Đà Nẵng, Vietnam - 1966 Since receiving an e-mail from the 48th Security Police Squadron, USAF
48 TFW, RAF Lakenheath, England, from Jim
Calcutt, CMSgt seeking information regarding SSgt
Jensen's death, I have not been able to look at any of my photos of
the 1,100 men Air Police Squadron. I have not been able to walk down the
hall to sort out the photos of SSgt Jensen and A3C Jones Memorial Service,
or of Đà Nẵng Air Base. This is the first positive act I've done
... to set down and just write it out. I started War Stories, unknowingly,
for just this purpose---to help others write it out, and I guess
that now includes me.
I want to ... need to ... write about my friend, J. B. Jones, his death, and the Squadron's Memorial
Service for J.B. and SSgt Jensen.
The 48th TFW in England is honoring enlisted men KIA in Vietnam, to preserve
their valor and the memory of enlisted service in SVN. A barracks will
be named after SSgt Jensen, and for decades to come, men of the 48th TFW
will know of his passing.
SSgt
Jensen died a death of valor and in so doing, gave up his life, won
the Silver Star, and saved the lives of 25 men who were about to be blown
away by satchel charges thrown by sappers in an attack on Đà Nẵng. He
was the first of over 100 USAF Air/Security Police to die in Vietnam (click
on his name to read his story).
A3C Jones was killed in action during
a 122mm rocket attack by Viet Cong on Đà Nẵng AB during the Christmas
truce 24 December, 1965 to 31 January 1966. J.B. was award the Bronze
Star w/V, and was the second Air Police KIA in Vietnam. The list of dead
would continue growing to 111.
Both SSgt Jensen and Airman Jones were
to die within a few hundred yards of our 366th Gunfighters' tent
compound. Both men were remembered and honored by the Squadron at a memorial
service held at the newly constructed Jensen and Jones Memorial Day
Room.
The Christmas-New Year bombing halt and
Truce was a joke from the beginning. The 105 Howitzers were not silent---they
still fired in support of calls for illumination and HE support. The F-4's
were not silent---Phantoms still streaked into the night, and even Northward.
The Viet Cong were not silent---they still probed the air base and lobbed
mortars at Đà Nẵng and Marble Mountain.
Around 0200 hours, January
25, 1966, the quiet night was shattered by the first of a dozen 122 mm
rockets to arc toward Đà Nẵng Air Base. Mortars began krumping
across the flight line, sounding much like a heavy oak door slamming shut.
Launched from between Marble Mountain and Đà Nẵng, the mortars and rockets
began thumping in the outer perimeter,
skipped to the flight line, and pockmarked the fields across the taxiway
and only active runway.
My K-9, Blackie (X129), and I took cover in a K-9 fighting hole between
the active runway and the new under-construction runway, and waited. krump ... krump ... krump-krump. No exploding aircraft. krump. No fires. krump-krump, and a very loud Krump nearby. No penetration of the
perimeter. Just another round of near nightly mortars at Đà Nẵng and Marble
Mountain.
After about twenty minutes, the night was
silent again. Revetment lights winked back on. Pop-flares lite the perimeter.
Flareships took off and circled, kicking their star lights in nova-beads
spiraling around the base. Activity began anew with men moving amongst
aircraft checking for damage. Đà Nẵng routine quickly returned.
At 0330 hours, a Strike
Team drove up checking posts for casualties. The truck approached my K-9
fighting hole and a front wheel bounced down then back up out of a 60
mm mortar crater within 20 yards of my post. Sandbags around my K-9 fighting
hole were bleeding sand. The men on the
Strike Team were silent. No joking or cutting up. The Sergeant came toward
me and I called Blackie to heal, reigning in his leash (he liked to suddenly
charge anyone within ten feet). No one offered coffee, and no one said
a word until the Sergeant said, "J.B.'s dead." I heard the rest in snatches. ." . . the first rocket hit the asphalt road he was crossing to cover
... he had over a hundred wounds above the waist ... we took him to
the medics on the hood of a jeep ... dead already ... are you
okay?"
