S&W In VietNam ?

[Clark B]

Wow this is a great thread.

 

[semperfi71]

Terrific thread. I am enjoying the anecdotes immensly.

I was at MCAS Yuma from 1972 to 1975.

Very rarely did we see any pilots armed. However one day a Navy pilot came in and filed a flight plan. He was wearing a WWII type tan shoulder holster with the standard government hardball in .38 Special in bullet loops.

I was told he was thus armed because he was off a carrier that was heading out to sea or had just come back.

I do not remember what kind of .38 he was carrying.

To all who posted here who served in Vietnam, I think you should be proud of your service regardless of the outcome of the war. That was one of the toughest wars this nation ever fought.

Thanks for your service.

 

[MackTech]

My Grandfather (Pappy)was in WWII in the Battle of the Bulge. He saw serious combat and even hand to hand fighting at times. He never told many stories to me, as I only asked when I was a kid. He did take lots of pictures but would only show me very few as most were of the dead and lot were of concetration camps that he liberated ( I did get a glimps of them). He did alot of communication work, tapping onto the wires along railroad tracks and using them as signal/telephone wires. One night him and his partner had to follow the train tracks to locate a break in the wire. Pappy had an M-1 carbine, a 1911 on his right hip and a 2" barreled S&W 38 in his left front pants pocket. They found the broken wire and while fixing it a German 20 man patrol walked up to them . Pappy and his partner saw them aproach and laid down by the tracks, there was no exit so they made a plan to capture them. When Pappy jumped up and spoke in german for them to surrender, they all dropped their guns. When Pappy turned to look for his partner he was gone, running back to camp! Pappy marched his prisoners back to camp and won a shiney new medal for his actions. He did bring back the S&W, a mint 1918 Luger and a 1903 springfield. He still has them all. Pappy is in very poor health now at 92. I will see him on Saturday. I will try to get some info on the Smith.

 

[Clark B]

The hero generation is quickly leaving us. Now my nephews and kids are acting like I'm some sort of hero. I don't know if I can fill their shoes, it's a very tall order.

 

[amazingflapjack]

My little detachment had all kinds of guns, but all of the guys on roving patrol carried revolvers, Smiths if they could get them, for our "roll out" guns, or for the rats. No one would touch a 1911-lots of problems with them. Not many liked to depend on m-16's either. When I got in country, there were still m-14's, but after a couple months they took them away. I had qualified with both, but didn't like the 16 from jump street. In AIT we had to familiarize with the 1911, the 11-C's had to qualify with it-one guy out of a company bareley made a good enough score after a whole day on the range, and he had been shooting hand guns with his dad since age 8! The range NCO's were busy with locked up guns,and all kinds of other stuff. I was no pistilero, but I had been out by myself with a .22 rifle(WIN 1890) since I was seven, which was the way in my family, and I had a good sence about guns, and I didn't like the 1911's at all. Bad stuff happened around both of those guns. I had a 4 inch M-10 pencil that I got from a "civillian" for 60 bucks, if I remember it right, I slept with it. It was in beautiful shape, and came with a bunch of lead bullet loaded ammo that really went bang! If you all remember, the QC's and White Mice carried 38's, so maybe someone was loading for them(?) We were jeep borne, so we all had cross draw set ups of some kind. I finally bought a 1911 this year on its anniversary, after reading a couple of years ago that the last 1911's that the army bought were from 1943! Those were the newest ones, so some of the guys might have been handed one from a long time before that. The ones I saw rattled so bad that a decent VC mortor squad could braket you just from the noise! So I had an aversion to them, and couldn't figure what all the excitement was about with 1911's all these years (?) So I got educated, and now the .45ACP is one of my favorite rounds-both pistol and revolver. The jury is still out on anything that is a first cousin to an m-16-at least the ones that are "direct impingement" opperated. But I filled the slot with a much better gun, an AK-47. Charlie had that part right in my view, and it's nice to be on the sending end of one now. Some great posts and photos, welcome home guys. As for me, I wouldn't be here, and wouldn't want to be, if not for the Lord. Flapjack.

 

[S&W_aussie]

Below is a post from one of my threads a while ago. It firts the theme of this thread pretty well. The only Vietnam pic is the botom one.

Here is a pic of an WWII Australian airman in 1943 with a 38-200 S&W Military and Police. Below that is my revolver of the same type.



