This was the late 60's and early 70's. The peace sign was very much a bone of contention between we younger airmen and the older NCO's. We loved to piss them off. We were perhaps a bit too proud of this minor vandalism of our squadron signs.
My roomate, Bridwell. Morning and time to go to work.
Below is part of what we called "Cheeseburger Operations." These Cheeseburgers were 15,000-lb bombs. We called them Cheeseburgers because before we had them, we had "smaller," 10,000-lb bombs which we called Hambergers. Because anything anywhere near where they went off was turned to hamberger. The new, bigger version of couse had to be Cheeseburgers, right?
Obviously, you can see that these bombs were far too large to hang under the wing of a plane. These were loaded into a cargo plane, usually a C-130. We would fly one bomb to the target area and drop it by letting a small chute pull it out the back of the plane. The loadmaster became the bombadier. Our job was to store, maintain, configure, and transport these big bombs to the aircraft. Once there the loadmaster would move the pallet and bomb onto the aircraft and secure it. Then we would go aboard and do the final arming of the thing.
We had to move aircraft pallets around in the bomb dump. We used these rough-terrain (RT) forklifts for just about everything. They were pretty good and they wouldn't easily get stuck in the sand. Did I mention that Cam Ranh Bay was built on a peninsula? It was nothing but sand, every where you looked.
Above you can see the 15,000 lb bombs ready for delivery to the drop aircraft. We would lift a pallet onto a trailor, then set a bomb in place. Compete with it's wooden shipping cradle. We'd rig a shit-load of tie-down straps to keep it all together. But, the bomb itself had sharp steel cutters attached at the top and nose and positioned to be able to cut through these straps.
It worked like this: We'd put a large drogue chute and inertial fuze at the back of the bomb. We'd put a 3-ft extender and impact fuze on the nose. The static line from the big drogue chute was attached to the aircraft pallet. When the pallet was loaded into the aircraft (usually a C-130 cargo plane) we'd attach a small drogue chute to the back edge of the aircraft pallet and add the fuzes.
Once over the target, the loadmaster would deploy the small chute. With it whipping around behind the aircraft, the pilot would make his final run. On his command the loadmaster (bombadier) would release the pallet locks and the whole thing would roll out the back of the plan, pulled by the little drogue chute.
Once clear of the plane, it would tilt nose down. That little drogue chute is still attached, see? When the bomb points down it tries to slide out from under all those tiedown straps. Here's where the steel cutters come into play. They slice right though the straps holding the bomb to the craddle and the bomb falls free. But the static line for the big drogue is still attached to the pallet. It pulls the big drogue chute open and the bomb continues down to the targe streaming a very big drogue shut and ready to blow the shit out of anything below it.
One of these bombs could clear enough forest for one or two UH-1 helicopters. And they made a hell of a bang!
Above is a party that we had in March of 1971. Just a little cookout in front of the hootches. We'd place some old aluminum planking between the blast wall and enjoy. As you can see, the hootches we lived in were just small, six-man affairs with open slatted sides and metal roofs. They had set up these concrete blast walls between them and in front of them so a rocket couldn't take out more than one or two at a time. I tell you, when the rockets hit, we were very thankful for those walls. We'd run outside and bury ourselves in the sand right next to one of the support blocks. We figured that was the safest place to be till things quieted down again.
Below is a series of pictures of one of my best friends, Perotti. This guy was alway smiling. Always ready to help anyone with anything.
Perotti was taking the fins off of Cluster Bomb Units in preparation to painting them and then reassembling them and send the out to be dropped. Couldn't drop rusty or diryt bombs now, could we. At the right he's playing jumprope with one of the tiedown straps from a 15,000 lb bomb (in background).
This is Ron R. Roth. I know that because it said so on the back of the picture. And while I can remember him, and remember him talking to me daily, I really can't remember if I knew him here, in Vietnam or a few years earlier in the Philippines.
Oh, yeah. I'm just so cool. Here I was getting ready for work. I had the playboy pinups and the peace poster. The shades and the attitude. I was 20 years old and thought I knew it all. Now I'm 57 and am sure I still don't know shit. I certainly didn't know a damned thing back then. On the right is the view of the ocean from the main office in the bomb dump.
Below are a couple of pictures of the C5 that would visit us every now and then. A guy from my high school class was a loadmaster on one of these and we were shocked to bump into each other way over here on the other side of the world
We had a huricane blow through Cam Ranh. Afterwards the barracks and hootches were pretty torn up. The wind took off most of the roofs and a lot of the walls, too.
We'd take a few incoming rockets each month. Word on the street was that this was just ensure we all got our combat pay. But except for that the place was pretty quiet. That is, it was until just after I left.
Just a few days after I left, in July of 71, The VC hit the flight line and the bomb dump. The bomb dump went up in a series of huge explosions.