I don’t normally write prefaces to my posts. Much of what I am reporting here is second-hand. While we were traversing the river for example, I spent much of the time in the engine room and often only learned from others what was occurring on deck. It’s also a good time to remind myself, that all this took place over fifty years ago.
In recalling and writing about Vietnam in 1968, I should
make it clear that my visit was a morsel in time, a microscopic blip on the
temporal radar of incidents. For many thousands of people however, the conflict
was a series of events which changed their lives and that of their families
forever. There is also no judgement here of who was right and who was wrong.
There has been much written about this, and my contribution is meaningless in
comparison. For those looking for further reading I would refer you to a number
of excellent accounts – The Sorrow of War (Bao Ninh); The Education of Corporal
John Musgrave (John Musgrave); Scorched Earth (Fred Wilcox) and The Vietnam War
(Geoffrey Ward and Kenneth Burns).
I get that my writing style is often glib and facetious,
and I can’t see me changing any time soon, but it is clear that many thousands
of young men still remember those years differently and for them there is
nothing to be flippant about.
Nothing I say here should reflect on the horror and the
nightmares associated with everyone effected by this war. In researching some
of the details for this chapter, I came across an anonymous post on social
media which I paraphrase below.
“We must remember that these were kids, who were not
expecting to be soldiers. They didn’t expect to be carrying rifles instead
place of their dreams. These veterans didn’t get the luxury of innocence. They
were living in a world where every step could be the last one. Where the enemy
didn’t always show his face. Where fear became routine and survival became the
only goal that mattered. They weren’t chasing peace—they were chasing tomorrow.
While the world argued about the war, they were trapped inside it.”
Respect these veterans, on both sides of the conflict
–they served and I thank them for it and I honour them for it.
It’s another long sea trip – two more weeks of four hours
on, eight hours off. This time with eight thousand tons of jet fuel on board
and with fuel and water tanks also full, the ship’s hull sits low in the water
right down to the Plimsoll line.
We are going back pretty much the way we came – through the
Arabian Sea until we pass Sri Lanka’s Dondra Head lighthouse off our port bow,
continuing into the southern reaches of the Bay of Bengal, around the north of
Java and into the Straits of Malacca.
The sea is generally kind most of the way, barring a rough
patch in the Bay of Bengal where waves are 4 to 5 metres and frequently swamp
the foredeck making access to the dining room via the upper deck walkway a
formidable challenge.
We travel through the relative still waters of the Straits
of Malacca, known in the twenty-first century as one of the world’s danger
spots for modern day piracy, but fortunately in the 1960s and 1970s, an almost
non-existent occurrence.
We burn about 25 tons per day of fuel oil, but since we
topped up in the Gulf, we have plenty to keep us going so no need to stop at
Singapore. We pass through the busy Singapore Strait at night, the lights of
the city glow invitingly as we traverse the narrow sixty mile channel and head
towards the South China Sea where we begin the last leg of our journey north.
We have another 700 miles to the Mekong Delta and our first port of call, the
Nhà Bè oil terminal to the south of the city of Saigon.
A day or two before we arrive, the skipper assembles
everyone not on watch in the dining room to update us on our destination. HC
Sleigh, the owners of Marion Sleigh have been involved in the
transport of jet fuel to ports in South Vietnam for a number of years. There
have been incidents where vessels in the zone have been targeted and earlier in
the year a tanker on charter to HC Sleigh was hit by rifle and rocket fire
during at attack on the terminal*.
There will be no shore leave during our visit to Vietnam. We
will maintain sea-going watches with the engine room on Stand By at all times.
We are all clearly aware that this is to be no river cruise.
The Mekong Delta consists of several rivers and tributaries
extending their long fingers through a huge wetland – the rice bowl of South
East Asia. The Mekong itself is one of the great rivers of the world. Starting
in Tibet it travels over 3,000 miles through China, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia
before discharging into the South China Sea. Our first sense is the change in
colour of the ocean from a deep blue to a muddy brown, the effect of the tons
of sediment which in the wet season travel as far as a hundred kilometres out
to sea. It may not be of Amazonian proportion, but it is certainly striking.
A little further north another series of rivers empty into
the ocean sharing a common estuary with the Delta. These are the Dong Nai and
Lòng Tàu rivers and our destination as we head to the Vung Tau anchorage area
at the mouth of the estuary to collect our river pilot.
My first thought as we arrive at the anchorage is that we
will not be alone on our journey up river as a US Navy T2 tanker and a large
Shell tanker also lie at anchor. We learn however that the process is for
tankers to travel one by one, preceded by a minesweeper and accompanied by two
patrol boats (PRBs) which are constantly on alert for any enemy activity from
the river banks. To add to the comfort level, two US Navy Seawolf helicopters
hover overhead looking on both sides of this sparse landscape for any hint of
marauders.
Our 45 mile journey up river to the oil storage facility
traverses the Rung Sat Special Zone along the Lòng Tàu river. This is one of
the most heavily defoliated areas in the country. A large mangrove swamp, the
area is used by the Viet Cong to attack shipping heading towards Saigon.
Huge volumes of herbicide, mostly Agent Orange has been
sprayed over the area killing off over 90% of the vegetation and leaving a
landscape of skeletal grey tree trunks looking like the aftermath of a raging
bushfire. This is so far away from the Amazon River of just two years ago, that
I wonder what the hell I’m doing here. There is no doubt the defoliated
riverbanks provide a high level of visibility, but the impact from these toxic
chemicals will be felt for years to come.
