(7) 1 Jul 58 to 10 Dec 58: Battalion Asst S-3, Special Weapons Training Officer These bombardments along with small arms fire broke up several attacks during the day. 8th Bn, 4th Arty (8-in/175) Towards the end of summer 1958 the Army switched to dollars and I remember waking up to hear women screaming along the depot fence. I was 8 years old (3rd grade - 4th grade) at the time so my memories are not crystal clear. We also had black & white Chevrolet station wagon which bit the dust (threw a rod) on the trip down to Munich in 1968. Their 6:30 signoff was: If the good Lords willing and the creeks dont rise, we'll see you in the morning at 6:05.". Welcome to the official 504th Military Police Battalion page on Facebook. The Army concurred with the recommendations and split the field artillery and air defense artillery into two distinct combat arms with their own training programs in 1968. On payday they were filled and SPs as well as MPs roamed the town to prevent trouble. On the seventeenth the 2/7th Cavalry and the 2/5 Cavalry, which had joined Moores command on the fifteenth at X-Ray, moved on a sweep north to cut off North Vietnamese elements moving towards Columbus and Falcon. WWII Crest DUI 112th Infantry Regiment . 2nd Bn, 77th Arty (105, T) Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance, and faithfulness, especially now. howitzer batteries posi- tioned in the mountains bordering the Bong Son River, assaults by the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry, landed south of the river on 28 January 1966 to deceive the enemy, attacked northward over the river with the Vietnamese Airborne Brigade, and destroyed two enemy battalions. Unit Crest 14th Infantry Regiment Single. Even though 1st Cavalry field artillerymen could maneuver their 105-mm. At the end of the eight weeks a high percentage of the troops were assigned to the 264th FA Btl in Bad Kreuznach, Germany. Despite the success of the search-and-destroy operations in 1966, hostile bastions still dotted South Vietnam. After leaving Vietnam General Westmoreland criticized this routine vigorously when he admitted that artillery and air power had produced a firebase psychosis. (3) 7Jun 56 to 11 Oct 56: Gun Platoon Commander, A Battery (2nd Gun Platoon) William Tecumseh Sherman. The 2/5 Cavalry arrived at Columbus without contacting the enemy, but the 2/7 Cavalry bumped into North Vietnamese at Landing Zone Albany. We would go to Rivers Barracks every Sunday for mass. The 42nd Artillery came into existence in July of 1918 from Coast Artillery Corps units already serving in France. Contact: Dave Holdorf, 3rd Battalion, 16th Artillery I returned to the University of Illinois and let Uncle Sam pay for my degree in Mechanical Engineering. I was introduced to my new Sgt. In mid-afternoon aerial and tube artillery and tactical air support joined the fight. 1st Bn, 27th Arty (155, SP) That night the North Vietnamese ferociously hit the 1/9 Cavalry. We went all the way to the championship game which we lost 2 to 0. In fact, the only thing "static" in our lives was change. groups or commands. I was afforded a wonderful chance to see Germany from the inside. 78 Commenting on this, Brigadier General Willard Pearson, Commander, 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, wrote in December 1966 that his units motto was Save Lives, Not Ammunition.79 Given this, he wroteDecember 1966 that the ground forces main task involved finding the enemy. 8th Battalion, 26th Whenever possible or appropriate, the pilots adjusted tube artillery to flush personnel into the open and then attacked. [ADA]), 4th Battalion, 42nd Artillery The Battalion Exec, a Major Stein was the only man in his West Point class who was still a Major or the last of his class to make Major. The 175 mm guns were usually parked in the same corner, just in front of these corner buildings (just west of them). The 42nd Field Artillery Regiment is a field artillery regiment of the United States Army, first Constituted 5 July 1918 in the National Army . The units moved into pre-arranged positions around the Triangle to seal it off and attacked.82 As expected, main force Viet Cong units dispersed as the Americans and South Vietnamese pushed into the bastion. We had gone to Grafenveer to fire the guns; we couldnt go to Baumhilder because the range was not long enough, and so we drove to the FO cement bunker on the range to observe the firing. 