Here are a group of WWII RAAF (Australian Airforce) crew with Victorys. Carried cross draw.


This is of an Australian soldier guarding a prisoner in Korea with his Victory...yeas we used them for a loooong time


This is a photo od US General James Van Fleet presenting Australian 3 RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) with a Presidential Unit Citation in Korea. Gen. Van Fleet is carrying an ivory handled Smith


And lastly..this looks a bit strange..it is an Australian Army Sapper (engineer) doing tunnel clearing exercises with the US Military in Vietnam. He has some pretty strange gear but also carries a silenced S&W revolver!


Hope you like them

Mike

 

[Sportsterguy]

What a fantastic post! One of the better IMO of all times on this forum. Flew and jumped outta helos for 22 years but never had anyone shoot at me thank God. Great pics, guns, stories and greater men. I salute you all! My older brother carried a RR 1911 during his tour from 67-68 and lost it. They did charge him for it but he never complained. The one he replaced it with is rusty and has little finish but shoots well after a little trip to the GS. It will be mine when he passes and I will have it professionally framed with his name, rank and dates of service.

I thank all of you gentlemen for your service and sacrifice to our country!

 

[Texas Star]

Below is a post from one of my threads a while ago. It firts the theme of this thread pretty well. The only Vietnam pic is the botom one.

Here is a pic of an WWII Australian airman in 1943 with a 38-200 S&W Military and Police. Below that is my revolver of the same type.



Here are a group of WWII RAAF (Australian Airforce) crew with Victorys. Carried cross draw.


This is of an Australian soldier guarding a prisoner in Korea with his Victory...yeas we used them for a loooong time


This is a photo od US General James Van Fleet presenting Australian 3 RAR (Royal Australian Regiment) with a Presidential Unit Citation in Korea. Gen. Van Fleet is carrying an ivory handled Smith


And lastly..this looks a bit strange..it is an Australian Army Sapper (engineer) doing tunnel clearing exercises with the US Military in Vietnam. He has some pretty strange gear but also carries a silenced S&W revolver!


Hope you like them

Mike

Note that the butts of the guns are sticking out of the holsters in the pic where they're in dress uniforms. I think those guns have six-inch barrels.The M-37 holster is for five-inch barrels.

 

[4-Screw]

My Grandfather (Pappy)was in WWII in the Battle of the Bulge. He saw serious combat and even hand to hand fighting at times. He never told many stories to me, as I only asked when I was a kid. He did take lots of pictures but would only show me very few as most were of the dead and lot were of concetration camps that he liberated ( I did get a glimps of them). He did alot of communication work, tapping onto the wires along railroad tracks and using them as signal/telephone wires. One night him and his partner had to follow the train tracks to locate a break in the wire. Pappy had an M-1 carbine, a 1911 on his right hip and a 2" barreled S&W 38 in his left front pants pocket. They found the broken wire and while fixing it a German 20 man patrol walked up to them . Pappy and his partner saw them aproach and laid down by the tracks, there was no exit so they made a plan to capture them. When Pappy jumped up and spoke in german for them to surrender, they all dropped their guns. When Pappy turned to look for his partner he was gone, running back to camp! Pappy marched his prisoners back to camp and won a shiney new medal for his actions. He did bring back the S&W, a mint 1918 Luger and a 1903 springfield. He still has them all. Pappy is in very poor health now at 92. I will see him on Saturday. I will try to get some info on the Smith.

Shake Pappy's hand and give him a hug for me. Please say thank you as well.

 

[M2MikeGolf]

I thought it would be worth adding Vietnam's most famous (or infamous) S&W. Anyone know for sure what it was? A Bodyguard 49? There's another thread worth looking through as this photo had a great deal of importance, both political and in the US and internationally. Eddie Adams later regretted the impact it had on GEN Nguyen, to the point apparently where he was even denied medical treatment.

The thread:

http://smith-wessonforum.com/s-w-revolvers-1961-1980/165486-what-revolver.html

And the famous photo:

 

[AirCommando]

Yes, that's a Bodyguard.

I guess this is a good place to tell my story...

When I was deployed to SEA for a tour in a denied country in 1966, I was told to purchase a weapon of my choice. I chose a S&W Model 39, bought it at Kmart, I think, for around $80 I think. My Model 36 was $64, but I knew we could use Swedish submachine gun ammo in a 9mm, which was available upcountry. The gun was put on my orders, and I took it with me. Carried it in a shoulder holster I got somewhere, and slung an AK-47, flying in Air America "whatever is available's" all over the country.