Our destination today is the Nhà Bè Petroleum Storage
Facility, the largest fuel farm in South Vietnam, located at the meeting of the
Lòng Tàu and the Soài Rạp rivers, about seven miles from Saigon.
This area is one of the most heavily defended and defoliated
waterways in the country. A single rocket propelled grenade (RPG) or a rifle
hit could be catastrophic.
At this time, the protection of fuel tankers in and out of
the Saigon area is one of the most intense brown-water operations of the war.
Wooden-hulled minesweepers have already gone ahead of us
dragging chains and magnetic cables to clear our path and as we enter the
river, we are immediately attached to two patrol boats. These small armed
fibreglass vessels weave in front of and behind us, using their wake to trigger
any potential water mines. While all this is happening the Huey helicopter
gunships provide overhead cover, providing short and long range spotters as we
traverse the river.
Our US Navy pilot is in charge on the bridge and makes sure
that we don’t dawdle. The engines are on Full Ahead most of the way – we are
not hanging around.
After about four hours of this we approach our tanker berth
at the fuel farm. This is the most nervous part of our journey so far. We have
slowed down to enter the discharge area and for the next few hours we are going
to be a sitting duck.
We learn that this has been a busy year for enemy attacks on
the Lòng Tàu although most ambushes have been suppressed before they could
score a direct hit on a tanker. The simple thought running through my head (and
I’m sure I’m not alone) is, define “most”.
We are alongside and getting ready to connect to the fuel
discharge lines, when our pilot gets a message to abort the unloading. There is
activity on the perimeter of the terminal, and we have to move offshore to the
middle of river while the
“activity” is managed.
We move offshore and are soon at anchor about 150 metres
from the berth and about half a mile upstream.
Hueys are patrolling overhead and we can see that they are
focussing on a target some distance away on the other side of the terminal.
So we wait.
And we wait.
Two days later we are still in the river. Our US pilot has
been replaced twice and patrol boat activity to and from the ship continues
during the day.
I have to say at this point, that there comes a moment when
sitting on eight thousand tons of jet fuel, in the middle of the river, maybe
two hundred metres or so from the action, ceases to fill one’s stomach with
fear. There is only so much you can control and there is nothing that is going
on at the moment that any one of us on board can control. It’s rather like
being on a long flight with sustained heavy turbulence. You may grip that
armrest just a little tighter but there is absolutely nothing you can do but
hope this episode doesn’t feature your name.
This is also a good time to tell you about Toby, the ship’s
First Mate. Toby has been sailing in tankers for most of his career. Before
joining HC Sleigh he sailed with Shell Tankers, and before that Trident Tankers
– the fleet owned by P&O Line and about which it is said, their dress
uniform includes a sword, which the engineers use for sounding tanks.
Toby is an absolute snob. He really does call everyone “old
chap” or “my good fellow”. He has a double hyphenated and ridiculous
surname, and it isn’t a plum he has in his mouth when he speaks, it’s the whole
bloody tree!
On top of all this, Toby is a thoroughly likeable fellow, an
utterly capable sailor, and someone who never has an unpleasant word for
anyone.
It is Toby who introduces me to pink gin.
Up until this point in my life, I have been more than
content with Cairns Draught Beer; any other beer from any other state in
Australia except that South Australian bilgewater; Frank Stinchcombe’s Cuba
libres; and Paddy’s Irish whiskey. Now along comes Toby with his fancy Booths
High and Dry, his quinine tonic water (“no risk of malaria old chap”)
and a disgusting tasting bitter from the Caribbean called Angostura.
So here we are, in the middle of the Soài Rap River, sitting
on the Boat Deck under the shade of a life boat, in the middle of a war and
Toby is mixing me a gin and bitters, complete with ice and lemon as though we
are about to watch the Varsity Boat Race. We hear across the water, what sounds
like gunfire, but may have been thunder – I’m going with thunder. Toby leans
across to me, “that sounded close, old man – can I top you up?” The
only thing missing is a Palm Court orchestra and a long Panatella.
After three days at anchor, we get the word just before
daybreak instructing us to return to the wharf and begin discharging. We are
soon connected to the terminal and the process of unloading our precious cargo
starts again. Using two of our four unloading pumps we are able to deliver
about 50 or 60% of our cargo in just over four hours with no further incidents
and by the time I have started my afternoon watch we are headed back into the
river, shadowed again by our very welcome chaperons. As it was with our earlier
trip on the Lòng Tàu, we literally race down river at speeds normally unheard
of for such a narrow river passage. The sun is still quite high in the sky as
we head out across the bay towards Vung Tau where we say goodbye to our pilots.
We are soon out of sight of land and on our way north.
We’re still in a war zone of course and are constantly
reminded of this as we head around the coast to the military base at Cam Ranh
Bay and later north to Da Nang less than a hundred miles south of the 17th parallel
and the North Vietnam border.
The strange thing about all this is - I actually feel quite
privileged to be here.
* The ship was the MV Cherry Leaf, which was on charter to HC Sleigh at the time. 1968 is regarded as the worst and deadliest year of the Vietnam War. The January 1968 Tet Offensive was a major coordinated attack by the North Vietnamese army and the Viet Cong on cities throughout South Vietnam. During that year there were over 200,000 casualties on both sides of the war.
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