White Water Red Hot Lead by Dan Daly

Author:Dan Daly
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Casemate
Published: 2017-09-25T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 15

SAMPAN RECONNAISSANCE

Two weeks had passed since our baptism by fire, when we had been ambushed, along with Killer Lou and his crew, south of Cap Batangan. This had been followed just minutes later by the machine-gun cookoff which had almost killed both Boats and me. Afterwards we had discovered that a VC sniper hidden onshore had almost nailed us while we didn’t even hear his shot. Growing up was coming fast and furious to the crew of PCF 76, myself included.

Today, we were patrolling on the northern side of the Batangan peninsula, still in the Same Drink Delta sector. This area was made up of a gently curving bay a mile or two long edged in most places by a shoreline of white sand and jungle beyond. The bay offered some protection to the fisherman on both the northern and southern ends, but still had a wide opening to the Pacific Ocean on the eastern side which was almost two miles across. On the southern end were a series of small dark-colored rocky islands, none of them were more than half an acre in size or much more than fifty feet above sea level. The fisherman in their wooden sampans would move in and around these islands, where the water was calmer and I presume the fishing better due to the rocky bottom.

We were cruising slowly among the boats just showing the flag more than anything else because no one remotely suspicious was transiting in either a northerly or southerly direction. Instead, the fisherman would just drop their handheld nets, drag them for a while alongside and pull in any catch. Despite this somewhat bucolic scene, we were still patrolling at General Quarters so I had all hands on deck and fully armed. The mirror-like surface of the blue water with the bright sunny sky above could be a deadly backdrop if you let your guard down for a moment and forgot where you were. This was unquestionably still enemy territory and another sniper could be silently tracking us onshore, less than a football field away.

I was driving at my preferred position, the after helm. I heard our main radio in the pilothouse crackle to life with the clarity and volume of a message that was most likely transmitted by our Da Nang control, Article. I couldn’t make out the details, but Newcomer was in the pilothouse. He leaned out the door and gave me a thumbs-up, meaning he had received the entire transmission.

Article’s message stated that they had recently received local intel for our area that the Viet Cong had planted explosives in several empty sampans which they had anchored off the beach in our vicinity and control wires had been seen being rigged back to the beach. “Investigate and report,” was at the close of Article’s transmission.

I thought to myself, What planet do these people live on? We were supposed to drive up alongside the sampans, peer over the gunwale confirming their intel as the explosions inside went off.

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