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Feb. 8, 2001 - Bill Cooper
01:00:53
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It's a great pleasure to have you here. We're going to start with a little bit of music.
This is called The End of the World.
The End of the World is a song that I wrote in the early days of the band.
It's a song that I wrote in the early days of the band.
Good evening, folks.
You're listening to the Hour of the Time.
Good evening folks, you're listening to the Hour of the Time, I'm William Cooper.
And today we're going to talk about the Israeli election.
And I think, well, Ariel Sharon won the Israeli elections with a landslide, exactly as I had predicted that he would,
and immediately began rattling sabers and making statements that just have the Arabs absolutely going bananas.
So, there's going to be a war in Canada.
I sold another camera.
To Renée.
She's going to love it.
It'll be shipped out tomorrow.
So, Renée, your camera will be on the way to you tomorrow.
And I've sent you some email so that, uh, where to get batteries and all that kind of stuff.
And, uh, you should contact, you should contact these people and get yourself a battery so that, uh, you can use your camera when it arrives.
Um, for everybody else, We need your donations for the month of February, and I need them now.
I need them actually, you know, three months ago.
So please, dig down in your pockets and send us a cash or blank money order right away for as much as you can afford for your February contribution.
And remember, you've got to make a contribution every month.
This is your ministry of freedom.
This is your Freedom Church.
That's what it is.
So send your contribution to HOT, H-O-T-T, in care of 101.1 FM PO Box 940, that's PO Box 940, Eager, spelled E-A-G-A-R, Arizona, 85925.
PO Box 940 EAGER spelled E-A-G-A-R Arizona 85925.
That's HOT, H-O-T-T.
In care of 101.1 FM PO Box 940 EAGER spelled E-A-G-A-R Arizona 85925.
Really need those contributions really bad, folks.
This broadcast from now on, it appears, is listener supported or it's not going to exist at all.
That goes for everything we do.
It's got to be supported by all of you out there or we just can't do it.
It's that simple.
The bills here are really high.
Electricity, telephone, all that kind of stuff, right now The way we're going to WBCQ is a long distance telephone call from right here in this studio to Maine.
That's 3,000 miles away.
And I do that four nights a week for an hour a night.
And when we go live on the internet, it will be two long distance calls per night.
And that's coming up pretty soon.
We'll be doing some testing first, of course, to make sure everything's okay.
And then we'll be live on the internet.
And that's getting closer all the time.
Very close.
Now, we won't be, we won't have the video portion at first.
That comes later.
We have to, first we have to see about the bandwidth and how much it's going to be and how many people are going to be listening and all that kind of stuff.
And exactly what it's going to cost us because when we add video, the price goes up unbelievably for the bandwidth.
And I know you don't know what all that means, and I barely know what it means, but what it means is how much, how many kilobytes or gigabytes or whatever it is that we're transmitting from the servers to people who are listening or watching.
And the price is determined by how much of that is going across the server.
Through the, you know, whatever it is that makes it possible.
I really don't understand all of it myself.
But that's sort of what I remember the way it was explained to me.
Also, folks, we need your contributions even more than you can imagine because we're not getting any money whatsoever from the publisher of my book.
And we have ordered her to stop printing, publication, distributing, and selling my book, Behold a Pale Horse, Until she makes a full accounting of every book that's ever been printed and sold and pays us what's due.
Not me, I don't own the book, but pays the owner what's due so that the owner of the book can pay me what they paid me to buy.
So there's no money.
None.
Coming in.
Period.
Not even money from the book.
Oh, and by the way, don't buy Behold a Pale Horse.
Don't buy it.
I'm told the publisher makes good and honors their license agreement to publish the book.
I hate all this stuff.
I really do.
It sucks, to tell you the truth.
But, you know, I guess that's the way the world works.
Everybody wants something for nothing.
When it boils down to it, it looks like they're always getting it from me.
Oh, man.
I'm just really tired of it.
So, I found a... somebody sent this to me, and I'm not sure who it was,
But somebody sent this to me just last week and I read it.
It's called Brown Water, Black Berets.
I didn't even know this book existed.
A Definitive History of the United States Navy's Brown Water Sailors in Vietnam.
Brown Water, Black Berets by Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, United States Navy.
The Untold Story of the U.S.
Navy's Courageous Campaigns on Vietnam's Rivers and Coastal Waterways.
Remember, I read you part of a book that I'm writing about, you know, where I was at, Under Task Force Clearwater.
Well, there's a whole chapter in this book on Task Force Clearwater and Coivet.
I'm going to read that to you in about two seconds.
So, stand by, folks.
And, you know, it's the first time I've ever seen anything written by anybody about Task Force Clearwater or Coivet or anything that I was a part of in Vietnam.
So it sort of bowled me over, I gotta tell you.
Things have been wrong.
Things have been wrong.
Oh Close your eyes.
It's going to take you back to a time.
So here we go folks, close your eyes, it's going to take you back to a time, seems to
me like a long time ago and sometimes it seems like just yesterday.
Bye.
Task Force Clearwater, River Security Group's I-Corps Tactical Zone, Republic of Vietnam.
Frederick the Great said this in 1785, The passage of great rivers in the presence of the enemy is one of the most delicate operations in war.
And I can tell you that he was absolutely correct.
And I can tell you that from actual experience.
Now, he starts off here writing about something that I also wrote about.
