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Return to Trang Sup
May 6, 2011 |
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I've been reminiscing about Trang Sup and 5th TAC.
In the spring of ‘68, I returned to Vietnam to
remove the radar from my old site on Trang Sup. Dear
old Detachment 7, 619th Tactical Control Squadron
had, alas, been deactivated; tossed on the ash heap
of history. Two things must be understood early on:
1 – I had returned to Trang Sup under protest; 2 – I
do not enjoy driving large, multi-wheeled vehicles
under any circumstances. From the moment we picked
up the trucks at the motor pool on Clark in the
Philippines and up to the point when we had
everything loaded and were down in Tay Ninh West
waiting to return to the PI, I had exercised my
prerogative as crew chief and remained a passenger.
When we got to Trang Sup, we found that the site
personnel had already dismantled and packed most of
the radar gear. All we had to do was take down the
radar tower, pack it up, and load the trucks. Seems
the Permanent Party troops were in a hurry to leave
Trang Sup for some reason. Taking down the tower
took us a little longer than usual, because I
stopped work in the middle of the day and resumed
later on when things had cooled off a little. I saw
no reason to give anybody heat stroke.
Then,
word got passed around that a big attack was
imminent, and we sort of speeded things up a tad,
but it was too late. We wound up with six heavily
loaded six-bys, deuce-and-a-halfs, or whatever you
want to call them, down on the Army base in Tay Ninh
West smack in the middle of the Tet Offensive.
Charlie took delight in energetically mortaring and
rocketing the hell out of the place on a daily
basis. He seemed to particularly enjoy firing at the
hospital.
At any rate, over the next two
weeks or so, we managed to get transport out for
each of the trucks, one by one until there was but
one left. I told that driver to go on back to Clark
with the remainder of the crew and I'd bring the
truck back myself on the next available flight. So,
I was left with a loaded six-by and the Captain. Our
anticipated one day wait for a flight lengthened
into another week. By now, our supposed two weeks
max TDY was rapidly about to pass a month in
duration. Finally, the Captain decided that he was
going up to Saigon and stand on somebody's desk.
“The next time you see me,” he declared, it'll be on
the flight out of here.”
He then disappeared
for about another week, leaving me alone amongst a
bunch of strangers with a truckload of radar gear to
guard at night by the rockets' red glare and the
mortars bursting... well, you get the idea.
Fortunately, the Army took pity and continued to
feed me. During the day, I slept in the empty
recreation room that the Army had provided to house
my crew. Meanwhile, in addition to the attacks on
Tay Ninh West, I had a ringside seat as the VC
attempted to overrun the Special Forces camp up on
Nui Ba Den. The mountain is clearly visible from Tay
Ninh. Indeed, it can be seen for miles from any
direction.
After about another week of
waiting, I'd just about decided that my Captain had
forgotten about me and returned to the PI alone.
Either that or, consumed with frustration, he really
had leapt up on somebody's desk and been summarily
thrown into LBJ for gross insubordination. I hoped
it wasn't the latter, because he was a good guy, and
I liked him. Then came a phone call alerting me that
he had gotten us a flight out and would see me
shortly.
Soon, here he came, racing into the
rec room to tell me that we had about ten minutes to
retrieve the truck and get it down to where an
aircraft waited. “We've got to get one of the Army
guys to drive the truck to the plane, and we have no
time to waste!” he panted. “They're not going to
wait for us.” “Who needs the Army to drive?” I
asked, picking up my already packed gear. “Let's get
the truck.” The Captain looked at me in surprise. “I
thought you said you couldn't drive a Six-by.” “No,
Sir,” I replied, “I never said I couldn't, I said I
wouldn't. Now, I've changed my mind. Let's go!”
The Captain just shook his head as I chauffeured
us rapidly down to the flight line, and backed our
limo right up to the plane. (I would have backed it
on board, but I guess the Loadmaster didn't trust
me.) “Sergeant Woodfork,” the Captain said, “you
never cease to surprise me.” Little did he know –
even if I hadn't known how to drive one of those
things, I'd have learned on the way to the plane in
order to get away from Tay Ninh and Tet. Mama Woody
didn't raise no fools; I'd already done my year's
tour in Nam; this crap was extra.
Oh, hell, I
nearly left out the best part. When I finally got
back to 5th TAC in the Philippines, The Powers That
Be informed me that three of the trucks, still
loaded with electronic gear, had mysteriously
disappeared. (They had all been signed out to me.)
Millions of dollars worth of equipment, for which I
was responsible, had simply vanished, and they
wanted to know what I was going to do about it.
“Well,” I said, “first I'm going home and make
love to my girlfriend. Then, tomorrow, I'll come
back and we can discuss my promotion to five stars
so that I can pay for all this shit.” How the hell
was I supposed to know what had happened to the
trucks? I was in Tay Ninh, thousands of miles away,
hiding from mortars when the vehicles arrived back
on Clark.
They eventually turned up some time
later. I forget now exactly what had happened to
them. I do know that it was something stupid;
somebody had moved them to a different area from
where the drivers had parked them as they arrived,
one at a time. They were still fully loaded when
found. |
 By
Thurman P. Woodfork
Copyright 2003
About
Author...
Thurman P. Woodfork (Woody) spent his
Air Force career as a radar repairman in places as disparate as
Biloxi, Mississippi; Cut Bank, Montana; Tin City, Alaska; Rosas,
Spain and Tay Ninh, Vietnam. In Vietnam, he was assigned to
Detachment 7 of the 619th Tactical Control Squadron, a Forward Air
Command Post located on Trai Trang Sup. Trang Sup was an Army
Special Forces camp situated about fifty miles northwest of Saigon
in Tay Ninh province, close to the Cambodian border.
After Vietnam, Woody remained in the Air Force for nine more years.
Visit
Thurman P. Woodfork's site for more information |
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