 |
|
|
| This was taken from Hill 861 looking
east toward the coast. Only terrain above
841 meters is visible. The peak on the right is Hill 950. To
the right of Hill 950 and to the southeast is the Khe
Sanh Combat Base (KSCB). Any NVA rockets fired
from behind Hill 881N would pass directly over Hill 861
on their way to KSCB. Many mornings it looked exactly
like this from Hill 881S. Unfortunately, it was
ideal for the NVA, for two reasons; first, that
their FOs were also on hilltops, which meant we could
not move about on ours without getting mortared,
and second; that they could move about in the valleys
at will without being observed, making it possible to them
to set up rocket sites, reposition AA guns, dig positions up against
the hills, etc.
I remember one morning the NVA fired their rockets anyway, through that stuff. Wierd sight. We on 881S heard them fire, then watched 50 or so 122mm rockets lift out of the cotton candy from near 881N, then go back down into it as they got over KSCB. Like St. Louis in a ground fog, when all you'd see is the arch above the fog. Surreal! But then, a lot up there was surreal! For us, we couldn't shoot because we couldn't see the targets. But in any other circunstances, flat out beautiful! Dennis Mannion recalls, "On the morning of this photo, it was totally quiet, as if the war had gone away. Not a sound anywhere. For a few hours, we walked about the hill in the open and unafraid. It was a remarkable per- formance by Mother Nature in a place of terror and ugliness. " Information Provided by:
|
-