Remember I wrote about the tower at the head of the pier where the sentry up there, you know, could see North Vietnam?
And, uh, well, anyway.
I'm going to, I'm going to give, this chapter is real short, so I'm going to read this to you.
And if you can, get this book, Brown Water, Black Berets, because I'm just reading you a small portion of this book.
There are some men who fought on the rivers with me and, uh, on other rivers down south that were not with me, that are just the greatest guys that have probably ever lived on the face of this earth.
And I'm glad that somebody told their story.
Brownwater, Black Berets is the name of the book.
We wore black berets.
We were Navy riverine forces and we wore black berets.
And so here it goes.
The commander climbed up the wooden rungs of the tower that stood near the northern perimeter of the base.
A marine sentry saluted him as he entered the observation box that sat atop the tower.
Quiet today, sir, the sentry said, and resumed his position gazing out over the sand dunes.
So far, the commander replied.
He picked up a pair of binoculars and looked northward.
The day was particularly clear with a sharp blue sky, and in the distance he could make out the form of a guard tower similar to the one in which he was standing.
A spot of motionless khaki just below the roof of the tower told him that a North Vietnamese soldier was probably staring back at him across the demilitarized zone that separated North from South Vietnam.
He knew the distance between the two towers to be just about ten miles.
The commander put down the binoculars and turned to look at the base that had been incongruously inserted into the expanse of sand marking the mouth of the Qua Viet River.
The South China Sea was sparkled along the base's eastern perimeter And the jade green of the Annamite Mountains loomed in the distant west.
Coils of barbed wire defined the perimeter of the base.
Sandbagged outcroppings marked its functional structures.
Commander Ser Swatstraver had assumed command of Task Force Clearwater the previous fall.
It was now the middle of January, 1969.
He had served in Operation Game Warden for nearly half a year as Commander River Squadron 5 before moving to I-Corps to become Commander Task Force Clearwater.
Now, I'll insert a little explanation here, folks.
Up until January of 1969, Commander Schwarztrauber's headquarters was on the Perfume River near the city of Way, which was just south of us and was part of his command also.
The boats on that river were also part of CTF Clearwater.
And he didn't come to Coivet until January of 1969.
That's the first time I ever laid eyes on him.
And he, you know, I got to sit down and talk to him a little bit because I was one of his boat captains and he wanted to get to know all of us.
So, this starts right when he arrived at Coivet, which was January of 1969.
And I remember it very well when he moved his headquarters from the Perfume River to Coivet.
And called us all in one at a time to sit down and talk to us about, you know, what we needed and, you know, to be more effective on the river and all that kind of stuff.
You know, it's like getting a new boss at work.
I mean, he'd always been our boss, we just never saw him before.
So that was kind of neat.
From his lofty perch, Commander Schwarztrauber's attention was drawn to the Quaviet River below by the sound of diesel engines, an LCU landing craft utility, and two LCMs were arriving from Da Nang, ninety miles down the coast.
The three craft, laden with food and ammunition, would proceed upriver after a stopover at the Quaviet base.
A PBR and an LCM-6 minesweeper from the Clearwater Task Force would escort the convoy upstream to Dong Ha, where the cargo would be transferred to trucks for distribution to combat units at Camelot, Quang Tri, Khe Sanh and various other inland sites.
The trucks didn't go to Khe Sanh.
The supplies that went up the river to Dong Ha were taken to Khe Sanh by air and dropped by parachute.
Schwarztrauber had made periodic trips up the river himself and had been amazed at how different the Coivet was from the Mekong.
Just a half a mile up the river, the white sand dunes yielded to the shimmering green of overgrown rice paddies.
The rusting hulks of armored vehicles and empty pockmarked huts flanked the river in silent testimony to the clash of armies and the flight of civilians.
Earlier, the PBRs had played a vital role as escorts.
PBRs patrol boat river, folks.
The PBRs had played a vital role as escorts because ambushes along the river were frequent.
Now, with Task Force Clearwater nearly a year old, the minesweepers had become the most important part of the convoys.
Ambushes had become infrequent, but minings were a constant threat.
Since Schwarztrauber had taken command, Clearwater personnel were still being killed in action, but none had been lost in firefights along the river.
Minings and artillery attacks on the base had been responsible for the deaths.
Most of the mines were primitive in construction, often made with such unsophisticated items as inner tubes, Clothespins or toy balloons, but they were deadly nonetheless.
The upstream leg of the trip was the most dangerous because the majority of the mines were free-floating, and moving counter to the current increased the danger of hitting one.
It was not uncommon for patrols to open fire on floating hibiscus plants because they closely resembled some of the mines used by the enemy.
Also, folks, they used to disguise some of those floating mines by Draping them with hibiscus plants.
So we had to be very careful.
And one way to check to see if it was a mine was to shoot it.
If it was a mine, it would explode.
If it wasn't, it wouldn't.
The downstream leg of the journey was usually accomplished by drifting with the current, which meant that boats and mines would drift along at approximately the same speed, thereby minimizing the chances for contact.
Schwarztrauber climbed down from the observation tower and crossed the compound toward the mess hall.
He paused for a moment Looking at the base command post, which had been built by placing a standard metal quonset hut in a pit about four feet below ground level, piling sand up around the sides all the way to the roof, and placing multiple layers of sandbags on the roof itself.
The building had little in common with the command post in which he had stood watches at the Pentagon during a previous duty assignment."
What an understatement.
