn chair, consisting of Seaman Floyd Black, one of the biggest guys in the crew. As the handling party was pulling Black up and over the rail, he got hit in the buttocks by a piece of shrapnel and was bleeding "like a stuck pig". I was up on the fighting bridge, not a smart place to be, but where I could see fighting a fire on the pontoon, firing the 50 calibers into the river bank and maybe the 3 inch 50s, I don't really remember, except that we were very busy and trying to get underway at the same time. Suddenly there was Seaman Black right alongside of me yelling " CAPTAIN, CAPTAIN, THEY DONE SHOT ME IN THE ASS!" And I yelled right back "BLACK, YOU GET YOUR BLEEDING ASS TO SICKBAY RIGHT NOW, I'M TOO BUSY TO TALK TO YOU!
Black was the only casualty we suffered and he got the Purple Heart for it. It was the only award the the entire crew got for fighting and saving the ship. I always felt that was not right.
Another memory of that action was the RPG round that hit the Ships Store and imbedded itself in a large box of M&Ms. The round did not explode, but the heat fused the M&Ms all over the warhead until it looked like a huge chocolate ice cream cone. Also we took a hit in the void where we feared the beer was stored. I got on the 1MC and told the crew that wasn't the case and you could hear the cheering all the way up on the bridge. Anyway we got underway sucessfully, put out the fire, and began to assess the damage, which was minimal, fortunately, and began to patch it up to prevent light leaks for darken ship, which we did nightly. I held command until Cdr. Mick Riedemann relieved me and I became his XO. It was then that I learned how much I didn't know about being a CO, as he was the best I ever served under.
I'd be interested in hearing from my other shipmates of their recollections of these incidents, as "time blurs the details".
Best Regards to all "Tom Greeners"
The Pueblo Crisis
It was either February or March of '68 that we left Yokosuka, with Captain David Dally commanding and headed south for Naha, Okinawa with orders to embark a large detachment of Army Special Forces and all of their gear and transport them to Keelung, Taiwan for exercises with the Taiwanese Special Forces.
It was also my first time to act as Navigator and as a new XO, perhaps this was my scariest job thus far. But fortunately I had a GREAT Quartermaster crew who really knew their stuff and were really proud of their celestial navigation. Also we were steaming in an area of poor Loran coverage, so celestial navigation, keeping an excellent track, and even using the depth finder to corelate with a bottom chart were our methods. Well, I wear glasses and I never did get the hang of shooting morning or evening stars, but my QMs sure could, so I would hold the stop watch for them and just observe how they did the job.
Often the Captain would ask me where we were and jokingly I would lay my palm down on the chart and state that "we are here skipper", and he would laugh. What he did not know was that often I wasn't kidding and we did not know EXACTLY where we were.
Well the real test came the night before we were scheduled to arrive in Naha. We were all on the bridge about midnight because that was the time when the light from the first light house was due to appear on the horizon on a specific bearing and at a certain time. As the time grew near, I was really nervous and so were my Quartermasters. The Captain began to ask me over and over if I was sure it was going to appear? Then, there it was. Right where we said it would be and EXACTLY on time. Captain Dally looked at me and mouthed the words "LUCKY" and he did not know the half of it. But my QMs deserve all the credit for rescuing their boss and XO.
We pulled into Naha Harbor, a very crowded place and gingerly opened the bow doors, nosed up to the seawall, lowered the ramp and faced a mob scene of Army vehicles, trailers, and personnel that had not the slightest idea of how to load onto an LST, much less any ship. They'd never been aboard any ship and the Army had quit teaching them anything about seaborne transportation. They expected us to load all of their equipment while they watched. That was not going to happen and the negotiations began and meanwhile the traffic backed up on the seawall/pier and stopped all traffic and the Port Control Officer was going NUTS. We resolved it by designing the loading plan for them and making them execute it. In the middle of all this the Pueblo crisis hit
We began to receive Top Secret messages to standby to execute the Top Secret Movement Orders in case of war and we proceeded to DEFCON TWO. Then the Army Commander came aboard and told us he had orders to embark on the Tom Green and get underway for North Korea. We politely informed him that we took our orders from the Navy and when and if we got orders to do that we would but until then we were proceeding as previously ordered and they were going to Keelung, like it or not. We then continued loading and when we finished we waited, having been ordered to do so by ComPhibPac, as I remember.
While we waited we had some great Liberty with the Special Forces, and they delighted in showing us how they could jump off roofs and not get hurt. We also had a memorable party at the Fighter Club, which entailed insulting a Vice Admiral and getting out of there ASAP before he sicced his minions on us. I seem to remember a Geisha House that night and waking up in my bunk with the Squadron Medical Officer hovering over me and asking me how I felt. I said "fine, why"? He asked me if I remembered anything from the night before and I said "very little, except for bits and pieces". Then he told me what had happened and that he had given me a super new pregnancy anti-nausea drug called Thalidomide and it would cure any hangover. He was right, but you may remember Thalidomide was pulled from the market because it caused birth defects. It didn't hurt me however, or not that I could tell. However I swore off double Martini's forever.
The Pueblo Crisis was solved without us and we got underway for Naha in bad weather. The Army was exhibiting a sickly green color and we were rolling our usual 30-40 degrees and making comments like, "I hope we have cold pork gravy for dinner", etc. We did gain the everlasting respect of the Army by going past the FILFLAS Rocks and firing the 3inch 50s all the while rolling and bucking. They were visably impressed!
We proceeed to Keelung to disembark them. When we arrived we they invited us to come up to Taipei with them and be their guests at their private hotel, and so we did.... but thats another story! Stay tuned!
A number of us were out and about for a leisurely cruise on the river near Vaung Tau. I guess there were some things that would not be told to the Captain. We navigated ourselves in waters that were not safe and our prop picked up a line that became fouled in the propellor.
We managed to slowly make our way to a pier and members of another service (the greens give it away) and asked for assistance which they provided after asking what we had to trade. I don’t remember what we had to trade but after negotiating some stuff they lifted the LCVP out of the river by the stern, with a cherry picker, until the prop was clear of the water. A plank was extended out from the pier and we went to work getting the prop cleared.
Line tightly wrapped on a prop becomes hard as steel and is extremely difficult to cut, but we cleared the prop and returned to the “Tom". It may have been a foolish thing to do, but then we all felt, “it can’t happen to me”, thus doing whatever it took to survive.