Hi Bill, Yup, your'e the guy I had pictured in my mind.

As I got your last E-mail I sat here counting and picturing the rows of new

PBR's at Cam Rahn I have to tell you that yes your story must be true

because I can not account for all 39 boats sitting at Cam Rahn and in fact

we must have only had 29 of them unloaded there. As I recall, we brought 12

of them South on the barges. Which leaves 17 boats up North.  To the best of

my recollection 2 went to Vung Ro and I thought we had 4 or maybe 6 at Qui

Nhon, a few stayed at Cam Rahn for awhile and must have been shipped South

later on.

During my time with the 458th [which was 20 months] I spent time at all the

outports. Getting boats in service, and later as a roving mechanic. When at

the various outports, I would repair boats and also end up driving truck or

some other like duty. On many of the repair trips I would also end up being

a "Parts Relocation Specialist" because as I'm sure you were aware, after

our initial supply of repair parts were used up, we had no way of

resupplying the the inventory. It was as Lee Helle stated, Beg Borrow or

Steal.

I remember you guys staying with the Navy. I came to Vung Tau shortly after

they acquired the barracks area in Vung Tau. Can't recall how long I stayed

there. I can recall unloading the boats, and since we had already put them

in service, all we had to do was reinstall the radar dome and radio antennas

and they were on the water. We took some of them upriver to Cat Lai and

Newport.I can also recall towing some of them back down river later on when

an engine went bad or something like that that I couldn't repair on site.

Not a very fun trip as we usually went down when the tide was going out and

unfortunatly with the slow speed of towing a disabled boat you were a

sitting duck. I am happy to say that Charlie didn't decide to use us for

target practice during any of those trips but you always worried.

As I say, I was a roving mechanic, however I tried to spend as much time up

North as I could. It was further from the brass and I liked to be as far

from them as possible. I worked with Godwin and also WO Scribner. Godwin

went South with you guys, Scribner stayed up North.Can't remember who took

thier places as they rotated back to the states.In fact I don't think we had

any more Warrant Officers after them.That was about the time Amick came

onboard as CO as I recall.

One thing I remember about Cat Lo was that they had some damn good food

compared to the Army stuff we usually got. Qui Nhon wasn't to bad . We got

fuel from the Navy so of course when you needed  fuel, it was usually at

mealtime. Some times we would shuttle guys from the merchant ships to the

seamans club up there and oftentimes one would be a cook or something, that

was usually worth a case of steaks and some grits or something and some REAL

butter. I'm sure some of the guys will recall the cookouts.

Anyway, these are a few more of the memories of that period. Stay in contact

as I enjoy relating some of the times and it helps me to recall some of the

things that went on. I wish I could remember the dates that I was in a

particular area and who was there but all I can go by is the dates on some

of the pics I have.

Well Bill, Thanks, You have helped put some of the pieces back together.

Hope we can continue as the memories come back.

Regards, Bill Northrop

----- Original Message -----

From: Bill Barber

To: Bill Northrop

Sent: Saturday, October 06, 2001 11:54 AM

Bill,

It's true the boats we received later did come in by barge. But let me tell

you how we received the first 10 boats. We were staying with the Navy at

Catlo. One morning, after we had been there for a few days we were awakened

about 4:30. We had breakfast and we were handed a bag lunch. We went down to

the dock and crawled on a navy boat and were taken out in the middle of Vung

Tau Bay.

As we got closer to this big freighter that was anchored there, we got our

first look at the new MK IIs. They were still strapped in their shipping

cradles. They had no fuel in the tanks, no oil in the engines and no fresh

water in the cooling systems. We thought maybe the Navy was going to tow the

boats back in for us, but they dropped us off and were gone like a shot. We

had to bum enough fuel, oil and water from the captain of the freighter to

start 2 of the boats. He said that was all he could spare and all the time

grumbling about how well prepared we were. We got two of the boats started

and dropped 3 more over board. One running boat towing one, the other towing

two and they departed for shore. They told the four or so of us , that

stayed behind, that they would get the these other two boats running and be

back for us.  They said it would not take very long and they would be right

back.  I don't think so many lies were told in one place since I took out my

first date and tried to get in her pants.

So we watched them sail out of site. We busied our selves with uncrating the

remainder of the boats and dropped them over board. This took us into the

afternoon. The captain of the freighter was completely pissed by now, all he

wanted was to be gone. He finally gave us enough fuel, water and oil to fire

up another boat. Dam good thing to, we were expecting to see at least two

more PBRs come into site at any minute but none appeared. It started to get

dark and the captain was threatening to sink the boats and leave us to swim

for it. I always thought if the bastard had offered us something to eat that

day we might have been more sympathetic to his problems. But he didn't and

we weren't.  Our bag lunch was gone by 9:00 AM and things were getting

pretty desperate by now.