It was a semi-buried Quonset, enshrouded in sand, and headed for the coffee pot.
Over the radio in the galley, he recognized the voice of Hanoi Hannah.
Remember I told you we listened to Hanoi Hannah all the time, and at one point she named me and all the crew members on my boat, told us they were going to come and get us, and I'll tell you, that made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, listening to that.
He recognized the voice of Hanoi Hannah.
This war's rough equivalent to Tokyo Rose.
She was, as usual, predicting the inevitable defeat of American forces and their Saigon puppets.
Some months before, a North Vietnamese artillery round had scored a direct hit on the mess hall, destroying it and killing the solitary cook inside.
Shortly afterward, Hannah had broadcast, You Americans who burrow in the sand like moles, we have destroyed your mess hall.
There is no point in building a new one, because our gunners will knock it out, too.
Swarztrober knew that it had been an empty threat.
The Indian gunners were firing their weapons at maximum range and therefore had little or no accuracy.
Any hits that occurred were pure luck.
By the sheer number of rounds that they expended on the Coivet facility, it was inevitable that some would find their mark.
And a lot did, folks, I can assure you.
Had built a new mess hall, despite Hannah's warnings, and had named it after the cook who had been killed.
The most disconcerting element of the incident was the fact that Hannah knew about the mess hall hit.
This meant that the enemy had contacts inside the compound.
Well, we knew that because, I mean, she knew our names.
Now, he wasn't here when that occurred, so he probably never heard that.
As he sipped his coffee, Schwarztrauber watched several sailors at the far end of the mess Now, that's not really true.
They sat at the metal tables wearing helmets and flak jackets while they ate.
Such was life at Coivet.
One never knew when incoming rounds would suddenly hit.
Since its inception, the Coivet base had been subjected to frequent shellings and occasional
attempted intrusions by sappers.
The prudent man was never very far from his helmet, flak jacket, or personal weapon."
Now that's not really true.
Those of us who patrolled the river, we went through the terrors of the night on that river.
And when we came back in, we took our helmets and flak jackets off.
And we didn't care how many rounds they threw at us or how many sappers came through the
wire.
We just slept through it all.
It didn't bother us a bit.
I mean, we were immune to that sort of thing after patrolling the river all night in the dark.
You have no idea, and I don't even know how to tell you.
It just didn't happen.
We didn't walk around with black jackets and helmets on.
It's just not true.
Just after 1700, the shelling resumed.
There was a brief hiss, followed by a deafening explosion as the first round detonated near the north perimeter.
Then, as the warning siren told Clavier what it already knew, the rounds fell in random bursts that caused the earth to tremble and sand to rain down on the Quonsets.
It was both routine and terrifying for the men of Clearwater.
All they could do was wait helplessly.
Praying that the North Vietnamese gunners wouldn't get lucky.
The incoming rounds continued for nearly 15 minutes.
Most of the rounds fell short, dropping into the river or along the north bank.
But two hit inside the compound.
One detonated harmlessly near the defensive bunkers along the western perimeter.
The other struck dangerously close to the ramp, showering sand and light shrapnel over several of the PBRs moored nearby.
At last, silence returned and only hammering hearts could be heard.
In the summer of 1967, the Navy began looking into the feasibility of conducting river patrol operations in the I Corps Tactical Zone, and decided to deploy a section of PBRs there as a test.
On 18 September, the USS Hunterdon County, LST-838, pregnant with ten PBRs, arrived at the mouth of Kanhai Bay some seventeen miles northwest of Da Nang.
The mission, named Operation Green Wave, was to conduct patrols in the IKOR rivers and lagoons.
Things did not proceed smoothly at the start, because the LST could not safely enter the bay.
The PBRs had to be unloaded from a position offshore.
Heavy swells made the process difficult and frequently dangerous.
Once the PBRs got inshore, their lack of familiarity with the area resulted in a number of groundings.
Recovering the PBRs after their patrols was equally difficult in the uncooperative surf.
For the first 10 days, enemy contact was light.
Then on the 28th, the Hunterdon County and her brood moved south to the mouth of the Quodai River, approximately 18 miles southeast of Da Nang.
This portion of the operations did not start off well, either.
Within three hours of their arrival, four PBRs went to the headquarters of Coastal Group 14 for a briefing before their patrol.
At the start of their patrol, while still within 1,000 yards of the Coastal Group base, a heavy barrage of automatic weapons fire opened up on the four crafts.
While withdrawing at high speed, PBR 118 received five hits on the starboard side, which perforated the lube oil filters and caused all of the oil to be lost.
Both engines seized up and the craft was put out of commission for a while.
One Vietnam Navy junk sailor who had joined them for the patrol was shot through the buttocks and groin in the engagement.
The next day, at a little before noon, PBRs 54 and 79 were operating about five miles up the river near Hoi An when they received twenty rounds of rifle grenade and about two hundred rounds of automatic weapons fire.
One of the soldiers was killed when a bullet passed through his flak jacket and struck him behind the left ear.
Another sailor was wounded.
Enemy casualties were unknown.
Three hours later, PBRs 53 and 84 patrolling the same vicinity were attacked.
Calling in a pair of Army helicopters for support, the PBRs counterattacked and destroyed 15 huts and bunkers.
Again, enemy casualties were unknown.
Later, however, the same two PBRs and their helicopter support engaged a group of enemy Sampans, and this time confirmed seven Viet Cong killed, as well as three Sampans sunk and one bunker destroyed.