6th Bn, 33rd Arty (105, T) The Vietnam Years 5,558 Views, KING OF BATTLE: U.S. ARMYS FIeld Artillery in Vietnam. The best was the softball team, we had two very good pitchers, one was a man named Moses and the other was Captain Gardner. Photos - Vietnam War Unable to distinguish between friend and foe, gun crews from Landing Zone Columbus and airmen waited patiently fir hours before they could respond. Detachment 5, American Forces Vietnam Network in Hue is shown in 1967 a few months before the Tet Offensive. gun, andcomplemented the revised 6400-mil firing chart. The fact that Congress was thinking of ending the GI Bill (still hasnt happened) I returned my deferment and volunteered for the draft. For the military Tet presented a golden opportunity to crush the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese because they were weakened by that great effort. There was a lot of pressure to Buy Bonds. Until I figured it out, I thought it was strange that so many people were concerned about my savings plans. Sept 1969 - Sept 1970. danward-tn@usa.net. tales of the field artillery Without a front line gun crews did not have the luxury of establishing positions in the rear areas, had to fire in a complete circle, had to defend themselves from infiltrators, had to airlift their pieces into remote areas, and had to decentralize their batteries through habitual association to provide support in many cases. The Lt. then put it in a classified record for use if hostilities broke out. 1st Bn, 77th Arty (105, T) Dennis, 6th For a buck you could be a big shot and buy the section Lowenbraus all night. After an attack on a special forces camp at Plei Me in October 1965, he sent the 1st Air Cavalry Division (Airmobile) under Major General Harry W.O. The unit's actions in the Admiralty Islands prepared it for the amphibious assault on Leyte in the Philippines on 07 October 1944. Contact: Steve 7th Bn, 9th Arty (105, T) guns, furnished fire support and helped defend other fire bases as required. During this period I also served as Asst S-2, with duties as Custodian of all Special Weapons, Special Weapons transports, and Bn SW classified documents. Battalion, 92nd Artillery 5th Bn, 22nd Arty (8-in/175) 4th Bn, 42nd Arty (105, T) We were not the first unit he had befriended. My older brother said he got to drive a 2 1/2 ton truck (he was 12). 2nd HOW Bn, 92nd Artillery arrived in Europe on 25 June 1958 and was attached to the 42nd FA Gp with station at Rivers Barracks, Giessen. webmaster@bravecannons.org. Artillery, Battery C, unit on this page. Heavily armed helicopter gunships entered the fray, while the two batteries at Landing Zone Falcon and two at Landing Zone Columbus laid down a devastating shield ot iron. Contact: Bill Hilling, 8th Battalion, 6th Artillery He was hospitalized at Long Binh Post in Bien Hoa Province, RVN, when on September 30, 1971, he suffered a fatal heart attack as a consequence of his illness. In 1966 the 4/42 Artillery deployed to Vietnam on the same ship as the 1/22 Infantry. (Everyone who wasnt GI was "Comrade.") Battalion, 18th Artillery Contact: IV Corps artillery units, Originally "Provisional The 42nd Artillery, CAC was an Army Railway Artillery Regiment and was assigned to the French 240mm Railway mounted guns. Decades after he got back from Vietnam, he later told me he was moving 155mm howitzers around to different (mobile) firebases. There was a time during 1967 when the 1/92nd was spread so thin and demand for support still very high, that the BN requisitioned 4 - 105 mm - Howitzers and manned them with men from HHB and SVC Btry and called this D Btry. The M108, M109, and M102 howitzers had the capability of traversing 360 degrees with ease, offset the limited traverses of other field guns, such as the 8-inch howitzer and 175-mm. errors. Quads = Quad 50 machineguns, Headquarters Battery, A Gold color metal and enamel device 1 1/16inches (2.70cm) in height overall consisting of a shield blazoned: Gules, two bendlets between four shells, two in chief and two in base, all Or. Other sections cleaned the toilets, others swept the halls and cleaned the common rooms. Throughout our Website you will see abbreviations we will try to put them into parenthesis next to the word it most commonly replaces and for words that require more in-depth explanation we will try to link it to it's expansion in the glossary. She was worried about the German toilet paper (too rough), so just before he left we bought a big freezer and bought a side of beef and tons of American toilet paper. We were shaped up by 8 am. This happened in March in Germany which can be and was quite cold. Contact: Rick your webpage URL Our problem was Moses had rotated to the US so we were down to one pitcher, Capt. 1st Bn, 83rd Arty (8-in/175) Just gain enough time for the SAC Bombers to get there and be sure we were out of the way. served at one time or another LTC Ring was