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Mortar
Attack at LZ Montezuma
3rd Bde HQ, 25th/4th Inf Div,
to include the 2/9th Arty
24Jun67
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Enemy mortars landing at helipad Mortar shrapnel shreds tent
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Enemy
mortars hit a lucrative target at the
174th Aviation Company helipad & living quarters
I
only had about 3 weeks left of my tour and I was having a hard time
sleeping, so it was not unusual to be
standing outside our tent in the early
morning hours. But on the
morning of the 24th, mortar rounds started
dropping not far away. I saw
immediately that they were "walking" the
rounds in toward the helicopters on
the helipad. I ran into our tent and
got everybody up and in the bunkers.
Then I grabbed my camera,
climbed
the shower and took some pictures of
the attack. The attached side by side
picture shows a picture during the
attack, and the exact view I had of the
area of the helipad from our tent.
When the attack ended, I walked over a few tents away and entered one that
had taken a direct hit. The
dead and wounded had already been taken away,
but I could tell from all the blood
on the floor and the huge, gaping hole
in the ceiling of the tent, that
there had been some serious damage done. I
knew that I would never forget that
gaping hole in the tent against the
night sky, so it was really weird to
find a picture of it years later on an
aviation website (it's attached).
The 174th Attack Helicopter Company had
posted that picture along with this
account of the attack:
"The tent housing many of the 409th Transportation Corps (TC) Detachment
(our mechanics) took a direct hit
from a VC mortar with a contact fuse
during a mortar attack that hit the
174th Company area at Duc Pho during the
pre-dawn hours on 24 June 1967. Two
mechanics were killed immediately and 35
total were injured. The entire
unit was still living in tents and more
permanent facilities (the bunkered
hootches to come later) had not yet been
built. SP4 Larry Guentzel and SP4
Thomas Dickinson died instantly in their
sleep. SP4 Gary Markle was severely
injured with brain damage from shrapnel
and survived as a paraplegic for over
29 years with only partial use of one
arm. He could not use his legs or
other arm. The doctors could not remove
the shrapnel from his brain, and in
the mid-1990's pieces of that shrapnel
finally shifted enough to also take
his sight. In 1996 he suffered severe
burns when he was unable to control
the hot water in a bath. He died of
complications from those burns on 28
Sep 96."
It was really sad to finally learn the extent of the damage that mortar
attack had inflicted.
submitted
by
Danny Yates
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FROM THE FILES OF THE 174th HELICOPTER ATTACK COMPANY
The
tent housing many of the 409th Transportation Corps (TC) Detachment (our
mechanics) took a direct hit from a VC mortar with a contact fuse during a
mortar attack that hit the 174th Company area at Duc Pho during the pre-dawn
hours on 24 June 1967. Two mechanics were killed immediately and 35 total were
injured. Jim McDaniel was sleeping three tents away and took the first two of
these three photos of the tent the next morning. The entire unit was still
living in tents and more permanent facilities (the bunkered hootches to come
later) had not yet been built. SP4 Larry Guentzel and SP4 Thomas Dickinson died
instantly in their sleep. SP4 Gary Markle was severely injured with brain damage
from shrapnel and survived as a paraplegic for over 29 years with only partial
use of one arm. He could not use his legs or other arm. The doctors could not
remove the shrapnel from his brain, and in the mid-1990's pieces of that
shrapnel finally shifted enough to also take his sight. In 1996 he suffered
severe burns when he was unable to control the hot water in a bath. He died of
complications from those burns on 28 Sep 96. Markle's wife considers his death a
direct result of his wounds in Vietnam and is attempting to get his name added
to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. She has not been successful. One Shark pilot
in the tent next to this one took some shrapnel in his back.
Source: Fred Thompson June 1992,
Jim McDaniel August 1996, Ted Saunders September 1996, and 14th CAB unit history
for 1971 (Sloniker) July 1992. (Photos 1 and 2 by Jim McDaniel, photo 3 by
Andrew Karsada, Duc Pho, June 1967)
Webmaster's
Note: I was the XO of "A" Battery on LZ OD, directly across from
LZ Montezuma, the 3rd Brigade Headquarters, and witnessed
this attack. We had a Radar Unit co-located with us on LZ OD, headed up by
CWO Emil Franklin. To his crew's credit, they spotted
the first mortars on radar about to land in the helicopter pad area and alerted
Brigade HQ. However, we could not shoot a mission
because
the location of the the mortar's firing position. My recall...and I offer
it with no disrespect to the 174th...is that they were
advised to get those bunker hooches going...they were a valuable target to the
enemy. The use of CP tents, though sandbagged around
the tent perimeter, offered no protection of any value.
