UDT PHOTOS

 

 

Steve, age twenty-two on board the USS COOK prior to going ashore for a beach recon. (I look this mean because I slept in and missed chow.) I used to carry an M-16 and two cameras. The old Nikonos II was the one that really came through. The Leica M2 that I got issued eventually succumbed to mold and fungus. Before it did, though, I cranked a lot of Tri-X through it. The rifle I am holding in this photograph blew up in my face a couple days later during a firefight. I had gotten water in the buffer spring housing and when I fired the rifle, the bolt had nowhere to go and the back pressure wiped out the action. I was not the only one that this happened to. So when you see some Rambo type come up out of the water firing an M-16, just remember what I just told you happens. LTJG John Hollow blew his rifle up that day, if memory serves me.
 
January 1970, Coronado, California. Receiving Navy Achievement Medal with Combat 'V' for "Outstanding Combat Photography." This was back when the Navy was still a fun thing to be involved with. The two guys beside me got the Bronze Star and Purple Heart.
We called the Purple Heart the North Vietnamese Marksmanship Award.

 
A typical afternoon on board the USS COOK, LPR-130 off the Coast of Vietnam. Some days we would recon several beaches. Other days we would be steaming to another area to operate. The boys would clean weapons, Nash and I would take turns playing his guitar and singing socialy unacceptable songs. The chow was pretty good, the accommodations were passable. The company was decent. The job was scary at times, but mostly a ball buster for the swimmer line. The skipper of the ship was an ex-enlisted man and spoke our language.
Inside the hangar on the deck of the TUNNY. We lived in here and kept the spare SDV inside where we could use it to charge batteries and store spare parts.
 
While Team 13 was on board the USS TUNNY, an old conventional diesel sub, we operated with the SDV (Swimmer Delivery Vehicle) These operations taught us mostly how not to do things and opened up this technique for the vast improvements that came after Vietnam. Now several units in SpecWar are designated as SDV Teams. They are manned by SEALs and have support from highly qualified fleet divers and technicians. (I slept in the bottom rack just about behind that trunk in the middle of the photo.)

 
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