the commanding officer of the 2nd of the 82nd (8" self-propelled howitzers). Army - 41st Field Arty Gp w Vietnam SVC Ribbons Army - 173rd Airborne Brigade w SVC Ribbons Army - 124th Transportation Cmd w SVC Ribbons . We got along great with my math background. From these positions located so that any point in the area of operations could be reached by at least one battery and usually two or more, the maneuver commander conducted offensive operations, while field artillery, ranging from 105-mm. Battalion, 82nd Artillery Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd J. Picou of the 1st Cavalrys artillery responded with the same enthusiasm. We were assigned the task of burying trig marks (a piece of rebar in concrete) in the intersections of all the dirt roads in our part of Germany. Museum of the Kansas National Guard . During the second week of November, both sides opened offensives to gain control of the la Drang Valley. Unit Crest (Tace Et Face) 26th Field Artillery Regiment Unit Crest (Courage and Action) 27th Field Artillery Regiment. The regiment did not initially mobilize for the Second World War during the general activation of units beginning in August 1939. While the Army modernized its field artillery, a crisis in Southeast Asia attracted American attention. howitzers around, they wanted still more firepower. This article is about the US regiment. Battalion, 15th Artillery Artillery Your donation to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund will help expand our mission to honor, educate and heal. Contact: Dante' US Department of Defense Desert Shield Desert Storm Service Medal Full Size Looking for more information from military/civilian Dave Teke, 105mm H T Most Btry's were comprised of 6 howitzers, which allowed them to be split and moved to different locations for support and defense of more units and even themselves. 32nd Arty (8-in/175), 2nd Bn, 11th Arty (155, T) The following day, the North Vietnamese renewed their assaults but ran into a curtain of artillery rounds. 8th Battalion, 25th Boswell, 1st Battalion, 7th Artillery beginning early in 1969, the Americans upgraded assistance pro- grams to improve South Vietnamese artillery operations, allowed the South Vietnamese to func- tion independently, and launched equipment modernization and training programs. The 8th Field Artillery Regiment is a field artillery regiment of the United States Army first formed in 1916. The shells indicate the nature of the organization and with the bendlets produce the numerical designation of the organization. Livingston, Dusters (Battery D, 71st Arty 9th infantry division vietnam 1967 bearcat. You could read the nomenclature on the bumpers. 42d Field Artillery Lineage Constituted 5 July 1918 in the National Army as Battery D, 42d Field Artillery, an element of the 14th Division Organized 10 August 1918 at Camp Custer, Michigan. Contact: Turned out I used those bonds to pay for my first 2 years of college when I was discharged. Descriptors: *ARTILLERY AERIAL RECONNAISSANCE ARMY TRAINING ARTILLERY FIRE CASUALTIES CLOSE SUPPORT COMBAT SURVEILLANCE COUNTERINSURGENCY HELICOPTERS HOWITZERS LOGISTICS MAINTENANCE MILITARY FORCES (FOREIGN) MILITARY INTELLIGENCE As such, the Vietnam War had a profound impact on the field artillery. In November of 1967 and most of 1968 Bravo Btry was swing, let me illustrate briefly what it was like for the men of B Btry in the 9 months between November 1967 and July 1968 the men of B Btry moved a total of 19 times; 10 times by air and 9 times by road. On the kamikaze issue, that would be gamey to me. For the Canadian regiment, see, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (Lanark and Renfrew Scottish), RCA, Learn how and when to remove this template message, 1st Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (United States), 2nd Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (United States), 3rd Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (United States), 4th Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (United States), 5th Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (United States), 6th Battalion 42nd Field Artillery Regiment (United States), https://web.archive.org/web/20110722214111/http://www.tioh.hqda.pentagon.mil/Heraldry/ArmyDUISSICOA/ArmyHeraldryUnit.aspx?u=3446, http://www.history.army.mil/html/forcestruc/lineages/branches/fa/default.htm, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=42nd_Field_Artillery_Regiment&oldid=1133948340. We calibrated the guns and did fire missions day and night. Goodman was FDC section chief. For the most part, 1/92nd was a 3 Firing Btry BN each with 6 - M114A1 - 155 mm Howitzers, lovingly