Photo By Lori Stewart | Cu Chi Base Camp, 1970 (NARA) read more read more
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by Lori S. Stewart, USAICoE Command Historian
INTELLIGENCE WORK INTERRUPTED BY ENEMY MORTAR
On Aug. 2, 1966, Capt. James F. Kenyon, the 32-year-old S-2 of 2d “Warrior” Brigade, 25th Infantry Division, was surprised when a Viet Cong (VC) 75mm recoilless rifle round slammed into the floor next to him in the brigade Tactical Operations Center.
The 2d Brigade, under the command of Col. Lynwood M. Johnson, had arrived in South Vietnam from Hawaii via ship on Jan. 18, 1966. The brigade had established the division’s headquarters at Cu Chi, approximately twenty miles northwest of Saigon, and the rest of the division had arrived by March. This area was undercut by a maze of enemy tunnels and mortar attacks were not uncommon. Col. Thomas M. Tarpley took command of the brigade in May and continued the unit’s mission to eliminate the Viet Cong around their perimeter.
On Aug. 5, 1966, the Division’s newsletter, "Tropic Lightning News," carried the story of Captain Kenyon’s harrowing encounter with the unwelcome mortar three days earlier. It is reprinted here, verbatim:
MORTARS HOP, SKIP, TOC DOES LIKEWISE
The division’s Cu Chi base camp was under mortar attack. Deep within the safety of the 2nd Brigade Tactical Operations Center (TOC) bunker, Capt. James F. Kenyon of Cleveland and Sp4 Daniel L. Sacco of Chicago were busy at work. It was Tuesday evening and Capt. Kenyon and Sacco, of the brigade intelligence section, had just completed the daily intelligence summary.
“We heard three or four explosions,” Capt. Kenyon said. “All at once there was a loud noise... not a bang, sort of a dull thud. We glanced up just as a big shiny metal object slammed into a 12-by-16-inch beam and dropped a few inches from where I was sitting.” The “shiny metal object” was a Viet Cong shell. With no further urging, they quickly abandoned that section of the TOC. Capt. Kenyon looked around the corner. He had been correct. The unexploded shell remained on the floor.
In the operations portion of the TOC, Maj. Thomas Ulvenes of Faribault, Minn., was on the phone alerting the aviation section. Hearing the major on the phone, Capt. Kenyon, also an aerial observer for the brigade, grabbed a radio and bolted for the helicopter pad. Four minutes after the first explosion, the brigade’s helicopters were airborne. Later, after estimating that some of the rounds were coming from Xom Moi one mile northwest of the camp, Capt. Kenyon spotted VC mortar flashes. The S-2 captain called in accurate artillery fire which suppressed that mortar.
“As I got to thinking about it,” said Capt. Kenyon, “I was pretty shaken. Here we were in the TOC, thinking it was the best protection possible and this big round comes right inside.” It was a 75mm recoilless rifle round. The shell, fired on a low trajectory, had crashed through a latrine 75 yards away and ricocheted off the ground. It had entered the TOC through a ventilation port just below the sand-bagged, steel planking on the roof, struck a cross beam and came down through the plywood ceiling. A one in a million shot.
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| Date Taken: | 07.25.2025 |
| Date Posted: | 07.25.2025 14:56 |
| Story ID: | 543872 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 32 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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