Big Bang at DaNang (Read 1,443 times)

It was a nice Sunday morning, 27 April 1969. DaNang Air Base, South Vietnam. It was warm with some clouds coming off the South China Sea. The sea breezes were gently blowing across the bay and helping to make the air pleasant. It was a nice morning to walk to the mess hall.

I walked to the main base compound to eat breakfast at the 366 TFW Mess Hall. My ham and cheese omelet tasted great.
During breakfast there were some muffled explosion sounds, but nothing too loud, or sounding too close. Didn't sound like incoming rockets.
Breakfast over and walk to Gunfighter Village to attend the Protestant Chapel service. As I was walking, I could hear more explosions and they were getting louder.
I, along with the other worshipers, settled in to the chapel and the service began.
All of a sudden there was a very loud explosion, and we all hit the deck. The chaplain was behind the pulpit and the organist was hiding under the front of the organ. We looked to the back wall and the stained glass window above the entrance had been shattered. The glass was on the carpet.
One of the worshipers said the explosions were caused by a fire at the ammo dump on the West side of the base. The Marine side.
We finished the service and I walked to the barracks got my cameras and then to the PX annex to buy film. I got all I could, and there were others doing the same thing. We all wanted to get pictures of the expolsions.

After a while, it was time to head to work.

Maintenance Control was in a “rocket proof” building, just a couple months old. We kept hearing the explosions and the concussion was doing some minor shaking of the building.

We took turns going out to take pictures of the explosions and the C130s, C123s and other planes evacuating the base. The F4s were pretty snug in their revetments.
We felt very safe in the control room. Nothing was going on outside, so we just wandered out and took pictures and looked at the clouds of smoke and the concussion waves move across the base.
Across from our building, on the end of the F4 ramp, there was a brand new hanger, built for the Army to use for their liaison planes.
Wing called our office and told us we were to evacuate and not enter any buildings on, or near the flight line, Gunfighter Village, or most any place else. Just wander around outside. That didn't seem like the safest thing to do.
Out boss, a Lt. Col., stayed in the control room to answer the phone.
We went for a walk along the perimeter road, by the moat. We took pictures and watched the show. Pretty soon a van came along with K Rations and cans of soda. So, we sat on the kerb and ate.

Meanwhile the explosions continued and it began to get a bit hairy. You could see what looked like 1000# bombs going airborne, smaller bombs up there with them. What got our attention was the Mickie Mouse rockets we heard flying around, with explosions coming soon after.

So, we hunkered down by the moat and waited.

After a couple of hours one of the flight line expedite trucks found us and said the colonel wanted all of back at the control room. The truck gave us a ride the few blocks and out we jumped and he went back to park in a revetment.

There we sat. Just waiting and answering phones and radio calls.

The first explosion was at about 0800, and they continued through the night.
The control room got pretty crowded, as everyone who worked there came to the building to hang out and stay in a “safe” place.

We had a large barbeque, two 55 gallon drums welded together, end to end, and cut in half the long way, to do our grilling. We had a trade pipeline with a Marine mess sergeant. It's amazing how many steaks, chickens, pork chops and hamburger, by exchanging hootch and brew with the Marines.
So, that night we had our usual evening steaks, but the guys who were just hanging out had to do the cooking.
It's not too bad, sitting at the console eating a top sirloin and listening to the explosions.
The next morning we were cleared to go to our barracks as there was no more danger. At least the base fire department said there wasn't.

We found out the cause was not any enemy action, but what the Marines were doing. They had a group of Vietnamese civilians they hired, out burning the dry grass in the ditches around the Marine base perimeter, as well as lots of wind blown trash in the bomb dump area. It had been put in to large piles and set afire to get rid of it. A “controlled” burn.

Some wind came up and the fire got away, and headed toward the wooden buildings in the Ammo Dump.
The fire was soon out of control and making it's own high wind and carrying it to other parts of the dump.
I can't remember how many explosions there were, but it was continual. There were many tons of ammo, bombs and stuff destroyed. There is a report saying that over 39,100 tons of bombs and other ordnance was destroyed, at a cost of about $100,000,000 (1969 dollars).

The Marine base had the most damage. Many buildings were leveled by the blasts and it took a while to rebuild. So, there were lots of tents until the prefabs could get put up.

The Army hanger by us, had so much damage, it had to be torn down and rebuilt. The main steel beams that held it together were twisted by the force of the blasts.

Dogpatch, a Vietnamese shanty village burned down, but was never rebuilt. It was nothing but cat houses, gambling joints, sleazy bars and dope dens. That was probably the best thing that the explosions and fires did. We were told not to go there because of the VC activities going on there. The Marines had torn Dogpatch down a couple times, but this time it was permanent.

Pretty soon things were back to normal and we only had to worry about VC rocket attacks.

Forty-one years ago, the DaNang Ammo Dump blew up. Still very vivid to me.

Jim Too

:god_bless_usa