referred to as "The Pig." This gave me the envious position of sitting in the jeep while the other men pulled the measuring chains and recorded the angles. DI Unit Crest 8th Cavalry Regiment DUI. My first assignment was in the radar group, which didnt last very long. Their response was which corner. Vietnam War Commemoration 50th Anniversary. Contact: Jerry Bursky, 6th Battalion, 32nd Artillery We were moved to New York by train and loaded onto the USS Callan along with a lot of other troops. I agree with Charles Kelley. To fight off the assaults the Americans employed small arms fire, field artillery, and air strikes. The shells indicate the nature of the organization and with the bendlets produce the numerical designation of the organization. During the short but intensive battles on 1and 3 November between small forces, tube artillery failed to furnish any support because it was out of range of the fights whereas aerial artillery rushed quickly forward to hit enemy units. Within the first couple of weeks the outfit went to the field for training for a week. In the meantime, North Vietnam built a military force to gain control of Vietnam. 1st Bn, 321st Arty (105, T) It served in Iraq in 2003-2004 and in 2011, numbering among the last American troops in Iraq at that time. XXIV Corps Artillery Crest: On a wreath of the colors Or and Gules a dexter hand grasping four spears pointing in four directions of the compass Or. On April 19, 1968, the 2d Battalion, 138th Field Artillery with units in Louisville, Bardstown, Elizabethtown and Carrollton, Kentucky were ordered to active duty by President Lyndon B. Johnson. To eliminate confusion The Artillery and Missile School devised a method to fire in a complete circle in 1966 and disseminated it throughout the Army.72 Moreover, the school increased its instruction time on firing in a complete circle (6400-mils) to prepare grad- uates better for combat in Vietnam. Following the closing of the Seacoast Artillery School in 1950 and dis- banding of coast artillery units or converting them to field or antiaircraft artillery that same year, only field and antiaircraft artillery (called air defense artillery after 1957) existed as part of the Armys artillery. About once a week you pulled guard duty from 5pm to 6am. Contact: Irv 2nd Bn, 20th Arty (ARA), 6th Bn, 29th Arty (105, T) Most commanders concluded that the overriding lesson of 1965-66 was the importance of firepower. In a student thesis at the Army War College in 1963, Colonel William F. Brand pointed out that integrated training provided an inadequate amount of time for detailed instruction on all artillery weapons, which meant that officers left the advanced course without mastering any of the weapons. In 1963 the schools recommended separation because of the difficulty of cross training and the growing difference between the two artilleries. I remember going for the parade day thing and a change of command ceremony. Contact: Jim The 1st Cavalry had the capability to maneuver their artillery aggressively on the battlefield to destroy the enemy and refused to allow difficult terrain to hinder delivering huge amounts of firepower upon enemy positions. artillery groups were part of First Field Force Vietnam Artillery (IFFV Arty), in the 2 Arty Units - detailed list Early in the Vietnam War, the 1st Special Forces established a base there. When the wooden tower turned into toothpicks it took about three minutes for the French Army to disappear. Gun crews concentrated their fire around the landing zone. I remember the fallout shelter symbols at our school (Giessen American Elementary, I believe) but we had no "duck and cover" drills. The 6th Battalion/15th Artillery The M42 has torsion-bar suspension consisting of five dual rubber-tired road wheels with the idler at the front and the drive sprocket at the rear, and three track-return rollers. -- There is a printed history of the Battalion published in 1956 by the Wolf Printing Co., Baumholder, Germany. These Btry's were commonly referred to as the "Firing Battery's" the guys you called when you wanted hot steel on the target but for every firing Btry a unit had it took other Btry's to support, move, supply, aim and maintain the howitzers and equipment. Contact: Gardner. your Seeking to take advantage of the enemys condition, Westmoreland proposed a two-fisted offensive, a ground attack against sanctuaries in Laos and Cambodia and an intensive bombing campaign. The days were pretty much the same so we looked forward to being in the field. 