More UDT-13 Photos

 
This is was our executive officer, LT Bob Peterson. Bob came to us from SEAL Team 2 where he had been operating with Bob "Eagle" Gallagher. Bob Peterson had received the Silver Star for something he had done on a hairy assed op with Gallagher and some of the other guys. I think Gallagher got the Navy Cross on that operation.

This was my first experience in the field with C-4. I loaded about three socks of the stuff into a bunker and fired up the fuse. Then I went and hid behind a tree with my Leica and waited for the blast.  One of the pieces of timber that had made up the bunker bounced off the tree I was hiding behind. Next time I blew something up, I depended on my telephoto lens instead of my wide angle.
 

 
Seaman Kelly, of UDT-13, steps aboard one of the USS COOK's LCPRs as we extract from a beach recon. We used these little plywood boats for almost all the beach recons. They had a Detroit Diesel engine and two old .30 caliber machine guns mounted by the ramp. I almost got killed by one of those when the crewman, who was unfamiliar with clearing the weapon, fired one about 3 inches from my ear. I gave him a dirty look and shook my head. 

EO1 Dean 'OD' Nelson, on loan to Team-13 from UDT-21, Little Creek, VA, talks on a PRC-25 radio to get us extracted from the riverbank down near Old Nam Can on the Song Ong Doc River in South Vietnam. Dean never got tired. The guy on his right is LT Bruce Dyer. If Bruce had said he was going to hell to put out the fire, the guys would have fought over the buckets. The two men with the helmets are members of the RFPF (Ruff Puffs). We were not impressed with their combat skills, but then again, it was their war. They didn't want to kill friends and relatives on the other side.  

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