No U.S.
casualties resulted on this occasion.
On the 29th, 15 incidents occurred.
Commander Task Unit 116.1.3, the Unseen Commander, described the day as a running gun battle.
The next day, patrols of the area ceased.
All of the engagements had involved relatively light enemy weaponry.
If the enemy were to bring in heavier armament, which was a distinct possibility, severe losses were almost certain to occur.
On 7 October, Operation Green Wave was terminated.
The Hunterdon County packed up her PBRs and went home to the Mekong Delta, a Comnav 4V report said.
Comnav 4V is Commander Naval Forces Vietnam.
A Comnav 4V report said, An immediate analysis of the operation revealed that navigational hazards restricted the PBR's speed and maneuverability.
Intense enemy ground threat precludes proper waterway traffic control by the PBRs, and the grounding and battle damage to 50% of the 10-boat task unit precludes sustained operations.
Therefore, it was recommended that I-Corps PBR deployment be terminated due to unproductive traffic control and heavy enemy weapons and fortifications against which the PBR was not designed to stand.
The Perfume and Coivier After the less-than-spectacular results of Operation Green Wave, it appeared that I Corps had seen the last of the PBRs, but subsequent events were to dictate otherwise.
All U.S.
forces in the two northernmost provinces of South Vietnam, Quang Tri and Tua Thien were supported logistically by the Commander Naval Support Activity, Da Nang.
The vast majority of supplies destined for the forces in these two provinces traveled by water from Da Nang up the coast and then inland by river.
In Tua Thien province, the supplies were transported up the Perfume River, that's the Hoang Giang in Vietnamese, so-called because of the fragrance of lotus blossoms That pervades the air there.
In Quang Tri, it was the Quaviet River.
In Quang Tri, it was the Quaviet River that served as the inland supply route.
But we all called it the Quaviet River, and that's what it's called in the naval history.
In Quang Triet was the Quaviet River that served as the inland supply route.
The enemy did not fail to recognize the military significance of these routes and took advantage
of the narrowness of the rivers by planting mines in them and setting up frequent ambushes
along their banks.
In response to this threat, General Lewis W. Walt, Commanding General of the 3rd Marine Amphibious Force, asked MACV early in 1967 to assign Navy patrol craft to these two rivers to provide protection for the vital logistics traffic.
The Navy was reluctant to meet this request because it would mean drawing sorely needed craft away from the Mekong Delta.
But they recognized its importance and made plans to accommodate the request.
A PDR mobile support base was created by nesting a number of AMI pontoon barges together and building makeshift repair, berthing, messing, and communications facilities on them.
PDR Division 55 was formed and sent north, including the same section of PDRs that had earlier ventured into I-Corps during Operation Green Wave.
The units gathered at Tan Mi on the Perfume River and commenced patrols on the river and nearby lagoons on 9 January 1968.
Initially contact was light, but when the Tet Offensive began on 31 January, the PBRs got into the thick of things.
A call from personnel at the supply offloading ramp in Hue said an attack was underway.
Eight PBRs charged up the river in response and met heavy rocket mortar and small arms fire when they arrived.
They made repeated firing runs on the enemy positions on the north bank of the river opposite the ramp until they suppressed the hostile fire.
They held the VC at bay until that evening, when Marines were able to move in and secure the area.
The PDRs continued security patrols around Hue for the next several days.
Meanwhile, the overall situation in I Corps had been worsening.
As 1967 drew to a close, General Westmoreland had sent his deputy, General Creighton Abrams, to Phu Bai, a military base near Wei, where he could monitor and react to developments more efficiently.
When the now-famous siege at Khe Sanh began in the latter part of January, General Abrams re-emphasized the need for naval support on the rivers, particularly the Qua Viet.
Essential supplies bound for Khe Sanh were traveling up the river to Dong Ha.
where they were then airlifted the rest of the way into Khe Sanh.
With the eyes of the world focused on this highland outpost, security on the Coivet became even more important than ever.
In response to General Abrams' request, Comnav IV-V established Task Force Clearwater as a formal command under Captain G. W. Smith on 24 February, incorporating elements already on the scene at Tan My, and initiating plans for more units to be sent north for the Qua Viet contingent.
Since the Vietnam Navy base at the mouth of the Qua Viet was frequently under North Vietnamese artillery attack from across the nearby Demilitarized Zone, and heavy ambushes on the Qua Viet were becoming more and more frequent, Comm Nav 4V decided to detach the armored craft of River Assault Division 112 from the Mobile Riverine Force and send them north instead of an additional contingent of the more vulnerable PBRs.
The ASPBs from River Assault Division 112 were left behind in the Delta, but the ATCs, monitors, and CCB all went and were on station by March.
Commander Task Force Clearwater issued an operation order setting up his organization.
He divided the force into two task groups, one responsible for providing security along the Coivet River from its mouth to the supply terminus at Dong Ha was named the Dongha River Security Group, and that was my unit.
That's the unit that I was attached to, the Dongha River Security Group.
The other, whose area of responsibility was the Perfume River and surrounding waterways as far upriver as the city of Hui, was named the Hui River Security Group.
Unlike other Navy task organizations, Clearwater was never assigned a numerical designation.
For its entire existence, it remained simply Task Force Clearwater.
And it's two subordinate task groups retained their unorthodox names as well.
