Saved From the Commies

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During the Vietnam War I served aboard the USS Madera County (LST-905). We operated principally in the Mekong delta running troops and supplies up and down the Mekong and Bassac rivers. During the TET offensive we were anchored at the Vung Tau. According to the log of the USS Madera County at 0900 on February 2, 1968, we set out from Vung Tau for Saigon. We had no idea what had transpired in the days or so before and did not know that any such thing as the TET offensive had begun. About 1030 according to the log we set general quarters. I was a phone talker on the focastle in case we had to drop the anchor in a hurry. The thing I remember the most about going up the river was there was nobody there. All of the people, ships, boats and other things seemed to have disappeared. It was a very spooky feeling.
��We got to Newport Beach at about 1500. There was no one there to handle lines or man the pusher boats so that we could dock. We turned the ship around and anchored in the river and launched our LCVPs and put a line handling party ashore and moored ourselves to pier Newport South. Once we had secured the mooring I remember going down to the tank deck and the bow doors had been opened and the bow ramp was down. Several officers and others had gone "shopping" as the compound was full with almost anything you could want and there was nobody manning the store.
��I saw��BM2 Allen running back towards the ship. He jumped on our RT forklift and took off the bow ramp. A few minutes later he came back with a pallet of Australian beer which we immediately called away a working party to store away in the refrigerators.
��As it got towards dark, several of our officers decided to go into Saigon to see what was going on. They got one of our engineman to start up a 4 x 4 and took off into Saigon. An hour or so later just as it was getting dark they returned with a load of football players. Apparently they had met an NFL tour group at the Capital Hotel and invited them out to the ship. I remember well them coming aboard because I had the watch at the brow and saw them all as they came aboard. The ones I remember well are Jack Kemp, Bobby Bell, Bill Brown and John David Crow. I remember John David Crow because I shook hands with him and it looked like his hands could completely wrap around mine as they were so large.
That evening on the pier the liberty section and the football players stood out on the dock drinking beer which was our usual liberty call. Because I had the duty, I had to watch from the deck. This went on for several hours. Sometime around 2200 or so we started hearing the sounds of heavy firing from the bridge just beyond the ship (Newport Bridge). General quarters was sounded but because we were so close almost immediately secured and everyone took shelter on the port side of the ship away from the firing. I remember looking on the pier and seeing the liberty party and the football players still drinking beer but now sheltered behind any cover they could find. At some time and I do not remember exactly when but we could hear helicopters on the far side of the rive and we heard a tank come up from Saigon as well as a lot of troops. I remember seeing the tank start to roll up the bridge and walked around to the starboard side in time to see what apparently were VC jumping off of the bridge and being shot in the water.
��Around midnight everything quieted down but one of our commissary men took it upon himself to freak out and cornered his shipmate��in the galley and threatened him with a butcher knife. I stood with Ltjg. Little, the deck officer ,and both of us tried to talk him out of the knife. I noticed as we kept his attention that John David Crow who played for the St. Louis Cardinals was working his way behind the cook with the knife. He grabbed him and held him long enough for our pharmacist mate to given him a sedative and knock him out.
��We did not fight any battles and I do not recall if we fired anything but if we did it was not very much because we were so close to the bridge for our 40 mm guns to do any work except hurt the bridge which is what the VC were trying to do anyway. We spent the next days until the 6th tied up at Newport until we got underway at 1045 back to Vung Tau with the satisfaction of knowing that we had at least saved one pallet of beer from communist oppression.
��Daniel��Brown, SM2

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