Cat Lo, First Stop

Main Gate at Cat Lo

When we arrived that first morning at pier side, the crew was already at work loading cargo for the next trip up river. I say up river, but as it turned out, we had to go down river first. I’ll get to that a little later.
We hardly got our gear stowed when they put us to work with the rest of the crew loading cargo. There was a portable crane on the dock that swung out over the boat with a long cable attached to a large nylon net that moved most of the cargo.
We loaded food into two refrigerated cargo holds, one for fresh vegetables, and one for frozen stuff, mostly meat. We worked most of the day loading various things, including 1,000 cases of c-rations.
Some of the guys went into town that night on what the Navy calls Liberty. Sort of a “night on the town”, you might say. I crawled into my bunk quite early, and slept pretty well until 0600 the next morning.
We had our own little Galley (Kitchen), and our own cook, and he fixed eggs to order, sausage, hash-browns, and toast. As I ate my breakfast I thought, maybe this war wasn’t going to be too bad after all.
At 0800 we got underway and headed slowly down river, because the river traffic was very congested. This river was only one of the many tributaries of the Mekong Delta, and each one had a name of it’s own, this one that ran through Saigon was called the Long Tau River.
When we cleared the city, there was nothing but river ahead of us. The river water was the same color as the lower Mississippi, only not so wide.
Very obvious to the eye, was the fact that the jungle on both sides of the river was defoliated as far as the eye could see. It was like solid mud with old snags sticking up here and there. This was done because large merchant ships came up this river with supplies from the U.S. and this (supposedly) left no cover for the Viet Cong, in their attacks on these ships, and I suppose it helped somewhat.
As we picked up speed down river, I think we got up to about 12 knots, (Close to 15 MPH), and that was only because we were going down stream.
Two of the new guys were staying hidden behind the metal bulkheads of the cargo passage ways, because they didn’t know what to expect. One was up in the pilot house, learning how to steer, and I was on fantail (Rear main deck), maning one of the two M-60 machine guns mounted on each side of the aft deck.
About two miles down stream from Saigon, I watched as two of the higher ranking men, (There were no officers on this boat) came walking out on deck in cutoff fatigue shorts, no shirts, and wearing flip flops. Each one carrying a mixed drink in one hand, and a chaise longue in the other. They set them up facing aft, kicked back in the sun to enjoy the “cruse”. My mouth was hanging open so far I thought my chin was going to hit the deck. Of course these guys were not standing any watches. Turns out that only 3rd class petty officers and below, stood all the watches, both underway, and pier side, and we, (I was one of those that stood the watches) were constantly on watch when the boat was under way.
On this trip us new guys were learning the watches, so we were always with someone else until we got the hang of it, and we had to learn it all on this trip, which turned out to be 5 or 6 days.
Each watch lasted one hour, and then you rotated to a different station.
Station #1 was on the Helm, (Steering the boat) #2 was the Port .50 caliber machine gun. #3 was lookout (binoculars), #4 was the starboard .50, #5 was the M-60 machine gun on the bow, (.30 caliber), #6 was the M-60 starboard aft, #7 was the M-60 port aft, and #8 was the engine room. Then you just started all over again. Sometimes we were underway from sun up until sun down, but we never traveled at night.
Our next stop was at the mouth of the river, at a town called Cat Lo. There was a Navy Base there with a permanent dock, with a refueling facility, and there was two small Coast Guard patrol craft tied up there. This is where we picked up our cargo of ammunition that we delivered up river to the PBR (Patrol Boat River) Bases.
We arrived there early enough that we finished loading the ammo before sundown. Since we were spending the night here, some of us had a chance to go to the enlisted men’s club on the base, to have a few brews.
Some of the guys had watches that night. They were 4hr watches. One man, armed with a 12 gage shotgun, or a .45 automatic, or both, if you proffered. That was my choice the whole time I was there. He walked the decks for four hours, then he was relieved and some one else took his place.
That was my first day on the river, no problems no in incidents so far.