It was mid 1968, we were making our way back to LZ Birmingham, a fire support base with about five or six 105mm artillery batteries stuck out on top of this hill, along side Highway 547, a dirt road that led up the center of the Au Shau valley. We, 3/5th Cav, originally based out of Bear Cat down in the Delta, we were put on an LST to Danang, where we transferred to several LSU;s to get in the shallow harbor at Phu Bai and after TET68 subsided down south, we were shipped north to be Op Con to any one of a bunch of other units in the Hue area as Tet68 was still raging up here. Can't have us down south lounging about getting a sun tan. Up here we worked for 1st and 3rd Marine, 101 Airborne, 1st Air Cav, and some Vietnamese units. Seldom did a day pass that we did not get shot at. Anybody that needed some Armor for a few days for one of their missions, essentially we were Rent a Tank or I guess more accurately Rent a Calvary. Seldom did we ever go anywhere by ourselves but today we had to make a run into "town", meaning Camp Evens. It was getting late to be out here by ourselves, and we had just crossed the pontoon bridge across the Perfume River and nearby there was a CB base camp (they built and maintained the pontoon bridge) where we pulled in for the night and some hot food. On other occasions we have made pit stops at a few other CB base camps as well as Marine Base camps, hot food is always a good idea when you can get it. Nice to chat up with some other people. In our line of work while on dismount missions we will find weapons caches and we are supposed to turn all that stuff in just like good little soldiers but we also know that there are people that like souvenirs and it is our job to supply them since we have so much of that crap. After dinner we do some bargaining and I had some old Chinese SKS rifles that I did not turn in so I traded the CBs for a brand new GMC 6-71 supercharger, still in the box. It was a spare replacement for one of their graders that had Detroit Diesel in it. ... they were never going to need it,they hoped. I got rid of some old SKS rifles from my inventory of trading goods. I hatched a plan of how to get this home to put on my race car. This was 1968 and this was as good a supercharger as any that was on race cars at the moment back home... and I had one now, a brand new one still in the box. Only two obstacles, get me home and get the supercharger home. A challenge for a different day. The new 6-71 supercharger was still sealed in the silver bag inside the red white and blue Detroit Diesel box and I tucked it away up in the front of the ACAV sitting on top of the stacks and stacks of ammo both 50cal and 7.62 M60 ammo that filled the bottom of the ACAV. We had so much weight in her that the torsion bar suspension was just about out of travel. Our TO&E is 10,000 rounds for every gun we have on board. The enemy plan is to over run us when we run out of ammo. That is a very big job that they had tried on many occasions, and never with success i might add. Although I will admit there were a couple of times...... Sorry for the acronyms .. ACAV is Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle, basically a highly modified M113. After dinner we set our our watch schedule and I drew mid watch, the worst one, where you get two hours of sleep, get up for two hours of watch, then get to sleep two more hours before we had to get on the move again. With a full belly and a new supercharger to sleep next to I laid down at about 11pm hoping to get a bit of extra sleep before I had to get up at 2am. I was awakened for my watch and the night as black as the inside of a cow, there was no moon tonight. . No one else was awake on our ACAV but even if we are inside a CB Base camp we always kept one man away at all times. It was about two thirty in the morning, it began with the ground starting to tremor, something you felt more than I heard it. Yes it was a WTF moment. I am not new in country, I am a seasoned soldier, I have seen a lot of shit... but WTF is this? A few seconds later as the horizon began to light up It took a moment before I realized that what I first thought was a sun rise it was happening in the north not the east. Unless dogs and cats are now sleeping together, this does not happen, it was then I realized what I was witnessing was a Arc Light B52 event in the Au Shau valley. With dozens of B52s each dropping 70,000 pounds of bombs it is a spectacle few have ever seen, and those that do see often do no survive it. The crescendo of the ground vibrating increased as the light got brighter and brighter holding that for a few minutes (I did not look at my watch) then both the light and the ground shaking subsided and the impenetrable dark of the night fell back over me. It was like it never happened, I has no one to share this with, everybody else spelt through it. I never saw it before and never saw it again and speaking to others in country not many did get to see it. Awesome does not even come close to the description. It was the night I saw the sun rise in the north..... if you are unaware of the B52 Arc LIght events google can be your friend. Now the story about the new supercharger... well that is a different story. I will write it up if you let me know you are interested.
