Bill Patterson - Black Widow Mountain, Dau Tieng and Tay Ninh



Bill Patterson - Black Widow Mountain, Dau Tieng and Tay Ninh.

The attached picture shows the infamous (to our infantry) Black Virgin Mountain, west of Saigon and very close to the Cambodian border in Vietnam.  Many battles were fought there with each side capturing the high ground then losing it back sometimes within a few days or even hours.  Our 319th Transportation Company at Long Binh regularly convoyed to bases near the mountain which was so conspicuous on the otherwise flat ground around it.  We did not like to go there.  Again the location was very near the Ho Chi Minh trail which the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) used as a supply line to their forces in the south.  The road from Long Binh to Tay Ninh, one of our stops in that area, was the roughest we drove, especially early in our year in country.  Most of the road looked like the French had concreted it many years earlier in their occupation and no one had maintained it at all.  The constant rain and intense heat had destroyed parts of it leaving deep potholes unavoidable.  Our trucks bounced into the air, knocked drivers from their seats, sent machine guns from their mounts onto our helmets or laps, and left us feeling like we had been beaten in a rough football game.  Finally near the end of our tour, the road was somehow blacktopped making the trip much smoother but no safer. 

I remember Dau Tieng for two main reasons:  its nickname and the movie I watched there one night.  The nickname was Rocket City due to its nearly constant bombardment from the enemy.  I believe other sites in the country shared the nickname.  One day when I drove onto the base and stopped the truck at the unloading area, I saw the drivers from the few trucks which arrived just before me running FAST to nearby bunkers and yelling at me to do the same.  I joined them without question.  A mortar or rocket round landed in the unloading area just as we drove in.  I seem to remember seeing the dust and smoke but heard nor saw any explosion.  I did grab my rifle and held it firmly untill the "all clear" was given.  If any delay was encountered on the trip to Dau Tieng or during the unloading, we were required to stay overnight on the dangerous base.  Usually no preparation was made for us and we slept in or under the trucks or nearby on the ground.  On one overnight, a small 8MM projector was set up near some barracks and we joined a few assigned men to watch some movie outdoors sitting on wooden benches.  I had trouble concentrating on the movie because I felt fear in the location.  I sat there for only about 15 minutes and listened to a ground mounted machine gun about 50 yards away firing into the base's perimeter.  Apparently the gunners saw or heard something nearby and were taking no chances on it approaching any closer.  I did not enjoy the movie and got little sleep that night!

On one trip to Tay Ninh I was assigned an assistant driver from another company who just arrived in country.  He was a truck driver in civilian life from Colorado.  I could tell he loved trucks and driving.  He surprised me when he told me he was really going to enjoy his year in Vietnam.  He was smiling, happy and exuberant.  My job was to show him the route and teach him anything useful.  

I saw him about one month later and he had a shocked look instead of the previous expressions of joy.  He had been on a Tay Ninh convoy and encountered an ambush by the enemy.  He said at one point during the attack he felt someone had hit him in the back with a hammer.  He made it through to Tay Ninh and when he removed his flak jacket he found a bullet lodged in it.  The flak jacket probably saved his life.  I don't think he enjoyed his tour as he thought he would!  

The red dust stirred up by our trucks was blinding and choking around the mountain.  On one trip a driver from another company was killed when the truck in front of him stopped suddenly and he could not see the braking.  The front truck was hauling telephone poles and one of them went right through his windshield.  For months after I came home I had medical problems associated with the dust I breathed and swallowed while driving over 15,000 miles in Vietnam.  Doctor Hudson in Augusta looked in my ears and asked "Where have you been?"  He cleaned out my ears with forced liquid which drained into a curved bowl.  He showed me the contents:  big red gobs of goo.  I probably still have some in my lungs.  We were issued no goggles, ear plugs or dust masks.  I'm sure the loud weapons nearby damaged my hearing also.  

But God determined I and all 319th members except Roy Miller would survive and come home.  We did our best.     

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