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Page 45 text:
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We left the .Rung Sat in the middle of No- vember, steaming farther South to the Mekong Delta in IV corps and the mouth of the Bassac River. The marshy flat- land and mangrove swamps in this area. make good hiding places for the Vietcong. Our mission was to make it more uncom- fortable for them, destroy their bunkers, food supply, anything that might be a com- fort to them. It took about three days to be convinced the-re weren't very many places to hide in the Bassac, so we North into III corps again, about forty miles up the coast from Vung Tau. A couple of mountains where the VC were planning an offensive, and we met a salty old spotter who gave us some good tar- gets, supply routes, observation posts, base camps and two caves which we closed with direct hits. The captain kept moving the ship closer and closer until we were firing from four thousand yards, direct fire, at an old concrete structure that wouldn't budge. That was the only target of the cruise that 5 !38 guns couldn't handle. ' No sooner were our guns getting hot and the men used to port and starboard watchstand- ing, than we were called away for type training near Danang. By this time we were all thinking about Hong Kong. We saved up our money and when we finally finished 6 days of plane guard duty with the CORAL SEA, left the Gulf on last day of November for Hong Kong and points North. The month of December was best of all for men of the BRINKLEY BASS. We steamed through LEI-U-MUN pass into Hong Kong Harbor at eight o'clock for six days of spending, drinking and sightseeing, some- times in reverse order. It seems you could run into just about anybody in the Hong Kong Hilton Hotel. It's said that you can get any- thing in Hong Kong. Maybe a rabbit fur bed- spread if you're so inclined, or clothes and gifts from the China Fleet Club. It was get- ting close to Christmas and we stimulated the- Hong Kong Economy quite actively.
After we left Hong Kong, the cruise was down- hill all the way. Hong Kong is such a hard place to leave because no matter how long you stay, you know you haven't done it all. But if y0u'rG a sailor six days is plenty of time because if you stay any longer, you run out of money. BRINKLEY BASS spent two days in Keelung, on the northern tip of Taiwan while the crew went to Nancy's Bar and to Tai'Pei for two more days of R 85 R before we moved on to Sasebo, Japan. All along the weather was getting colder and colder. More than anything else, the change of climate from the tropical warmth of the Gulf made the trip to Sasebo. Also Fiddler's Green. We had a ship's party at Fiddler's Green, two days of good times, a loud band, plenty to eat and drink and Go Go Girls. All too soon this was over and the BRINKLEY BASS was steaming back to the gunline via Kaohsiung for fuel. This time we went to DaNang in I Corps. The North Vietnamese were up in the mountains on the northern side of the harbor and the ship was assigned to harassment and interdiction of the en- emy positions while the 101st Army Airborne Di- vision worked on the landward side, boxing them in. For Christmas in DaNang there was a ceasefire intermittently interrupted by machine gun fire. In DaNang the ship followed a routine of firing all night and steaming out to sea during the day for refueling and replenishments. We had a call for fire south of DaNang in the Dodge City area and destroyed a large cache of rice and several structures. Ranging up and down the coast in the vicinity of DaNang, on New Year's Eve we were 3,500 yards off Mui Chon Mai Dong firing into the coastal mountains north of the har- bor. At the stroke of midnight, all the Marines, Destroyers, and swift boats firedenough pyrotech nics and tracer bullets to light up everything for miles around. After that the weather got worse and worse and we were steaming off the coast by the DMZ when the word came that we were relieved and detached. We joined the ISBELL and USS CONSTELLATION in Subic Bay and headed for home via Yokosuka,
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