Vietnam
Part 4
The military unit
This is 362d Signal Company Detachment 1, looking south. At the top left is a guard tower that was not manned by us. Just a little closer and slightly to the left is one of our towers. The long structure to the right is a Quonset hut made of canvas. When I arrived, I lived about one-third from the left end. Near the end is a small building. That is the latrine; three holes-no waiting! We hired an old Vietnamese man to pull out the buckets, add diesel oil and burn the contents every day. The building at the extreme left is the washroom. It was connected by a pipe to a tank next to the latrine. Next to the latrine was a tank of diesel oil. Some diesel oil was allowed to flow under the water tank and it was ignited. You could select the temperature of your shower by the amount of time that passed after the oil was ignited. To the right of the latrine is the mobile water tank. We used most of our allotment of drinking water for the washroom. The building to the right of the water tank and the building at bottom center of the picture were barracks. I lived in the building to the right after I was no longer the "new guy." The building to the extreme right is the NCO building. After I got another stripe, I lived there. The structure to the lower left is a urinal. It consists of a long sewer pipe that went part way down the mountain. Three walls were placed for privacy and for protection from the wind.
I turned and took another picture. The operations center is on the other side of the boulders.
The next picture was taken from the same place, but I had turned around. On the right is the generator shed. It contained two generators to provide electricity should the power from the military facility in Qui Nhon be knocked out or disconnected. Near the center of the screen is another guard tower. To the left is the rear of the operations center. In the foreground is another urinal. "When you gotta go, you gotta go!"
This is the remainder of the site. In the foreground is the club, where you could get liquor. At night, after dark, they showed movies in that area. In the upper right are the barracks for Company B-41, which was the VHF company. To the left and nearly center picture is the mess hall. The food was not bad, but a little too spicy for my taste. I got a little sick of roast beef that was hot even when it was cold. Midnight chow had to be eaten in the dark. You take the food and have no idea what you are eating. To the left is VHF operations. If you look carefully, you can see the arrays of antennas. On the top of the tower is a television antenna for channel 11.
To the left of the tower is the "Long Lines" facility. They have their own compound and I was never up there.
This is the operations center of our company. The large dishes are disassembled and placed into the mounting structure. Wheels are attached and they can be tower by a truck. The small dishes can be disassembled and placed into the communications van, which can then be put into the back of a two-and-a-half ton truck, called a deuce-and-half.
This is a view from the front. There are six dishes pointing toward the distant stations. Shortly after I arrived, one of the systems was removed and sent to another location. Later pictures will show only four dishes. I could not back any further to take the picture without stepping off the side of the mountain.
Another view. In a previous picture, I showed the generator shed. The transformers that were above the shed can be seen just to the right of the large dish. The guard tower can be seen just to the left of the other large dish.
This picture was taken many months later. It is the barracks on the left of the first picture. Just to the left of the center of the picture is a small board on top of another board. When they put in the television transmitter, they had four antennas. Two of them pointed north to the air base at, as I recall, Phu Cat. Another pointed to the east for the troops in Qui Nhon. The last antenna was pointed to the west because there were troops in the valley. Since our small detachment was the only thing to the south, they did not point an antenna at us. The only signal that we got was that which bounced off the surrounding mountains. The result was a picture with five ghosts, and unusable. Since I had extensive experience with antennas, I designed a yagi antenna for channel 11. I used available material. I found some #10 insulated copper wire and nailed it to the board at just the right length and spacing. I could not find twin-lead, so I used zip cord. I built antennas for all my friends. The sand bags on the roof keep it from blowing away.
I lived in the two buildings in this pictures. In the closest building, I lived just on the other side of the wall. Then, I moved into the NCO building that is in the background. At first, I had a nice corner room on the left hand side. Then the "new guy" outranked me, so I moved into the center room, until I went home.
After taking the above picture, I turned about 45 degrees and took another picture. To the left are the other barracks. In the center is the water tank. To the right is the diesel oil and behind it is the latrine.
This is the view from one of the guard towers. I cannot estimate the number of hours that I stared at this view, mostly at night.
That is the tower at the southern point. Our unit did not man this tower. Maybe that's why it has a roof!
This was one of the girls who took care of our clothes and kept our rooms clean. I wonder what ever happened to her. She may have been tortured or killed when the American left. Or maybe she escaped Vietnam. Maybe she kept a low profile and still lives in Qui Nhon. One can only wonder, but never know.
Here she is, with the other woman who worked for us.
Here is the operations center and some of the troops that worked the equipment.
This is somebody pretending to be working. This is the van that contained a twenty-four channel multiplexer/demultiplexer, microwave transmitter and receiver. It also contained various test and communications equipment. When the equipment was not used, the small dishes were stored here.
Some troops were combat-ready!
This was the site a year later. Two of the dishes were removed to another location.
I drove the three-quarter ton truck. The captain drove the jeep.
And everybody else drove the deuce-and-halfs. Notice the man in the guard tower. Although attack during the day was unlikely, it was still possible.
Some Air-Force guys put their own system to the south of us. Notice another of my antennas. Come to think of it, that might have been my antenna because that was my room before I got kicked out.