The Dong Ha River Security Group consisted of the ten ATCs, three monitors, and one CCB of River Assault Division 112.
And I gotta break in here, folks, because I never saw any of those things on that river, ever.
I don't know where he got this history from, but when I was at Coivet, there were no ATCs, no CCB, and no River Division 112.
And that doesn't mean they weren't there, but they certainly weren't there when I was there.
There was none of those things there.
While the River Security Group was made up of Mobile Base One, ten PBRs, and five LCM-6s that had been locally converted into minesweepers, and they totally left out the seven LCPLs, which... Some of this is wrong.
That's all I can tell you.
I'll try to keep it straight for you.
For administrative purposes, the chain of command went from Commander Task Force Clearwater to Com Nav 4V.
But operationally, Commander Task Force Clearwater reported directly to Com US Mac V forward, the post created by General Abrams' move to Fubai in late 1967.
In all fairness, folks, I have to say that there's no mention in this chapter of River
Division 543, which was a part of our unit.
Those guys need to be recognized, but they're totally left out.
River Division 5, it's like they didn't even exist, but they were there with us fighting
on that river.
I want everybody to know that.
River Division 543, they're not mentioned anywhere in the history of CTF Clearwater.
Which is very strange, but anyway.
In March 1968, ComUSN...
MACV Forward changed its name to Provisional Corps Vietnam, and in the summer of that same year changed again to 24 Corps.
Commander Task Force Clearwater moved to its primary headquarters on 29 February from Tan My to Qua Viet, where it remained until Clearwater was disbanded.
That's wrong, too.
Because he moved his headquarters from Tamme to Coivet sometime in January of 1968, not in February, and certainly not 29 February.
I remember it well.
What remained when Clearwater was disbanded?
The assembled staff of Clearwater consisted of Navy, Army, and Marine Corps personnel.
The force itself was augmented by Army helicopter support, which is a lie.
I never saw a helicopter support us on that river, ever, not once.
Sometimes we have some bird dogs, which are light planes that have rockets that they can fire.
They're sort of like reconnaissance craft.
Occasionally we could get one of those to come and provide air support for us, but we never, ever, not once, ever had helicopter support.
So that's just not true.
An Army signal communications detachment and Marines from a searchlight battery assigned to man 24-inch Xenon gas infrared searchlights that had been mounted on seven LCPLs.
Here they are.
Subsequently assigned to the Dong Ha River Security Group for surveillance patrols at night.
And that's what we were using when I first arrived at Kuwait.
We had these old LCPLs left over from World War II, beat up, dented, shot full of holes.
Ugly things with a platform built up above the deck and there was an infrared searchlight and a marine manned that searchlight and looked through binoculars.
There was no such thing as night vision then.
That was our night vision and we couldn't see anything.
Couldn't see a thing, folks.
Once established, the task groups patrolled and escorted convoys.
On the Coivet, the action was heavy right from the start.
That's an understatement.
On the Coivet, the action was heavy right from the start.
A large ambush hit one of the early convoys two miles northeast of Dong Ha, killing the convoy commander, a Navy lieutenant, and wounding four other Navy men.
A few days later, an ATC hit a sizable mine that flipped the 66-ton craft upside down, causing extensive damage.
Severely wounding one crew member and killing six others.
And so it went for the Dong-Ha River Security Group convoys.
Rocket, mortar, and artillery attacks against the base at Kuwait and against Dong-Ha were also frequent.
Once the fury of the Tadokensieve had subsided, the presence of large numbers of American forces in the area kept the situation on the Perfume River quiet for a while.
Occasional attacks on the river and at the ramp and way Kept the River Security Group from ever letting down their guard.
However, by June, the area around Way and along the Perfume River proper was largely pacified.
So Commander Task Force Clearwater obtained permission from his Army boss to expand the mission of his forces into a wider and more diversified patrol effort similar to the Game Warden mission in the Delta.
The Way River Security Group forces began to conduct a variety of operations in the
waterways and lagoons that connected with the Perfume River, including
troop insertion and coordinated operations with elements of the Army's
101st Airborne Division, cordon and search scenarios, medical and dental
aid visits to the villages, and psychological operations.
In line with the latter category, an astute intelligence officer recognized that the people
of Way considered the dragon to be powerful and honorable.
So the psychological operations material passed out in the area carried a dragon symbol, and
the PDRs flew dragon's head flags.
Consequently, the people began referring to the PBRs as Taurong, or dragon boats.
This, combined with the aid missions and the fact that the Communist forces, while in temporary control of Hue, during the Tet Offensive, had massacred at least three thousand of its citizens, yielded positive results.
The local people were primarily receptive to the American patrols and often willingly cooperated.
Even on the Coivet farther north, the local people seemed hospitable to the American forces.
On many occasions, children along the banks hailed the patrolling craft and turned over caches of weapons and ammunition they had discovered near their villages.
That's very true.
Continued attacks on the Coivet led to a re-evaluation of Clearwater's response capability.
The analysts decided that the speed of PBRs was more important in responding to attacks than was the armor of the Mobile Riverine Forcecraft in protecting the boats from damage.
Consequently, they requested more PBRs.
Ten PBRs taken from the Rongsat Special Zone arrived to join the Dongha River Security Group, five in May and five in June.
With the arrival of these additional craft, most of the River Assault Division 112 craft were detached to return to operations in the Delta.
