I
thought I would add a story of where I was the night of the POL/NAF sapper attack in June of 1970. Here is a picture [above] to
go along with the story. I recently happened to read a couple other SP
war stories about "where we
were" on the night of June 12th, 1970. Here is my story:
It just so happened that our track,
Quebec Echo, was given the night off the same night of the sapper attack
on the POL/NAF in June 1970. The first and only night, the whole year
I was there, that we were given the night off. CSC had just started allowing
the tracks, by rotating each track one night a week or something like
that, a break and a night off. Soon after this attack there was suspicion
that the duty roster was getting monitored somehow because it was always
hung outside of CSC and Quebec Echo was off the night the sappers blew
the POL and NAF. The other 3 tracks were spread even thinner to cover
the southeast quadrant that we vacated that night. Quebec Echo's normal
patrol area covered the southeast quadrant up to the east side of the
POL dump. Anyway they stopped posting the duty roster outside of CSC after
that night and they also stopped letting any of the tracks having a night
off after that, if I recall correctly....
Well we were partying pretty hard in our hootch
about the time the JP-4 Fuel storage tank blew and the sirens went off. I ran outside and could see pretty much the whole
base lit up from the fire in the POL area. I grabbed my gear and took
off and raced my butt off up to Arizona Hill where we kept the tracks.
I probably broke a world record for that dash up the Hill.
I
got the track started and flipped open the top hatch and strong-armed
the .50 up on to the mount by myself (the adrenaline was really flowing)
and loaded a 100 round canister and then got the .60 cal out and loaded
it and sped off to go pick up the rest of the crew that I met about 2
blocks away from the hootch. We hurriedly drove down to CSC and they put
us on standby. I think the Flight Chief knew that we were pretty tanked
up, but we were ready to go if needed.
Well once it started to get a little light they
deployed us and they had all 4 tracks out making sweeps of the bayside
area. I can still remember the intense heat from that tank while it was
still burning and we were at least a quarter of a mile away. If I recall
correctly the sappers killed 2 navy SP's in the tower by the Navy Air
Station gate from a direct hit by a B40 rocket, and we killed 1 or 2 of
the suspected 8 or more sappers.
One sapper was caught by an AF SAT team responding
to the NAF tower explosion. The sapper was crossing the highway just south
of the NAF gate and he was lowering a bead on the SAT team and shot AK47
rounds through the SAT jeep windshield just as the .60 cal man nailed
him with a burst, while the SAT driver/leader and 2nd man bailed. The
.60 man was Jim Randall, who I have just recently been emailing back and
forth to, about the details of that night. Jim has also posted his story
on the VSPA web site recently. I verbally, via email, commended Jim for
his reaction and actions to that incident that night, as he no doubt saved
the SAT members, and his, life by responding to the situation as he did.
I also told him that a lot of the SP's tipped their hat to him after hearing
about it. I do remember that we made a lot of sweeps that morning, until
around 9: 00, on the bayside looking for any other infiltrators that may
have stuck around. None were found though. Needless to say we were all
in pretty rough shape by the time we got the track back to Arizona Hill
and hiked back to the hootch after getting no sleep for about 24 hours
and the affects of our partying that got interrupted. That was one very
long day.
Here are my photos during my tour.
Steve Turner