(1) N/B view of perimeter
road. (2)
Bunker JB sought cover at during attack.
Photos above (1) N/B view: JB was in
the Petroleum depot to the right. when rockets and mortars began hitting
the base, he sought cover on the west side of the perimeter road that
paralleled the runway and hangers, and neighbored the AIr Police Squadron
tent compound. He was heading toward cover in the bunkers, but as he crossed
the road, a 60 mm mortar hit the road close by and killed him instantly.
Photo (2) shows the bunker JB was trying to take cover at. Road repair
crew had just finished patching the asphalt surface where the mortar impacted.
"Yes ... I'm ... okay,
Sarge." He shined his cupped flashlight on the punctured sandbags, walked
to the scooped out mortar hole, then looked at me for what seemed a full
minute, then turned and got in the truck and drove on down the runway
to the next K-9 post, lights out.
... Hours passed. J.B. -- Dead-- Not possible.
At first daylight, the K-9
truck relieved us from post. A dozen handlers and vicious sentry dogs,
muzzled, rode in silence to the kennels. I put Blackie away in his kennel,
then headed for the dispensary where J.B. was taken a few hours earlier.
Still wearing my flack-jacket and helmet and carrying my M-16 weapon,
I entered the dispensary. Two medics came out of a back room ... is
that where he is? I asked ... a medic looked at my Air Police patch
then pulled the door closed and stood in front of it. "I want to see J.B.'s
body." No salutations. No B.S. "He's not here. He's on his way home
... we put him on a C-130 to Saigon an hour ago." I don't know why,
but I accepted that as truth. I turned and walked back to the new hooch
hut-barracks we had just moved into. Today, I believe that J.B. was still
in that back room, and the medics had spared me seeing his body with its
severed limbs.
The single floor hooch was quiet when I entered. We had arranged our bunks
and scrap-wood built lockers in living areas, like circled wagons of friends. I sat on my lower cot took off my helmet and looked up at
J.B.'s taped-up locker. They've been here already. One of the guys
said grave registration had boxed up Jim's personal belongs to ship to
his folks. Don't worry, they said they'd take out stuff his folks shouldn't
see.
Photo: A2C Maxie C. Pierce standing
in front of my homemade locker.
I looked at the warning label on his locker---Maxie Pierce said it was empty---and I saw that it
had J.B.'s home address, not his APO address, hand written on it. Maxie
and some of the guys gathered round. Someone said, "We want you to write
them ... J.B.'s folks ... tell'em how we all feel."
An NCO had said that Colonel Phillips requested
Jim's friends write to his parents. I sat down, and they drifted out of
the little cubicle housing of four bunks.
' ... tell'em how we all feel.' I can't do this now, I thought,
and lay back on my bunk. I can't not do it either. I began writing
to J.B.'s parents. I wrote the truth, how I felt and I suppose the other's
who knew him too, about Jim's being good-natured, naive, an infectious
smile, a genuine joker with no enemies, countless friends, and as innocent
as any 19 year old in Vietnam. I didn't write that he liked the cheap
watered-down beer at the Đà Nẵng Airmen's Club, and would be laughing with tears in his eyes and
rolling on the floor by the second can; that he developed a keen reading
interest in the cheap local novels, yet never went downtown; and
had bluffed his way past Marine M.P.s by wearing his Air Police helmet,
to see the Bob Hope, Ann Margaret USO show.
A few weeks later, I got
the first of two letters from his mother. The first said that the family
minister read my letter at Jim's funeral. Both parents were grieving at
the loss of their son. I share this letter with you now, so that you will
know how decent his family is and was:
Years later, I would write
again, wanting to send the family photos that I had of J.B., but the
letter was returned
Address Unknown.
I
had already taken photos of men who had gathered, waiting, remembering,
and thinking. Their somber expressions. The aging of weary young
eyes. The growing up too fast honest to God maturity. Light joking at
forced punch lines