Six ATCs temporarily remained with the group to serve as minesweepers until five LCM-6s could be locally transfigured for the minesweeping role.
Also in June, an earlier request for more assets for Clearwater was answered by the arrival of the Navy's three PAC-Vs.
Having proven themselves to be of little real value in game warden and market time, because of their limitation on narrow waterways or in the open sea, and having had the most success in the open environment of the Plain of Reeds during Operation Monster, the Pack Vs had the potential to fare well in the lagoons of the Whey River Security Group's operational area.
Pack Vs, folks, are airboats.
They're big airboats.
They float on a cushion of air.
Air Cushion Vehicles.
In fact, that's what PAC means.
patrol air cushion vehicles.
Indeed, the strange craft worked well as part of Clearwater.
The environment of lagoons, rice paddies, and salt flats in the way area was ideal for the PAC-Bs.
They worked exceptionally well in conjunction with ground forces, able to pursue fleeing enemy troops no matter what combination of land-water escape route they tried.
They also performed well for medical evacuation and emergency troop extraction.
The Navy's Pac-Vs continued to function as part of Clearwater until mid-1969, when they were slated for retirement.
So well had they performed that the Army replaced them with air-cushioned vehicles of their own.
As time went on, the efforts of Clearwater, coupled with sweeps by the Army and Marine ground forces in the region, virtually eliminated the ambush threat from the banks of either river.
But enemy mining continued, so mine-sweeping assets in addition to the LCM-6s were incorporated into Clearwater, including MSMs and LCM-6 conversion that had previously served in the Rungstat as part of Mine Division 113 and MSBs In late 1969, two of the MSMs were outfitted with a mine-hunting sonar called Shadowgraph that was capable of locating mines in the rivers.
And I gotta tell you that the ambushes on the Coivet River never stopped.
They weren't as frequent as before, but they were always there.
Task Force Clearwater remained in service for several years, fighting to keep the vital I Corps rivers open.
The enemy continued to mine, and Clearwater forces continued to sweep, patrol, and escort.
Then in June 1970, in a relieving ceremony, the Vietnamese Navy assumed the missions of Clearwater, and the Americans were reassigned in Vietnam or went home.
In a 1971 article, Commander R. L. Shreidley wrote a fitting tribute to the men who served in Clearwater.
During the long months of the Northeast monsoon, the climate is probably the country's worst, with cold, gray, and rainy days Following each other in seemingly endless succession.
Outside the river mouth, there are restless shoals and a pounding surf.
Some of the unsung heroes of this war are the captains who guided low-powered and frequently age-weakened ships and craft through the treacherous white water of the hazardous channels in northern Icor.
The men at Coivet lived little better than moles in heavily bunkered huts burrowed down among the sand dunes.
When the rain stopped falling, the sand, fine-grained and gritty, began to blow, accumulating in drifts before the huts, sifting through screens and under doors, finding its way into lockers in between sheets and even into the food the men ate.
In October 1968, a program was initiated to gradually rotate all Coivet personnel back to Da Nang or Tan My to ensure that no one would be required to spend more than six months at the advanced base.
It is a tribute to the splendid morale of our sailors and their sense of sharing in what was, in many ways, a unique drama that many volunteered to stay on and finish their tours at Clavier.
The mission of Task Force Clearwater never did go away.
American forces continued the patrols, sweeps, troops, insertions, and withdrawals, and escort duties until June 1970, when they turned the assets and the mission over to the Vietnam Navy.
Throughout their tenure, The American sailors, marines, and soldiers carried out their unheralded tasks in the face of sudden death or maiming by the lurking mines, frequent artillery brodges, and ever-present sapper units.
Their existence as an operational unit is rarely acknowledged in the Vietnam War literature, but their mission was an important one, and their conduct under fire was above reproach.
The names of those who died are carved in black granite Yet they, like so many whose deeds are passing, do not catch the myopic eye of their countrymen, are relegated to the obscurity of collective sacrifice.
Commander Schwarztraber went on to command the USS Decatur, DDG 31, and ultimately retired from the Navy as a Rear Admiral.
He received his Ph.D.
in International Studies from American University, has written extensively, and is currently the Superintendent of the Maine Maritime Academy.
I'm going to play a little bit of the song.
I'm going to play a little bit of the song.
Well, there you have it, folks.
That's the only mention of my unit I've ever seen in any book or any writing anywhere since I left Vietnam.
It's called Brown Water Black Berets by Lieutenant Commander Thomas J. Cutler, United States Navy.
And let me see who published this.
Pocket Military History, whatever that means.
Yes, it says Pocket Military History.
So, get it, read it.
That's just one little bitty chapter, and it's the smallest chapter in the book, by the way.
It's almost like we didn't even exist.
It's really weird.
But, there it is.
The phones are open.
520-333-4578.
You don't have to talk about what you just heard.
You can talk about anything you want.
Phone's open.
Subject's open.
Open topic.
Open whatever you want.
520-333-4578.
Hello?
Anybody home?
What do you think of Ariel Sharon being elected to be the The
Premier what Now I can't remember the Prime Minister.
Prime Minister of Israel.
My mind went blank.
And I couldn't remember.
It's the Prime Minister.
He was elected to be the Prime Minister of Israel, which is sort of like our President.
But I don't know if it's the same or not.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hi, Bill.
Hey, listen.
I have a really good idea for people that have vehicles and are sick.
