This is a collection of email messages from 458th members that contain bits and peices of the real history of the 458th, I have made no effort to edit any of these messages except perhaps to remove a senders name if anything in the message might be embarrassing to the sender.
If anyone cares to add any info or stories to this page, just send me a email.
OK here we go, remember these messages are not in order of when received
Sent: Thursday, March 30, 2000 1:26 PM Subject: PBR's
You can't believe how pleased I was to find your site! I am a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and national Historian of the Inshore Undersea Warfare Association. This association is made up of persons who served in Harbor or Coastal Defense operations. It is open to all service members, regardless of branch, and all time periods.
I served with Inshore undersea warfare Group One, WestPac Detachment at Nha Trang and Cam Ranh Bay in 1968. I distinctly remember two things that lead me to believe I had some contact with members of your unit. When I reached Nha Trang in January 1968 (right before TET), I was assigned to the Harbor Entrance Control Post, but I remember the Boston Whalers were were using belonged to the Army. In fact, they had Army markings on them. See attached, look familiar?
Shortly thereafter I was transferred to the unit at Cam Ranh Bay where I was assigned to a Skimmer (as we called the Whalers). The second attachment is one our whalers from Cam Ranh Bay. During my service there, my partner and I became acquainted with a number of Army Transportation Corps personnel. We made good friends with the crew of an Army Harbor Tug, mostly because the skipper and engineer were Warrant Officers who were ex-Navy enlisted men. The other contact we made was with the crew of an Army PBR. This HAD to be a crew from your company. they were nice enough to take us for a ride.
If you or any of your members have any photographs of the Navy Harbor Patrol personnel or boats from those areas mention in your site, I'd like to have them. IUWG-1 had detachments in most of those location at the same time as your company. we are in the process of updating our web site and would like to put these on the site in addition to including them in our archives.
Looking forward to hearing from you.
John Wright, QMC(DV) USNR, Ret. san diego, California
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HI LEE TOM FARRELL HERE I GOT TO 458TH IN SEPT OF 70 WITH JERRY MCDEVITT AND CURTIS POTEAT .WENT TO VUNG RO UNTIL IT SHUT DOWN THEN WENT TO QUI NHON STAYED THERE UNTIL WE SHUT DOWN.JULY OF 71 THEN WENT TO CAT LAI UNTIL THE COMPANY STOOD DOWN. I FINISHED MY LAST 3 WEEKS AS A GATE GUARD IN LONG BIHN. I WAS WITH MIKE HEBERT AND OLSON IN VUNG RO AND JERRY WALLACE IN QUI NHON. JERRY MCDEVITT LIVES RIGHT DOWN THE ROAD FROM ME SMALL WORLD.SEE YA THANKS TOM F.
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Lee---Do you reckon anyone would own-up to running our J-7813 aground at high tide on 6 July 1970? Found this while surfing through the Navy's Harbor Clearance Unit's command history found at this link. Interesting, huh? Larry
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30. On 6 July, at 1930, a request was received from NCOIC Vung Tau Harbor Military Police to salvage U.S. Army PBR J-7813 which had run aground at high tide on a mud flat between Cat Lo and Vung Tau. Because the craft was needed for a night patrol, salvage operations took place at low tide. The PBR was approximately 300 yards from the waters edge at this time. YLLC-5 dropped its stern anchor and then beached as close to the PBR as possible. After lowering the bow ramp, the whip wire was walked out to the PBR (through mud at times waist deep) where it wasattached to the forward lifting padeyes. Using the beach gear winch, the PBR was pulled to YLLC-5 without any problems. After flushing out the PBR's cooling system with fire hoses, YLLC-5 returned to Cat Lo at approximately 2400.
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Larry: I was responsible for running J7834 aground in the upper northeastern part of the bay above Qui Nhon, during the spring of 1970. It was one of those nights when we had the high tide that was the highest for the month. I was chasing a sampan out of the bay, about an hour or so after sundown. The sampan went into the little river, I think it was called the Tuy Phouc and I went to follow. The only problem was that I went over a sand bar and settled into a depression between 2 sand bars. There was no going forward o r going back. I had missed the channel by going about 50 or 100 feet to far to the north.
Initially, the boat was floating. We had another boat come up, but couldn't get close enough to tow us back over the sand bar. To say the least the tide started going out. Sometime after midnight, one of the other boats brought out the Colonel, the 93rd MP Bn commander. By the time the Colonel arrived we were high and dry, but probably not more that 100 ft. from water that we could operate in. The Colonel got had the boat crews try to pull the boat, which probably weighs about 8 tons, to the nearest water. To say the least the boat would not budge by that time.
