Memories of Vietnam July 1968 thru Jun 1969

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Headquarters, 4th Infantry Division
at Camp Enari

Ravages of War

The Viet Cong launched many attacks against Camp Enari during my tour. Most were by 122 mm. rockets fired from distant hills.  For the first several months, the rockets missed the one square mile camp completely.  Word was that the VC were using old French maps and that a mismatch of adjoining pages fell between their firing point and the camp, causing a miscalculation of the distance.  Whatever the problem, the VC corrected it by early 1969 when dozens of rockets landed inside the camp, killing two soldiers and causing considerable property damage.

The VC also made various attempts to breach the camp's barbed wire and bunker perimeter by stealth, patiently returning nightly to cut through strand after strand of wire, then loosely reattaching them as they backed out so the opening wouldn't be noticed during the day. On one occasion they succeeded in breaking through and placing satchel charges under several vehicles in a motor pool. Fortunately only about half of the charges detonated. 

Remains of 124th Signal Bn mess hall where two soldiers died

One rocket landed among the Cobra helicopters parked on a pad. This Cobra was totaled.

A 122 mm rocket explodes near my trailer (L) (See story below)

It's usually hard to photograph a rocket at the exact moment it explodes. In this case we saw from the bunker that several rockets had already exploded in almost the same spot. We could also see a flash in the distant hills every time a rocket was fired. So we timed the interval between the flash and the explosion (16 seconds). A friend counted the seconds after the next flash, and I clicked the shutter at 16. Bingo!

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