I've been running vehicles on synthetic oil and door lube now for, well, synthetic oil for the last 25 years.
And, uh, it really, really helps.
And now with door lube, it's even better, you know?
And I use Mobil 1 Synthetic Grease when I grease them up.
And I had a 62 Econoline van when I sold it.
It had 650,000 miles on it plus.
It was still running.
Yeah, with today's modern synthetic oils and some of these additives like DuraLube.
I use DuraLube too.
And I use synthetic oil.
These engines will just last forever.
They'll outlast the body and the seats and everything else.
Definitely.
I mean, that's all I use.
I use it religiously.
I have two Ford Econoline vans and that's all I run in them.
I got a 76 and a 72 and they just keep on running.
I mean, it's great.
It just runs and runs.
What made you think of this?
Well, I just thought I'd mention it because a lot of people are using petroleum grade oils and they just don't hold up.
No, they don't.
They just don't.
But there's a lot of people out there that need to hear about that.
Yeah, if you use the best oils, and you use Dura-Lube, I use Dura-Lube, and it really works like they say it does.
I use Duraloop in the rear axle, the transmission in the engine, and synthetic lubricants, 90
weight Mobil 1 in the rear axle and the gearbox, and it works great.
The other thing I would advise people to do is whatever the manufacturer recommends for
for the time that you replace your oil, I recommend you cut that in half.
Because they build into their manufacturing and the advice they give you about when to change these fluids and things, they've got a built-in guaranteed maintenance for their dealerships.
In other words, they're saying that if the people you sell these cars to do these things
that we tell them, at these certain mileage periods, these things are going to break down
and you're going to earn this much money by repairing them.
Oh yeah.
I had a 75 Ford Granada and I ran it on synthetic oil and everything.
hydraulic lifter.
It quit on it.
And, um, I pulled it apart and took the head off of it.
It was clean.
It was totally clean.
Yeah.
Well, it will be.
If you treat an engine right and you change your air filter and you change the oil and use good oil, uh, the engine won't wear out and it, and it will always be clean and it will amaze you how long these things... I have a friend right here in town, Nolan.
He's got a pickup truck that's got over 400,000, probably by now it's probably around 500,000 miles on that engine.
Yeah.
And I, you know, I don't think he ever changes the oil, to tell you the truth.
I don't know how he does it, but he uses some kind of special oil and it's a program where you take samples of the oil and you send it in and they tell you when it needs to change.
I've seen that, yeah. But this 75 Granada, when I sold it, it had 385,000 miles on it
and was still running strong. Yeah. Yeah.
25.
25 miles to a gallon and it worked perfect.
But a lot of people do not realize the benefits of synthetic oil and duralube and the rest of it and what it does.
In Vietnam we didn't have this problem changing the oil.
Before it came time to change the oil, the Vietcong would change it for us.
Yeah.
Probably with some AK tracer bullets or something.
Oh yeah.
So, I've been... Let's give some other people a chance to call in.
Okay.
Okay, thanks a lot.
Nice talking to you, Bill.
Thanks for calling.
Bye.
520-333-4578 is the number.
Yeah, thanks for calling.
That's good advice for people who, especially for people who don't understand about oil.
I know some women, and I'm not picking on them because they're women, it's just the way women are raised.
They're not mechanical, most of them.
And so they never change their oil or anything, and then they wonder why their car breaks down.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hello?
Oh, hi, Bill.
Yeah.
Hey, Randall from South Dakota.
Hi, Randall.
Good to talk to you.
Hey, I just, I only get a chance to tune in once a month.
I heard you tonight and I just wanted to call and tell you I'm going to make a donation because I wouldn't sleep if I didn't know you were on the air.
I don't get a chance to listen very much but I've gotten a lot out of your broadcast.
Well thank you I appreciate that and we certainly need the donation I can tell you.
I'm going to do what I can to support the broadcast because I've made the pilgrimage to where you're at back when you were at the research center.
I just feel like an old friend.
I'll help you out when I can.
Do what I can.
Thank you.
Alright.
I'll let somebody else on.
Appreciate it.
Thanks for calling.
520-333-4578 is the number.
Take your calls until the end of the hour.
You can talk about whatever you want.
I don't care what it is.
Whatever is on your mind.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Hello Bill.
This is Mike out here in El Reno, Oklahoma.
Hi, Mike.
Hey, they got the stuff.
What?
It's a synthetic and fantastic stuff.
Have you got your radio on?
Does it?
I'm speaking out of mobile phone.
Oh, well.
It's a really bad connection.
OK.
All right, bud.
I'm sorry.
We'll do it again on land line.
OK.
Thank you.
Gotta let you go.
5-2-0-3-3-3-4-5.
Sometimes when you call in on a mobile phone or a roam phone or something like that, it just doesn't work, folks.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Bill, I just wanted to say that was a great show last night.
I didn't hear the first half, but the second half I did hear.
It was very impressive.
Yeah, those are just some young people around here.
Is that a videotape?
No, no.
They came in studio and did it.
I did hear you explain what was going on, but it sounded like a professional broadcast.
No, just a bunch of young people sitting around talking to each other.
That's all it was.
I have to ask them if they come in and just, you know, have a conversation like they normally do, because I've heard them.
They sat around and talked, you know.
I thought it would be nice if the listening audience could hear it.
It was actually taped some time ago.
It wasn't live last night.