Wish I still had it. It was stolen from my house one night when my brother had a party while I was out drinking.

AC

 

[CH47gunner]

Nice to see this "old" thread make a comeback.
I continue to realize that many of us are of the generation that was given an opportunity to take a "SEA vacation" offered by an unbiased Uncle Sam.
Don't get me wrong - I volunteered for mine. I volunteered for my tour, I volunteered to fly. I was able to do exactly what I was trained for and was willing to do.
I had wanted to be a fighter pilot my whole life. Due to my eyesight, that didn't work out. Next best thing was to be a crewmember. I was good with that as long as I could fly.
41 years later, I realize just how lucky I was. Two shoot-downs, rockets, mortars, perimeter guard, many many hot LZ's, and scariest of all mechanical failures/accidents. I was much more scared of mechanical failures than I ever was of being shot.
Anyways, I carried a Model 10 4" never fired in anger (thank you) and a nod, thank you, & Welcome Home to all who served.

Bruce

My work space for 10 1/2 months

S&W Model 10-5 4"

 

[dscampbell]

A friend of mine flew choppers and carried a blue S&W 4inch. He left it in a latrine. Next tour he carried a ruger stainless security six .357 with 2 3/4 inch barrel. I got from him last year and it is now my home defense gun.

 

[hiram2005]

Buddy of mine was Air Force in 68-69. Had his dad send him a model 10, don't know the dash. I saw it a few times but it's been a while. Four inch pencil barrel. Still has it.

He was AP at Phang Rang Air Base. Think I spelled that right.

 

[MackTech]

Shake Pappy's hand and give him a hug for me. Please say thank you as well.

I got a call yesterday that Pappy might not make it through the night. I left work and went and saw him one last time. He died this morning. Going through his Army records and found that he had won 3 bronze stars ( nobody knew)plus several more medals that we didnt know about. He had a very large 60X120 building with guns hidden throughout. I did find a mint 4" pencil barrel 38 Smith loaded and ready for action. I will start a new thread/post when I locate all his guns and get some pics.

 

[Cooter Brown]

Mack, sure am sorry to hear about your Pappy.

Condolences to you and all of your family.

 

[AllAces]

MUSKETT44,

Quote from your post:

"I thought you folks might like to see a few pictures of an early S&W Model 60 that ‘served’ in Viet Nam (VN) in most of 1967 and part of 1968. The gentleman who owns it was kind enough to let me take these pictures and make ‘sanitized’ scanned images of the paperwork he had to obtain to bring it back to the States when he departed (he used the term DEROS’d) VN."

DEROS is an acronym for Date of Expected Rotation from Overseas. During the Vietnam era, a DEROS was very personal and linked to the individual soldier as very few units rotated into/out of country as an entire unit. Your DEROS was your ticket to freedom and the basis for your short timers calendar. If you were just in country you'd say, "I got so long to go I have to look up to look down". Less than 99 days to DEROS and you were a "two-digit midget".

 

[mag318]

What a great thread bringing back a lot of memories. While serving in an Air Police unit (68/69) I was issued a Model 15 along with my M16. But I brought with me a Model 60 and carried it everyday. Technically we weren't suppose to have personal weapons but a lot of us did, something that is probably unheard of today.
Speaking of Viet Nam, I went back in 2008 with a few other vets and we really enjoyed it. A lot of our former air bases are still in use, just like they are all over SE Asia. The people were very friendly and going back was a great experience.

 

[AirCommando]

MUSKETT44,

DEROS is an acronym for Date of Expected Rotation from Overseas. During the Vietnam era, a DEROS was very personal and linked to the individual soldier as very few units rotated into/out of country as an entire unit. Your DEROS was your ticket to freedom and the basis for your short timers calendar. If you were just in country you'd say, "I got so long to go I have to look up to look down". Less than 99 days to DEROS and you were a "two-digit midget".

Yep, we called it "short". We had strings on our wrists with knots, one for each day. Can't remember if we took one off or added one on.

When you get down to 3-4 days and a wakeup, you get paranoid.

AC

 

[AllAces]

Yep, we called it "short". We had strings on our wrists with knots, one for each day. Can't remember if we took one off or added one on.

When you get down to 3-4 days and a wakeup, you get paranoid.

AC

Amen Brother. Remember the dap?