the Big Kaboom!

This photo was taken in late April of '69. Myself and a reporter, Sgt. Steve Addington, spent 4 days at Monkey Mountain (the most secure and saftest place in Vietnam because of it's location) with a Navy and Smithsonian research group that was collecting plant and animal life when on the last day we started hearing very load explosions. We had no communication with anyone and had to wait until noon when a boat came to pick us up to find out what was going on.

Here's what happpened. The Air Force and Marines had very large Ammo dumps that were side-by-side about a half-mile from the Da Nang air field. The Air Force allowed the local Vietnamese to have a garbage dump right next to their ammo dump. I mean RIGHT NEXT to it.

The Vietnamese decided to set the dump on fire to eliminate the trash and didn't tell anyone what they were going to do. The end result is that sparks or embers reached the Air Force ammo and kabombie! First the Air Force bombs went up and then the Marine bombs went. Many 500 pound bombs ended up on the other side of the hills near FLC.

Anyway this photo was taken as we were traveling back to FLC from Monkey Mountain. We were exposed the entire trip but never came close to getting hit.

The next day we saw helicopters at the FLC helio pad that were destroyed. These choppers had been moved from Marble Mountain to FLC because they felt it was safer there. NOT.

The Marine PX complex off of Highway One was damaged. Those Marines that were processed in and out of country after June '69 probably went through a relocation center that looked new to you. Well it had to be rebuilt after the Great Friendly Fire incident. Most of the damage was the result of the shock waves from the big bombs going off. This is what caused all the damage at the PX area. The shock waves came through like a tidal wave and flattened many a structure.

[ next ]

-30-