To avoid starting the battle of Vung Tau bay we got in the one boat that was

running and tie the other four boats to it and started for what we hoped was

shore.  With the seas building to 3 ft. we could see pretty quickly that

this was going to be a fun trip.  We had not gotten out of site of the Ship

and it nearly dark at that, when we saw a lone PBR heading to us.  At that

moment it was a good thing we had no ammo on board or we would have probably

sunk him.

They finally pulled along side (no easy task in that we had a real nice

tangle of four disabled PBRs connected to one that was almost running) and

began telling us a tale of woe that almost had us feeling sorry for them.

It seamed as they cleared our vision one of the boats quit running. They

said the fuel tank had more water than fuel in it.  We believed them right

away because the one we were running had just shortly before developed a

serious case of the lunges.  We later found that the fuel the bastard

captain had given us must have come out of his bilge.

We gave the new comer two of the boats we were towing and got lined out for

shore again. By now it was after midnight. The seas finally started to lay

down and if our boat had continued to run we might have been to shore by

dawn.  But, it didn't and we weren't.

The fog had come in and visibility was very bad the hours kept ticking away.

The fog, finally, was beginning to turn a little white instead of black when

we heard a fog horn that sounded as if it was about to run us over.  It

really scared the BEEJESUS out of us.  Then we saw it, it was a big tug

boat.

It had AB&T across the front.  All I could think of as I  read these

letters was "About to Be Towed" but I was to afraid to be hopeful.  He must

have had us on his radar.  He laid that big tug right along side of us at

conversational distance.  He asked how we were doing.  Well we left out a

good many explanative and a good bit of detail (much as I have here) and

related the fact that we weren't doing much worth a damn.

The fact was we were about as sorry a crew of individuals as ever sailed the

seven seas or for that matter ever floated in a bath tub.  We were wet,

completely starved, tired and frustrated to human limits.  Most of us had

not eaten any thing since the bag lunch was devoured the morning before.

The only boat we had running was running hot and had to be babied.  The

other five boats tied to this one were knitted together from all the start

and go generated by trying to keep the last boat running.  Here we sat in

the middle of pea soup and had no idea where we were at.

The old boy on the Alaska Barge & Transport tug asked if we needed any help?

Where-by at this point we all told him we would either kiss or suck any

appendage he might desire if he could make that happen.  He laughed and said

that wouldn't be necessary, he was sent by the Army to find us after we

didn't show up to be tucked in that night.  With our faith in old glory

sufficiently restored we told him we would pass him a line.  I think he took

one look at our twisted lines and determined we probably couldn't find an

end to pass him or he just didn't want that wet tangled mess any where near

his boat, he said, no just cut one loose.  We quickly came to the conclusion

that he probably knew a great deal more about this sort of thing than we did

so out with a knife and one PBR away.

That tug back away and made a cercal around the PBR and when he came back

along side of us it was tucked neatly along his bow.  He yelled for us to

cut free another one.  There was no hesitation this time.  The same maneuver

and this one was tucked right behind the first.  And so it went, in short

order he had all six PBRs tucked in, three on one side and three on the

other and we heading for shore.

When we crawled over on the deck of the tug, the guy we had been talking to,

greeted us with a big grin and I was impressed with the way he was dressed.

He didn't smell, was clean shaven and was wearing a white T-shirt and had

only clean white socks on his feet. For all appearance we could have been

standing in his living room talking to him.  And here we stood looking and

smelling like something the cat had just drug in and based on how we felt it

was a fair sized cat at that.

He invited us into the cabin and as we walked in we looked like first time

tourist to New York city.  I remember rolling my eyes around that cabin and

I swear you could have eaten off the floor. It was air conditioned and

immediately your clothes turned your body loose.  I had been in country for

two months and my clothing had clung to me and galled me in places where I

didn't even think I had places.  Once inside we sat down on a big sofa that

was soft as a cloud.  He asked if any one wanted coffee or something to eat.

We told him we would kill for either and create total mayhem for both.

We hadn't gotten over our awe when he returned with a tray of the best

coffee I have ever had.  We were sitting there on that sofa drinking coffee

and smelling like dead eels and feeling like Generals and Admirals.

Shortly our savior returned with another tray this one had perfect, eggs

over easy, bacon and real toast.  Ever since that morning I have always

thought when I die and if lucky enough to make it to heaven, I would like to

work on a tug up there.

The rest of the trip in I don't recall and I sure non of the rest of the

guys did either.  When we were woke up the boats were neatly tied by the can

docks and all we had to do was stumble to the showers and resume checking

our eye lids for holes.

With our detachment size being only 22 men one of which was the commanding

officer (a Warrant Officer at that) it was a very informal close knit group.

