In The Thick of Battle

 

This picture is from the personal collection of my father, William Hatfield and below is the story that he told me about it. This would have been taken during one of his several tours in Vietnam where he served with the US Navy as a Hospital Corpsman. For those that don’t know the US Marines had no medical corp of its own, so they use Navy Corpsmen as their medics. So my father spent a lot of time in country with the Marines and in the thick of it.

Scattered around the country of Vietnam during our involvement were a number of what were called “Fire Bases“. These bases served as forward positions that were often way out in the boondocks. They served as an extension of the “zone of control” for the US military. They provided the front line troops somewhere to rest. Most importantly they housed much of the heavy artillery that provided support for troops in the field.  To the Vietnamese they were huge targets.

Time for a Picture?

The picture above was taken at approximately 2am and captures the opening of an attack on the base by enemy forces. Usually they would start with mortar fire, sometimes heavier ordinance if they had it. Usually once the mortar fire started the enemy positions would be located and devastated with artillery or in most cases troops would be sent to clear out the nests.

Most attacks consisted of the mortars and on occasion enemy troops would try to infiltrate the base. Their goal to kill and destroy as much as possible then disappear in to the night. Sometimes these attacks would occur on subsequent nights. Every now then they would get lucky and a shell would fall on a stash of ammunition or even fuel. When that happened you would end up with an explosion, much like you see above.

And there was William Hatfield, taking time to snap a quick picture before he got to work on the wounded. In the thick of it indeed.