1st Class John Anderson, holding an M60. After 5 you could pick up a pass to go to town. Another time we spent 3 days in a mosquito infested swamp along the Rhine River while a Company of Engineers built pontoon bridges for us to float the 280s across the river. In their efforts to justify airmobile operations, Kinnard and other officers overlooked an important weakness. 2nd Bn, 20th Arty (ARA) Mostly though we were all E3s or E4s. LOL, I often wondered how my old Army buddies turned out. United States Army Institute of Heraldry. It was a short cut to our apartment complex. Despite these efforts and those that strengthened the South Vietnamese army as a whole, South Vietnam final- ly collapsed in 1975 in the face of a determined North Vietnamese onslaught. Contact: Contact: This action totally disrupted North Vietnamese plars to attack Plei Me and put them on the defensive. The 4th Battalion, 42nd Field Artillery Regiment, was originally constituted on 5 July, 1918, in the National Army as Battery D, 42nd Field Artillery, an element of the 14th Division. Constituted 5 July 1918 in the National Army as Battery D, 42nd Field Artillery, an element of the 14th Division Organized 10 August 1918 at Camp Custer, Michigan Demobilized 7 February 1919 at Camp Custer, Michigan Reconstituted 1 October 1933 in the Regular Army as Battery D, 42nd Field Artillery. Parker was a captain with B Battery, 5th Battalion, 27th Field Artillery in the Vietnam War from 1968 to '69. This pamphlet was edited by 1Lt Robert A. Hentzen, who later became a reknowned sports reporter with a Topeka newspaper. Many times I would climb the fence (8ft with three lines of barbed wire atop it). By 1967 only a foolhardy or a desperate commander would ever engage the enemy by any means other than firepower. 1st Bn, 14th Arty, 198th Inf Bde (105, T) Time passes quickly. They were just fascinating. 6th Bn, 15th Arty (105, T) [2][4], In 1972 the Army of the Republic of Vietnam infantry school and armor school began moving to Bearcat Base from Th c.[5]. Contact: Equally important, these operations reemphasized the value of 105-mm. DI Unit Crest 134th Field Artillery Battalion DUI. Be As quickly as the Army could train advisory teams, it dispatched them to South Vietnam. If any enemy tried to escape, aerial gunners fired on them. I came to Rivers Barracks while the whole post was at REFORGER, so it was basically empty. Greg Lawson, just to name a few. I read that the first guns got there in Oct and not Novas I remembered it. My Mother (Muriel) or we kids got to fire the howitzers (pull the cord). This movement set an important precedent as it indicated that medium guns could be air- lifted and therefore possess the same mobility as lighter pieces had. Addressing this development, Brigadier General James G. Kalergis, Commander, I Field Force Vietnam Artillery, explained in 1967 that field artillery batteries normally performed as ifthey were battalions and that battalions acted as if they were division artillery or group head- quarters. Even though it was transported by heli- copter, tube artillery lacked sufficient mobility to respond to fast-moving situations. 2nd Bn, 32nd Arty (8-in/175), 7th Bn, 8th Arty (8-in/175) Contact: Armon If any of you guys who served in the late fifties or sixties want to see what your contemporaries looked like check this book out. We had a great little dining room where we started off each day with eggs to order and copies of the Stars and Stripes. Medical Information Search 1st Bn, 30th Arty (155, T), 1st Bn, 8th Arty (105, T) As Lieutenant General Bernard W. Rogers, who was the assistant division commander of the 1st Infantry Division in 1967, recalled in 1974, Cedar Falls/Junction City operations confirmed the importance of field artillery and air power. North Vietnamese divisions had around ten thousand lightly armed and equipped men with a ready reserve of approximately five hundred thousand men. Arty Heroes - artillerymen The field was another story all together. This may help you find your friend from the war! The Viet Cong and North Vietnamese struck six major cities, sixty-four district capitals, and fifty hamlets and caught the Americans and SouthVietnamese off guard. Although firepower was a decisive factor, it had limitations. My duty assignments with the 265th FA Bn (later 3rd Gun Bn, 81st Arty) were as follows: Try to imagine if you will, wrestling over 6 tons of steel in the middle of a monsoon downpour while trying to maintain footing in the slippery, slimy red muck of the Vietnamese clay soil and you'll see why we called them Pigs. After years of debate over the validity of consolidating field and air defense artillery, the war prompted the Army to recognize the existence of two artilleries and to make them independent of each other.