Ty You are a very effective and entertaining communicator with the written word and done so in your own voice, not in the clear but admittedly dry academic style. It's a gift, a gift that automatically puts you very close to having a talent and with a little practice a skill in which you are talented. write more please, as much as you can
B-52 missions were also flown from Kadena AB Okinawa. I was TDY there for 179 days in 1970 working SAC Support in the 400th MMS(T). I was Crew Chief of the Ford 1 Load Crew which loaded 21 750lb General Purpose Bombs on 40 foot flatbed trailers that had rails down the center of the trailer with the nose of the bombs loaded to the drivers side. Ford 2 Load Crew loaded with the nose to the passenger side and the Mustang Load Crew loaded 24 Mk82 500 lb bombs.
Nice to see the 7th Bomb Wing. Judging from the white belly paint I’m guessing this was in late 1965. I was there with that wing and supported many of those crews.
@Can't mossad the Assad are you dumb vietnam had soviet equitment the top of the line sam's and AAA and the soviets stayed there training them..idk if you know but helicopters are quite easy to shoot down now nevermind back then when they didnt even have defenses on the hueys that would drop in troops they lost almost 6k just helicopters of the 10k us allies also lost thousands they were not just farmers they were farmers who had been fighting for years on years on years being trained by the soviets the whole time "just farmers" stupid
Reds you are aware this is 2024 now I see your common is a few years old but I'm pretty sure back then it was commonplace that he said the union collapsed in 1991.
I was attached to the 4133rd provisional bomb wing in Guam from the 22nd bomb wing SAC March AFB for alot of the Arclight action in the late 60’s and remember B52’s attempting takeoffs as the video shows. Am not sure this is Anderson AFB, it may be prior to all the blast reventments being built. As I recall we had about 50 of the Arclight birds when I was there and boo koo action. We also had Utapao AFB in Thailand that were flying missions as well. It wasn’t uncommon to see 10 or more plane missions taking off at short intervals. Silent death from above.
@@christopher9979 At Anderson the flight line was right next to the runway (where I spent the majority of my time) and with all the smoke and noise of multiple takeoffs in close proximity it was difficult to tell anything other than to me it was controlled chaos. There could have been a thousand squirrels hidden in all the smoke and thunder but you’d never know it.??? I love the smell of clouds of JP4 smoke in the morning, it smells like victory. After the launch was over, the planes trailing black smoke until they disappeared over the horizon, I remember looking around the empty reventment, my feeling was one of loss. We all lived and breathed B52’s, that was all I ever saw my entire 4 year enlistment, until my last drive out the front gates of March AFB.
decades later after another failure in Afgansitan we have the Isreali defence force using essentially the same tactic against the heavily fortified tunnels in Gaza.
@@PeriscopeFilm ok, - so it's not a mistake nor a silly comment - it's double statement - as some people read just a few first comments before watching, and don't always read descriptions... :-)
Correct the Ds first deployed in early 66. Went to Guam with the 77th BS out of Ellsworth AFB in March and flew 53 missions, returned to Ellsworth in Sept 66.
@@kathywachsmuth7261 and after that the B52D with the B52G wandthe B52G which wasn't ready for the soviet supplied defenses needed a upgrade the D's got on bigbelly
It was mid 1968, we were making our way back to LZ Birmingham, a fire support base with about five or six 105mm artillery batteries stuck out on top of this hill, along side Highway 547, a dirt road that led up the center of the Au Shau valley. We, 3/5th Cav, originally based out of Bear Cat down in the Delta, we were put on an LST to Danang, where we transferred to several LSU;s to get in the shallow harbor at Phu Bai and after TET68 subsided down south, we were shipped north to be Op Con to any one of a bunch of other units in the Hue area as Tet68 was still raging up here. Can't have us down south lounging about getting a sun tan. Up here we worked for 1st and 3rd Marine, 101 Airborne, 1st Air Cav, and some Vietnamese units. Seldom did a day pass that we did not get shot at. Anybody that needed some Armor for a few days for one of their missions, essentially we were Rent a Tank or I guess more accurately Rent a Calvary. Seldom did we ever go anywhere by ourselves but today we had to make a run into "town", meaning Camp Evens. It was getting late to be out here by ourselves, and we had just crossed the pontoon bridge across the Perfume River and nearby there was a CB base camp (they built and maintained the pontoon bridge) where we pulled in for the night and some hot food. On other occasions we have made pit stops at a few other CB base camps as well as Marine Base camps, hot food is always a good idea when you can get it. Nice to chat up with some other people.
