Coming from Pleiku to Da Nang Air Base I felt like the country boy coming to the big city. The place was enormous two 10,000 foot runways as compared to one 7,000 footer we had at Pleiku. Plus everyone was there, the Navy with FASU (Fleet Air Support Unit) the Marines of the 1st MAW and theArmy had their mortuary there.
Since I had Barrier experience I went to the Barrier Maintenance Crew. I'd hit the big time more birds were being caught in Da Nang than anyplace in Viet Nam. We took care of 4 BAK-12 Barriers at each end of runways 17L-35R and 17R-35L. Plus we had help, the Marines had M-21 Barriers at the approach end of 17R and midfield on both runways.
Gone was the casual manner of working the barriers at Pleiku. We caught about everything that had a hook, A-1, A-3, A-4, A-5, A-6, A-7, F-4, and F-8. Air Force, Marine, and Navy birds took daily ( and nightly) advantage of our stopping power.
Of course with all the barrier engagements there was more to keeping the barriers maintained, cables broke, and tapes needed to be replaced.I learned about Regimes 1-4. You see each regime was a measure of how much wear and tear there was on the woven tape. A Regime 1 was a low speed and/or relatively light weight aircraft a Regime 4 was a high speed and/or heavy aicraft. As I remember a Regime 1 gave you about 60 engagements before changing tapes, a Regime 4 meant immediate tape change. So if a F-4 Phantom II at 40,000 pounds and 180 knots or a A-3 Skywarrior at 67,000 pounds and 145 knots, hit the cable we could count on 3 to 4 hours of fun and games changing the tapes.The B-52 brakes took a beating too. We taught ourselves how to replace the brakes in the BAK-12. That was a job and a half. We spent many an all-nighter underneath the glow of a "light all" trying to get the disk plates of brakes properly aligned and back in place.
A couple of weeks after arriving at Da Nang I put on my third stripe. I was now a "Buck" Sergeant. Which at that time and place didn't mean much except that now I could drink in the NCO club.
A few weeks later put my papers in for a 6 month extension of my tour in Viet Nam. Wait a second had Sgt Pleiku become some sort gung ho type, had he slipped a cog? Well, not quite. You see, I had seen several Power Pro types get shipped stateside to some terrible assignments plus they were to be retrained as Heavy Equipment Mechanics. My thinking was if I extended for 6 months I could avoid that fate. ...And this time I was right.
So got settled into the new routine 24 hours on, 24 hours off.We had a modular building on the flight for our Alert Quarters. Next to Disaster Control, Crash Recovery, ( the guys with the big crane to move wrecked airplanes), and Air Force E.O.D. (Explosive Ordnance Disposal). TSGT Gratz painted up a new sign for us out front with a C-5 Galaxy catching a barrier and the words "The Stop Shop - 24 Hour Service". In back we built a latrine with running water, flush toilets, and shower, all the comforts of home.
Things were changing at Da Nang. Think it was early December '70 we got the word we would be moving across the flightline to our own little compound, shared with Disater Control, In what had been the Marine EOD facility. It would be our new home on and off duty. The rest of 366 Civil Engineering Squadron would also be moving to a new compound on the West side of the base.
I was in California,on the 30 day special leave the Air Force gave me for extending my tour, when the major portion of the move was made. When I got back most every thing was done. Four of us were put way out back away from the quieter types, right next to the latrine which had been moved. So it was Bob "Pete" Peterson, Larry "Snuffy" Bridges, Tim "Russ" Russell and Sgt Pleiku out in back with our collection of Japanese stereo gear. For security we had our canine friends Bonnie and her puppy Moose guarding our rooms. a pair of finer dogs it would hard to find anywhere.
A discussion about Da Nang without tales of rocket attacks would be a rather hollow story. Now its easy to say 30 years later the unfriendlies used the 122mm rocket against Da Nang just as harassment. The rocket attacks at Da Nang would certainly be hard to compare with what happened to the Marines at Khe Sahn in '68. That being said, I don't think anyone ever got a good nights sleep at Da Nang. What with Charlie insisting on giving us 0200 (2:00 AM) wake up calls. The powers that be decided our on duty crew should be going out with the "Quick Fix" crew to fix holes in the runways and taxiways. Our job was to co-ordinate communication with Base Operations and the Control Tower and tow the "light all". Actually not a bad deal since we were out anyway checking our gear for damage. As soon as the last rocket hit, Base Ops trucks would be out on the runways. They would call us with location of the craters and we would lead the "Quck Fix" crew out there. The quik fix cement would be mixed and poured and usually by the time all clear sirens went off the runways would be ready for action.