Finally, the Colonel left. I stayed on the boat with my crew. The other boat crew brought out some beer and we settled in for the night. When morning arrived, the boat was like a lone tree on desert sand. We were in an exposed position about 100-200 yards from what was the shoreline/treeline. The high--high tide was followed by a very low tide. We were more than a half mile from the nearest water.
After several hours of daylight, someone managed to locate one of the sky crane helicopters. They attached one the bars with the 4 cables to a cable underneath the chopper. When the arrived we were standing on the deck, expecting them to lower the cable down and pull us up, just like on of the floating cranes. To say the least, they came in too fast and the boom was too low. To crew managed to jump off the boat, into the mud, just before the chopper struck the canopy with the boom. Our canopy was not in the best shape anyway, since a Medivac chopper had hung a skid on the radar dome back in June of 69.
On the next approach, the chopper came in slower and we fairly quickly had the boat hooked up. We all chose to walk back to the water where the dropped PBR34 back into deeper water.
During the late summer/fall of 69, I had been on a boat that had run aground, during daylight hours. They sent out a Chinook to pull us off the sandbar. We were still in shallow water and downdraft from the Chinook managed to make the water come up like a hard rain storm. The Chinook had problems getting into position to hook up to us and after a short time, we decided to wave them off and water on the tide. After a few more hours, the tide rose enough that we could get off the sand bar. I was the engineer at that time, and do not assume responsibility for that grounding.
Jerry
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charlie the " john page" i remember if I'm correct, was an Army boat. Piloted and crewed by army personnel. It was like an LST but a little different in that it had side thrusrters near the stern of the ship. The reason I remember it is that its was one of few ships to beach without using a local pilot which is kinda SOP. If its the same one I remember it had a CW4 acting as its captain. I'm sure the entire crew wasn't asleep, someone was always awake, it was SOP to assign watches when we didn't have a specific mission. I can remember being warned and spot lighted by other ships mostly because they didn't know who or what we were. Also we enjoyed seeing how close a ship would get to us, mostly out of boredom I guess. Unless you had a specific mission it got boring out there a night time. Ships were always alerted by the harbor master that PBRs would be close by to guard against sapper attacks. As far as sleeping goes remember we worked 12 hrs on and 12 off , it got fatiguing after a while. But Kerry got it half right because when a ship sounded its horn it was deafening to those awake and terror to the guys asleep, we always had a good laugh about it after. It was sooooo quiet there, at night. My good friend Mike Hebert and I would sit right on the beach where the LST's landed to see who would move first, at times neither of us would. That reminds me of a name, Greg Durret from bakersfield calif. he was a gunner and liked to play LST chicken also. Also include your full name and snail mail address I'm sure I can spare some pictures of the boats. Our PBR association requested my dates of service in RVN by my message to them keeps getting kicked back. Can you please notify them that my RVN service was 14nov69 through 4nov70. Also request rank change I was a SP4. They have me down as a SFC which is a current army reserve rank. thanks.... http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/8907@ny.tds.net> that the e-mail add I tried. thanks again for forwarding kerry meyers letter it brought back memories. BoB McCabe aka Captain America (J-7829)
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I stole a 2-1/2 ton from either thuy hoa or phiu hip sometime in 1970. My girlfriend (now wife) is jewish so I over painted the Army star with a star of David. We drove all over II corps for about 5 weeks nobody said shit. Somebody else finally borrowed a 3/4 because it was easier to dismount if you were stoned. I'm pretty sure Mike Hebert can witness for me on this. I think I may even have a picture of it. Thanks for all the updates
Regards,
Bob
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charlesh wrote:
I wonder if any one person has a idea how many vehicles the 458th stole or should I sayacquired through unofficial channels. Jeanine Anderson tells about her husband ( James ) had stole a jeep early 68. Some one in the 458th got me a new jeep in 69. After I rotated back to the states myreplacement wrote me a letter, seems they had taken the jeep in for some kind of repair workand their it was found that the jeep was not what the numbers said it was. this would have been Jan to April 1970. At company Hqs in Saigon we had the barbecues going almost every day, thanks to the reefer ships. Lots of old memories sure can pop up. You guys take care, I'm going skiing......