In our line of work while on dismount missions we will find weapons caches and we are supposed to turn all that stuff in just like good little soldiers but we also know that there are people that like souvenirs and it is our job to supply them since we have so much of that crap. After dinner we do some bargaining and I had some old Chinese SKS rifles that I did not turn in so I traded the CBs for a brand new GMC 6-71 supercharger, still in the box. It was a spare replacement for one of their graders that had Detroit Diesel in it. ... they were never going to need it,they hoped. I got rid of some old SKS rifles from my inventory of trading goods. I hatched a plan of how to get this home to put on my race car. This was 1968 and this was as good a supercharger as any that was on race cars at the moment back home... and I had one now, a brand new one still in the box. Only two obstacles, get me home and get the supercharger home. A challenge for a different day.
The new 6-71 supercharger was still sealed in the silver bag inside the red white and blue Detroit Diesel box and I tucked it away up in the front of the ACAV sitting on top of the stacks and stacks of ammo both 50cal and 7.62 M60 ammo that filled the bottom of the ACAV. We had so much weight in her that the torsion bar suspension was just about out of travel. Our TO&E is 10,000 rounds for every gun we have on board. The enemy plan is to over run us when we run out of ammo. That is a very big job that they had tried on many occasions, and never with success i might add. Although I will admit there were a couple of times...... Sorry for the acronyms .. ACAV is Armored Cavalry Assault Vehicle, basically a highly modified M113.
After dinner we set our our watch schedule and I drew mid watch, the worst one, where you get two hours of sleep, get up for two hours of watch, then get to sleep two more hours before we had to get on the move again.
With a full belly and a new supercharger to sleep next to I laid down at about 11pm hoping to get a bit of extra sleep before I had to get up at 2am. I was awakened for my watch and the night as black as the inside of a cow, there was no moon tonight. . No one else was awake on our ACAV but even if we are inside a CB Base camp we always kept one man away at all times. It was about two thirty in the morning, it began with the ground starting to tremor, something you felt more than I heard it. Yes it was a WTF moment. I am not new in country, I am a seasoned soldier, I have seen a lot of shit... but WTF is this? A few seconds later as the horizon began to light up It took a moment before I realized that what I first thought was a sun rise it was happening in the north not the east.
Unless dogs and cats are now sleeping together, this does not happen, it was then I realized what I was witnessing was a Arc Light B52 event in the Au Shau valley. With dozens of B52s each dropping 70,000 pounds of bombs it is a spectacle few have ever seen, and those that do see often do no survive it. The crescendo of the ground vibrating increased as the light got brighter and brighter holding that for a few minutes (I did not look at my watch) then both the light and the ground shaking subsided and the impenetrable dark of the night fell back over me. It was like it never happened, I has no one to share this with, everybody else spelt through it. I never saw it before and never saw it again and speaking to others in country not many did get to see it. Awesome does not even come close to the description.
It was the night I saw the sun rise in the north..... if you are unaware of the B52 Arc LIght events google can be your friend.
Now the story about the new supercharger... well that is a different story. I will write it up if you let me know you are interested.
Thanks for your service to our great nation.
Ty You are a very effective and entertaining communicator with the written word and done so in your own voice, not in the clear but admittedly dry academic style. It's a gift, a gift that automatically puts you very close to having a talent and with a little practice a skill in which you are talented. write more please, as much as you can
I was crew chief kc135 at utapo. 1967. 1967 watched many b52 take off andland many with hung bómbs
B-52 missions were also flown from Kadena AB Okinawa. I was TDY there for 179 days in 1970 working SAC Support in the 400th MMS(T). I was Crew Chief of the Ford 1 Load Crew which loaded 21 750lb General Purpose Bombs on 40 foot flatbed trailers that had rails down the center of the trailer with the nose of the bombs loaded to the drivers side. Ford 2 Load Crew loaded with the nose to the passenger side and the Mustang Load Crew loaded 24 Mk82 500 lb bombs.
Q
I extend props to the band here. They keep that same tune sounding fresh right through to the end.
I was lucky enough to watch 3 B 52s fly over Rochford during the first Gulf War it was a amazing site my Dad could not believe it .
Nice to see the 7th Bomb Wing. Judging from the white belly paint I’m guessing this was in late 1965.
I was there with that wing and supported many of those crews.
Where is the audio?
Thanks for this 👍✈️
Great footage. It would be great to see the B/N periscope footage of the bomb impacts.
