by Michael T. Martin
An Hoa was a ‘forward combat base’ deep in Viet Cong territory on the coastal plain outside of Da Nang, South Vietnam. Rows of coiled concertina barbed wire backed by periodic sandbagged defensive bunkers completely surrounded the base. A Marine infantry regiment operated there to protect an industrial area, including an iron mine, surrounded by a farming community. Across a nearby river was a major Viet Cong base known by Marines as ‘Arizona Territory’ in an allusion to movie westerns about cowboys in Indian country.
Being ‘forward’ meant the roads were impassable during the rainy season, thus requiring a short airstrip alongside the base to resupply it. This then needed a Marine Air Traffic Control Unit (MATCU) with a Ground Control Approach (GCA) bad weather radar landing system. I was a GCA radar technician, and in September, with the rainy season approaching, I was sent to An Hoa to re-establish their GCA capability.
I arrived by helicopter with the operators and radio techs to find an abandoned complex between the airstrip and the defensive perimeter of sandbagged emplacements around repair huts and underground living quarters. Our living quarters consisted of two steel shipping containers buried side by side, covered with dirt and rows of sand-filled wooden rocket boxes. One of the containers served as the dining area with our C-rations while the other held the sleeping quarters, with puddles of water inside. Obviously no one had lived there for several months. The staff NCOs had separate individual living quarters in the repair area.
The back door to our underground living quarters had about 5 steps up to the surface, roughly 20 yards from a heavily sandbagged perimeter bunker where a barbed wire fence connected it to the next defensive bunkers. Consequently, if the enemy broke through the defensive perimeter during an attack, they would be right in our operations area. Which is what happened when the last MATCU that was there in early 1969 was attacked by sappers.
When I arrived, the replacement GCA radar system hung disassembled in its shipping racks next to its sandbag emplacement. The equipment was supposed to be bolted into those shipping racks, but the disassembled sections were simply tied by wire to the shipping frames, and instead of having the connecting bolts screwed into their corresponding place of each segment, a bag of bolts hung from the shipping frame with no way to know which bolt went into which section. Fortunately, I had disassembled and reassembled this kind of system several times and knew which bolts likely went where. I began working to reassemble the radar while helping others reestablish the operations area.
I was the senior sergeant in electronics and worked with ‘Skee’, an equally senior sergeant in charge of the generators and communications wires, to get our area operational. The wires to communicate by phone from our operations area to the base operations across the runway had to be reinstalled. Between working to assemble the radar, I helped Skee dig the ditch to lay the wires in. I also took the initiative to dig a ditch to drain away the water in our underground living quarters.
Within a couple days, I had the GCA radar assembled and operating while Skee got the generators working, and along with the radio technicians having set up the mini-tower, a Notice to Airmen (NOTAM) announced that An Hoa was operational again.
The tower radios needed 110 volts, 60 cycles, power: the same as civilian households, and we extended the wires into our living quarters to let us have electric lights, a hot plate, coffee maker, and even a television. We also ran 60 cycle power to the perimeter bunker so they could have their own hotplate, or even watch television while on duty. One night a few weeks later, that perimeter guard was watching television when suddenly he noticed some movement outside. An enemy soldier had somehow crawled through the concertina barbed wire and was climbing over the perimeter fence.
The startled perimeter guard quickly shot the intruder. But, realizing in the darkness there might be others he continued firing his machine gun up and down the perimeter fence. I was inside our underground bunker watching television with a few colleagues when we heard the firing. We crept up the ramp outside to see what was going on.
All we could see in the dark were cascades of sparks whenever the machine gun bullets struck the perimeter fence. Nobody else was shooting and, as we watched, the sergeant of the guard ran up screaming at the perimeter guard to stop firing. The perimeter guard ignored him.
“There’s nothing out there,” the sergeant of the guard shouted just about the time the attacking enemy opened fire. He dove into the perimeter bunker and we scrambled back into ours. We had been instructed to grab our rifles, helmets and flak jackets in an attack then make our way into a string of sand-bag positions next to our radar and tower operations.Our sandbag positions overlooking the perimeter bunker on the left and our underground living quarters to the right.
When we reached those positions, we encountered the staff NCO’s, one of whom was in a panic trying to launch a parachute illumination flare but had misaligned the firing mechanism. To launch the flare required taking the cap off one end of a foot-long tube and putting it on the other end. Pounding that end on your palm would ignite the explosive charge that shot out the flare contents, which were extremely hot and bright, hot enough that the rising heat would inflate the parachute and keep it aloft.
Except in this case the panicked staff NCO kept pounding on the misaligned cap while inadvertently turning in a circle, lowering the flare as he did until he was threatening to fire the flare right into our midst. This had everyone else scurrying to escape the muzzle until someone managed to grab the staff NCO and direct the flare upward just as it went off.
Meanwhile, brightly lit by the parachute flares overhead, the enemy attack meant bullets and rifle-launched grenades were impacting the perimeter bunker. The exploding grenades sent bursts of white-hot shrapnel just like fireworks on the Fourth of July. Our orders were to wait in our overlooking two-man sand-bag mini-bunkers and not to fire our rifles.
The enemy ignored us, concentrating their fire on the perimeter bunker only about 25 yards from us. I could see the embattled defensive bunker but not the enemy out in the darkness. Rather than just watch the war, I told my bunker buddy that I was going to stand up to draw their fire and he could then see where they were in the dark. I figured it would take a few seconds for the enemy to spot me, so I stood up for about five seconds and then hurriedly squatted back down.
The enemy ignored me. I decided to violate orders and fire one shot into the darkness towards the unseen enemy. It was futile but I couldn’t take being attacked and not firing at least one shot at the enemy. One blind shot where I couldn’t even assess its effectiveness. My one single shot fired in the Vietnam War.
The enemy finally went away around midnight. The flares burnt out and darkness resumed. We went back to our underground bunker. The next morning we learned that 8 dead enemies were removed from the perimeter wire. We also learned that the officer in charge had called a meeting of our unit.
The OIC primarily reviewed what had occurred the night before and went over our previous instructions that in an attack we were to move to our sand-bagged positions and not fire our rifles. If the enemy broke through the perimeter defenses we were still not to fire our rifles but to fall back across the runway into another set of sand-bag defenses.
He then explained that it was unnerving to the perimeter bunkers to have firing from behind them during an attack. He didn’t mention that I had fired my rifle, he just sternly insisted that we do not fire our rifles under any circumstances.
“Is that clear?” he concluded. Nobody said anything.
“Are there any questions?” he asked. I raised my arm.
“Yes,” he acknowledged.
“Sir, is it alright if we throw rocks at them?”
I escaped with a nasty scowl but we were dismissed to return to duty. Not long afterward I was transferred by helicopter back to Marble Mountain near Da Nang.
Michael T. Martin joined the U.S. Marine Corps in 1964 and served one tour in Vietnam in 1969 as an Air Traffic Ground Control Approach radar technician. He left the Marines in 1971 and moved to San Francisco, CA. In 1973, he graduated from the Hutchins School of Liberal Studies at the (now) California State University Sonoma. In 1974, he moved to Phoenix and began taking Business classes at ASU. He retired from the Arizona School Boards Association in 2012 and now lives in midtown Phoenix with his wife.
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