Swift Boat Tour of Duty

Tim Eichholtz

• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781640822719
• eBook ISBN: 9781640822726
• Topic: Storia
• Subtopic: Biografie in ambito militare

Serving on Swift Boats was at times a treacherous duty. The crew was made up of six men, an officer and five enlisted. For Coastal Division 13 in 1967 and '68, our patrol area was the coastline, canals, and riverways just a little north of the Mekong Delta all the way to the tip of South Vietnam. We patrolled areas where there were no friendlies, and if we ran into trouble, we were basically on our own for quite some period of time.This book is about my year in Vietnam on one of these Swift Boats. It includes pictures of boats on duty, some of the scenes of South Vietnam, and excerpts from the Cat Lo base log. I have been in contact with my skipper and shared with him what I have written. He has inserted some things I had missed.This story is real and is shared to show you some of my experiences during this time. This was part of the ten and a half months before the Tet offensive occurred and my last month and a half after the Tet offensive. My experiences and time were a cakewalk compared to what others experienced during this time and the years that followed.

December 1966

On December 13, 1966, I arrived in San Diego and found a motel somewhere near downtown. I then found out that Coronado was on the other side of the bay. Since I was still not old enough to drink, I tried to find something to keep myself occupied. However, I got bored and decided to report in on December 14. As it would turn out, it was one of the luckiest things I did. I would not have to go through SERE (survival, evasion, resistance, and escape) training. I caught a cab over to the base. As we approached the entrance, I not only saw that this was where I was supposed to train; it was also the SEAL training base. I started wondering what kind of training I was getting into. After I paid the cabbie at the gate, I walked up to the guard shack and handed the sentry my orders. As I stood outside, he went back in. I looked at the buildings inside the base. They were Quonset huts, buildings whose roofs form a half circle to about eight feet above the ground where you can see some windows. Entrances and exits are front and back. The streets inside were quiet, but I saw a jeep parked here and there. I don’t recall any cars; since it was Sunday, perhaps everyone was on weekend pass.

The guard came back out and said, “Are you reporting in early?”

I said, “Only a few hours but I had nothing else to do.”

He pointed to a building and told me to go in there where the duty officer was sitting. He asked me what I wanted and I told him that I was reporting in for duty and handed him my orders. He took them, looked them over, and told me welcome aboard. He then told an enlisted man that was there to take me over to a hut where I would be staying for the night.

Swift Boat school was twelve weeks of training, learning about all the positions on the boat. We must be able to do the duties of all the other crew members in case they were injured or killed. This was how each week was laid out.5

Week 1 (20 Nov ’66–24 Nov ’66)—Introduction to Swift Boats

Week 2 (27 Nov ’66–31 Nov ’66)—First aid training and radar, radio, and chart reading

Week 3 (3 Dec ’66–7 Dec ’66)—Engine familiarity along with Onan generator

Week 4 (10 Dec ’66–14 Dec ’66)—Survival, evasion, resistance, and escape (SERE) training

Week 5 (17 Dec ’66–21 Dec ’66)—Fuel and electrical systems

Week 6 (24 Dec ’66–28 Dec ’66)—Seamanship training

Week 7 (31 Dec ’66–4 Jan ’67)—Weapons training

Week 8 (7 Jan ’67–11 Jan ’67)—Fire drills and more about weapons

Week 9 (14 Jan ’67–18 Jan ’67)—Weapons range and actual firing

Week 10 (21 Jan ’67–25 Jan ’67)—Surveillance Center watches and the 50-caliber MG

Week 11 (28 Jan ’67–1 Feb ’67)—Underway checks and testing

Week 12 (3 Feb ’67)—Graduation

As you can tell, if you study the dates, I could not be in two places at the same time. I didn’t have to report to Coronado until 15 December, but the Swift classes started on 20 November. Through the fourth week of the Swift Boat class, the original boat crew had a different gunner’s mate. In week four the crew went to Mare Island, California, for SERE training. This was a pass/fail point in the class. If you didn’t make it out of SERE, you were off the crew. The gunner’s mate broke during this week. When they got back to Coronado, he had been given orders back to his original ship. He was off the Swift Boat crew. This was where I came in. Since I was the first one to check in for duty (since I got there early), was a gunner’s mate, and had not been assigned to a crew yet, I was assigned to this crew as the replacement. So, what did I do about the first four weeks of training? They told me that when the class was over I must stay the extra four weeks to complete the training. Then I would be shipped out to join my crew. My silent question was “What if I don’t make it through SERE training at the end?”

I met my crew and the officer in charge of the boat. Because we had the potential of going into international waters, we mu...

Table of contents

• Preface
• Cat Lo
• Log: January 1967
• Base Log: January
• February 1967
• March 1966
• December 1966
• February 1967
• March 1967
• April 1967
• May 1967
• June 1967
• July 1967
• September 1967
• October 1967
• November 1967
• January 1968
• February 1968
• Epilogue
• Description of Awards in Placard Case
• Notes
• About the Author