Man... IF ONLY a couple of these, with a full 'Load-out', could have 'worked over' that "40-mile Red Convoy" in N.W. Ukraine!?! Reds would be DONE!!!
@Can't mossad the Assad are you dumb vietnam had soviet equitment the top of the line sam's and AAA and the soviets stayed there training them..idk if you know but helicopters are quite easy to shoot down now nevermind back then when they didnt even have defenses on the hueys that would drop in troops they lost almost 6k just helicopters of the 10k us allies also lost thousands they were not just farmers they were farmers who had been fighting for years on years on years being trained by the soviets the whole time "just farmers" stupid
@Can't mossad the Assad Bullshit!
Reds you are aware this is 2024 now I see your common is a few years old but I'm pretty sure back then it was commonplace that he said the union collapsed in 1991.
Awesome tunes, brother!
Nice footage, but video is flipped horizontally.
Not all of it. For some reason parts of it are cut in "flopped". Most likely due to screen direction needs by the editors.
Cách dây trên dưới 60 nam mà quân dội Mỹ thực hiện những phi vụ tác chiến quá tiền tiến bậc nhất thể giới
I was attached to the 4133rd provisional bomb wing in Guam from the 22nd bomb wing SAC March AFB for alot of the Arclight action in the late 60’s and remember B52’s attempting takeoffs as the video shows. Am not sure this is Anderson AFB, it may be prior to all the blast reventments being built. As I recall we had about 50 of the Arclight birds when I was there and boo koo action. We also had Utapao AFB in Thailand that were flying missions as well. It wasn’t uncommon to see 10 or more plane missions taking off at short intervals. Silent death from above.
I have heard the Big Belly D models takeoff sound signature described as "1000 squirrels being ground up feet first"!
@@christopher9979 At Anderson the flight line was right next to the runway (where I spent the majority of my time) and with all the smoke and noise of multiple takeoffs in close proximity it was difficult to tell anything other than to me it was controlled chaos. There could have been a thousand squirrels hidden in all the smoke and thunder but you’d never know it.??? I love the smell of clouds of JP4 smoke in the morning, it smells like victory. After the launch was over, the planes trailing black smoke until they disappeared over the horizon, I remember looking around the empty reventment, my feeling was one of loss. We all lived and breathed B52’s, that was all I ever saw my entire 4 year enlistment, until my last drive out the front gates of March AFB.
Thanks for posting. More please? And why is the image flipped?
Portions of this film were spliced in flipped, and we didn't have time to go in and take it apart and redo it.
SOUND !!! NO SOUND !!!
decades later after another failure in Afgansitan we have the Isreali defence force using essentially the same tactic against the heavily fortified tunnels in Gaza.
no sound
As stated it is a silent film. You should always read the description before making a silly comment.
@@PeriscopeFilm ok, - so it's not a mistake nor a silly comment - it's double statement - as some people read just a few first comments before watching, and don't always read descriptions... :-)
@cat planetUNSC lol
used to see them come in and be waved off from fatigue for a go around - my photos stolen in 1966
TDY from the 97th may thru September
4 or5 of these fully loaded flying over Russia trench lines would give the Ukrainians all they need to put and end to Putins war!!!!
What a machine!!!.
Now the chem dumps are over CONUS
B-52F not D Stratofortresses
Correct the Ds first deployed in early 66. Went to Guam with the 77th BS out of Ellsworth AFB in March and flew 53 missions, returned to Ellsworth in Sept 66.
@@kathywachsmuth7261 and after that the B52D with the B52G wandthe B52G which wasn't ready for the soviet supplied defenses needed a upgrade the D's got on bigbelly
@@kathywachsmuth7261 I was there with Ellsworth as an augmentee in 1966. Did six months in each 67 and 68 from March, 22nd Bomb wing. All D models.
@@bbewood Can you comment on what the heck they painted the bottom of those Fs
with? Is it true that black paint never really dried?
@@ehpa9047 I never saw an F model all D models with big belly mod. I dont think the F model ever got big belly.?
Đây là B-52F
Good Videos. But the worst soundtrack ever conceived for a war video. No match whatever with what we are viewing.
Flipped image XD
War criminal nation.
Human civilization is inherently criminal. You have no right to pick and choose which ones.
War criminal nation.
Long live Vietnam from Europe.
🇻🇳
USA world cancer.
@@bih9355
That's true mate.
@@bih9355 . And Islam is world infarctus !
US war criminals.
And i don't care about Islam. :)
You have problem.