It was very nice and you certainly have some nice or some high quality young folks out there in Arizona.
Yep, we sure do.
Well, that's all I wanted to say and thanks.
Thanks for calling.
Bye.
520-333-4578.
Remember?
Yeah, I listen to that broadcast.
3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 7, over. Yeah, I listen to that broadcast. I like it myself. I like young people.
And by golly, I like intelligent young people. But I've been dumbed down and refuse to be.
Good evening, you're on the air.
Hey Bill, I had a question for you.
Have you thought about doing any topics on alternative energy?
I know a lot of people are into that, a lot of people... No, because every single time I've investigated these alternative energy things, they turn out to be a fraud.
Every single time.
I'm talking about solar and wind, things like that.
Oh, well, if you're talking about solar, yeah, that would be a good thing to do.
I use solar power here.
In fact, you know, if they ever shut off the electricity here, we'll still be able to operate on a limited basis, because we've got, you know, I guess they could do some things to destroy our capability, but it'd be pretty tough.
Yeah, we can do that sometime.
Yeah, I'm just curious.
I mean, I know that it's becoming more affordable for people and I've done that, a lot of that
myself and anybody can do it.
Yeah, that's true.
And a lot of your audiences, you know, who you like to thank can probably do it themselves
anyway.
So, yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I just thought I'd mention that because it's really...
Yeah, I'm sorry I misunderstood you, but most people who ask me that question, they're talking
about free energy or these weird inventions where you run your car on water and you're
like, oh, I'm going to get a free car.
I'm going to get a free car.
But you go to his house, and it's not running his house.
Right.
If you send him $300, he'll send you the plans when they're available.
Yes.
That's all bullshit.
That's total crap.
Anyway, that's... But they sure take a lot of people's money, I'll tell you that.
Yeah, they do.
Alright, thanks a lot.
You're welcome.
Thanks for calling.
Got time for one more call, I think, if you want to... if you want to do it.
5-2-0-3-3-3-4-5-7-8.
Got time for one more call.
And then we'll head on out of here.
Good evening.
You're on the air.
Yeah, this is Tom down in South Carolina.
Hi, Tom.
Once in a while.
Hi.
Grouchy professor, you haven't been so grouchy here lately and you've had some really good programs, but don't give up being grouchy.
That's kind of your trademark.
Oh, I won't.
So many stupid calls, you'll hear me jump right down your throat with both feet.
I will not I will not accept it.
I will not stand for it and I will not be nice about it at all.
It's too bad that people like you and so many others, I'm a Vietnam vet too, struggled and tried to accomplish something and gave the people back here the freedom just to throw it all away at the ballot box.
Where were you at?
I was at July.
I know it well.
We got starlight scopes later.
In fact, the first starlight scope that came to our unit had my name on it.
It was addressed to me from St.
It's not.
No, these...
Infrared, is it?
These were infrared, yeah.
Well, what did you view it with?
Binoculars, infrared binoculars.
Well, you said something about no night vision either, and I saw starlight scopes over there.
We got starlight scopes later.
In fact, the first starlight scope that came to our unit had my name on it.
It was addressed to me from St. Pat's Fleet.
Had my name on it, and it was to be given to nobody other than me.
you Well, the big Xenon... Really blew everybody's mind.
There was officers walking around scratching their heads at how I got such a pull.
But it was real simple.
This commander came from St.
Pak Fleet.
I was sent by the Admiral to find out what we needed, and he rode on my boat.
And I told him I needed... We'd heard about this thing, but we didn't know anything about it.
I told him we needed this new invention called a starlight scope.
He said the first one that arrives will have your name on it, and it did.
The Xenon searchlights, you couldn't see any light coming at all with your unaided eye?
All you could see was a little bitty white point in the middle of this.
It looked like a big television set.
And right in the center, if you looked real close, you could see a little white light.
That's all.
Nothing else.
So it must have had some sort of infrared filter or something over the Xenon.
I have no idea.
All I know is they mounted these things on top of our boats and put a marine guy who was a specialist in operating it and he had these binoculars and he would, you know, swivel this thing around and look and he'd tell us if he saw something and we'd shoot in that direction.
He'd tell us if we hit anything or, you know, more right or more left or raise your barrels or whatever.
It was terrible.
But, you know, we couldn't complain because at least we could see something, a little bit, or one of us could anyway.
Did y'all ever use the anti-personnel radar, the small radar unit?
No.
I saw some of those, too.
They were fantastic.
You could hear a person walking at quite a distance just by the Doppler effect of their legs moving.
Nope, we never had those.
But I'll tell you, when we got starlight scopes, those were so good and they worked so well for me.
I mean, it was just wonderful.
That's all I can say, but we're out of time.
Got to let you go.
Thanks for calling.
I don't know what that buzz was, folks.
Sorry about it, but goodnight.
God bless each and every single one of you.
Goodnight, Andy Clune, Allison.
I love you.
I think there was a filter in these units because the guy that operated them could flip a lever and it became a searchlight, which we never let him do because that was, then they knew exactly where the boat was and that was an invitation to blow us out of the water.
So, yeah, I remember that.
He could flip a lever, it was a lever, not a switch, push this lever on the side of the unit and it became a huge Right.
Searchlight.
as big as a giant television set.
I'm going to show you how to make a TV set.
So let me do this again for you folks.
That's not fair, huh?
Okay, here we go.
You're listening to 101.1 FM, Peter.
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