The compound on the west side of the base comprised a variety of solid structures, with numerous large and small tents, different huts for laundry and other essentials, and, of course, a mess hall to feed the Air Force personnel that called this home during their year long assignment. A security fence surrounded the compound for safety reasons, even though the perimeter of Da Nang Air Base offered some control with restricted base entry and exit points, with military police given the task of trying to keep the base as safe as possible.
This was a strange and complex war. Our adversaries were the North Vietnamese to the north of the 17th Parallel in the long drawn out conflict. But the Viet Cong, identified as the bad guys within South Vietnam, also presented a threat, hence the strong need for base security. War, it seemed, was a way of life for Vietnam, from the Japanese, to the French, to the Americans, drawn out over the ages.
My duty station was in the Command Post, located in the Headquarters of the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing, about a half-mile walk from the living quarters within the compound. I was on duty in the nerve center of the fighter wing’s operations on a night in February 1967. The nearness of the threat of the Viet Cong was certainly in evidence that night when a Marine A-6 attack aircraft launched on a strike mission. The aircraft lost power for an unknown reason and crashed within a mile of the runway end just after takeoff at 2100 hours. The A-6 was destroyed in the crash but, strangely enough, the resulting fire was due primarily to the final resting location being directly over a cache of Viet Cong weapons. The hidden rockets and ammunition set off explosions for six hours afterward, precluding crash and rescue personnel from totally extinguishing the fire.
The sprawling base at Da Nang was the site of Marine and Air Force units in direct war support efforts. The sleeping quarters of the block house where I was housed was a two story rough block structure for officers from various support and flight functions. Intelligence officers, supply personnel, tactical flying support pilots, and other wing personnel made this block house their home. Roughly two dozen beds were on each floor in the sparse quarters with a common latrine located in the center of each floor, which offered shower and sanitary facilities. The beds were in bunk fashion and were of the type depicted in the Beetle Bailey cartoon, where Beetle spends so much of his time. With metal frames and a spring metal base, the mattress was about three inches thick, but could be termed comfortable. As personnel rotated stateside at the end of their tour, adjustments to location would be made. I had recently been able to assume a lower bunk, on the upper floor, after spending the first half of the year in an upper bunk.
Two months after the A-6 crash on the base, and while in a deep sleep at 2:30 in the early morning in the block house, a sudden explosion occurred which shook the entire building. Incoming hand launched rockets by the Viet Cong had been directed onto the base in some random acts prior to this time, but we had been unaffected by them. Until now! The immediate reaction, upon being rudely awakened, was to get under the bed while at the same time pulling the mattress over top. This I proceeded to do, as did all the other occupants of the building. The time to react in this fashion was, I assure you, quite short. We all laid there for a time, and hearing nothing further, arose to survey the damage and to affirm the status of the occupants.
No one was injured, but it was ascertained that one individual had make a nocturnal visit to the latrine, relieved himself, and was just returning to his bunk when the incoming rocket hit the compound. Further investigation revealed that the rocket had impacted our block building directly in the center on the upper level right in the center of the latrine. Fortunately, an inner block wall segregated the latrine from the sleeping areas. My bunk was adjacent to that inner block wall which was the only obstacle that precluded personnel injury.
We were later to learn that there had been a total of six hand launched rockets that hit the base that night. Two marines, on the east side of the base, were fatal casualties during that rocket attack.
The outer block wall was repaired and the latrine brought back to operable fashion in short order. The sleep habits of myself and my compatriots were, undoubtedly, altered to some degree in the following nights, with perhaps a bit less sound sleep the result.
Wings Over Cumberland 