After we had sufficiently returned from the dead we talked and laughed about

that 30 or so hours.  The Warrant Officer was a career man close to

retirement and he admitted that that was the worst "Cluster F___" he had

ever had the misfortune to partake in and he said he had seen plenty and was

only on the first group of boats to return to the piers.  He had missed

completely the best or worst part.

Over the years I have forgotten his name (Godwin Maybe??) but he was really

a great guy.  I remember telling him that I had come to Nam expecting to get

killed not to be abused in such an inhuman way as that. He laughed and said

we would not do that again.  I told him in that case I wouldn't desert.  We

laughed some more.

After that our boats came in by barge and you should know the rest.  I

haven't thought of that time for a number of years.  I hope I haven't bored

you.  If you had anything to do with us not having to unload PBRs in the

middle of Vung Tau bay I owe you a great debt.

I don't have a lot picture of NAM but this one is the best likness I

suppose.  I don't look like this now :).

//////////////////////////////////

From: Bill Northrop

To: lpel3@aol.com

Sent: Sunday, September 30, 2001 6:38 PM

Subject: PBR's

Hi Phil, Do you remember if you were on patrol one day upriver from Cat Lai

getting into a firefight and running out of ammo? Trying to find the crew I

ran ammo up to. I remember running upriver through the hot zone and somebody

had to jump to the boat I was on alone to transfer the ammo.The boat I had

was 7841 I think. It had been sunk once and patched together and I used it

for a maintenance boat for awhile at Cat Lai. I was a roving mechanic and

worked between Cat Lai, Newport, and Cat Lo.with this boat.The rest of the

time I travelled to the other outports fixing boats and driving trucks.  I'm

sure we went to Mare Island at the same time. Been trying to find a picture

of Rissman, I think I have one somewhere.

////////////////////////////////////////

Hey Billy Barber, How did you get from Cam Rahn to Vung Tau? Do you by

chance remember Hailey or Northrop?

From: Bill Barber

To: Bill Northrop

Sent: Monday, October 01, 2001 6:54 PM

Subject: Re: PBR's

I got in country in March of 68.  The 458th at that time was a lark outfit.

In May or June?? 22 of us were picked form the company,  I was picked I

guess because I had went to PLL (Prescribed Load List) i.e. Supply school.

We were flown to Vung Tau on a C130.  All our duffle and a jeep were packed

into that thing.  After we arrived we were stationed at a Navy base at

CatLo.  Our first shipment was a barge from Cam Ron Bay.  On it was a Duce &

Half and a 5 ton tractor.  There might have been more on the barge.  I'm not

sure, I remember these two items because they were assigned to me.  The Duce

& Half ended up with "458th PBRs" kind of sloppy done, across the front of

the hood.  Again I remember this because I did it.

I rotated back to the states in September (little less than 6 months in

country).  By then we had moved to our company area in Vung Tau.  I was

there long enough to set up the PBR supply room in a Quonset Hut.

Names have escaped over the years.  I'm not sure if I remember you or not do

you have any more details.

Bill

Hi Bill. I got to the 458th in Feb or March 68. I was with the first PBR

class at Mare Island. It was as you said a Lark 5 outfit. I helped set the

PBRs up and put in service at Cam Rahn. Also shipped them to the various

outports. The PBR's that came to vung tau, cat lai and newport were loaded

on barges and towed to Cat Lo, myself and 2 other guys, one of which was

Bailey, the other I can't remember his name. [although I do have some pics

of the barges and us on them.

The boats were unloaded at Cat Lo of which I have a couple pics also. A Sgt

Vasquez was there at the time. As I recall, It took about 18 hours to get

from Cam Rahn to Cat Lo. We were towed by a Philipino tug. I think I have a

pic of that also somewhere. I spent some time at Cat Lo-Vung Tau. I remember

hauling one of the PBR's to the company area in Vungf Tau from Cat Lo. I

used the 5ton and we borrowed a flatbed trailer from some engineer company I

think. Can't remember why we hauled it in there. I think Sgt Anderson must

have been in the motor pool at the time but I'm not positive about that.

At one time there were 3 duece and a halfs at Vung Tau. The numbers were

T-1,T-3,and T-51.   T-49 was at Qui Nhon, the smokey old SOB. While I was at

Vung Tau I  droveT-1, it had yellow headlights and I had painted Iowa on the

hood. I think it was the only 21/2 ton in Nam with SHINY  od-green paint.

I know what you mean about things escaping the memory, but some of it comes

back once in awhile.

Well enough for tonight.  Drop a line again and I'll see what else I can

remember. I think you were kind of a tall slender guy, maybe curley or wavy

hair and like some of the rest of us.....crazy.  I'm sure I would know you

if I saw a pic.

=====================================

Thats all, unless you can jog your memory, doesn't make any differance what the subject is. "The Statue of Limitations done run out" ;-)