Night was pitch black on the gun line. "Gun line" was not exactly appropriately named because the guns involved were never really small caliber but, five & eight inch shells instead. Our five inch guns had come from a World War II Tin Can. They were capable of delivering a pretty good smack inland. That's why we stayed so close to shore. The capacity to do damage with the five inch was great, however, not the capacity to do it from such a great distance. We carried missles, TALOS and Terrier, (along with ASROC and CHAFFROC for other purposes). TALOS were capable of being, and could easily have been, armed with nuclear warheads as far as I know. I watched big long gray boxes being loaded. What could they have been except warheads. I've wondered why these were never used. It could have made a difference in many lives. The missiles we carried were capable of delivering devastation far into Cambodia or Laos and even farther. The truth of the power, held by the United States, would have petrified any size population but, with a government as we had then, that power was never realized. Knowing two fifty caliber BMG's were around was always comforting but, had one of us ever had to use them in force of any size it would've been as the last resort. We did, however, do some damage to vessels floating off shore. Just small vessels. The kind manned by fanatics wanting to leave this world quickly so they could see their ancestors. On "The Line" sometimes you'd see long wooden poles sticking straight out of the water fifteen or twenty feet. These poles had dark brown fish nets attached at the top. How in the world those things floated sticking straight out of the water I never knew! There were big glass balls approximately one foot in diameter attached at various places on the nets and poles. They were used as floats that kept these nets just so many feet below the surface, enough to allow fish to enter the nets. It was something to be miles out and see a little Vietnamese fishing from a long wooden dug-out canoe! These canoes had two long poles attached perpendicular at each end, there was then attached a lighter pole across the two for balance so it wouldn't swamp. You could always count on lots of smiles and friendly hand gestures and maybe a couple kowtows while passing one of these fisherman. HOWEVER, Suddenly, the wake from the "Tall Dark Stranger" would send that canoe surfing the wave like a rocket through a pipeline! What a hoot!! This always brought on some fierce fist shaking, accompanied by some hundred mile an hour jibberish I'm convinced was a Vietnamese fisherman's way of questioning our heritage. It wasn't funny but, when you stop and think about a very thin, brown Vietnamese fisherman, shaking his fist and cussing at a very large U.S. Cruiser while being slung around in the water like he was on a carnival ride you couldn't help but roll, laughing! Sorry, but that's just the way it was. I certainly wished him no harm. It did make for some great entertainment, however. It could have been sea snakes instead. Vietnamese patrol boats (like old PT boats) came fairly often but soon figured out there was no earthly future in the venture. It was kind of like letting the big dog play with a mangled groundhog before you took it and threw it in a hole. It took some very determined or very cranked up Vietnamese to try a manuever like that. We had knocked down numerous Migs, enough to be recognized and decorated for the deed. We were credited with many Mig kills in the early part of 1972. The number grew as our experience and time in combat became greater. This impressed the Vietnamese enough to keep off our tail. Our 32 & 33 radars carried the B-52's from Thailand while they bombed the whole of Hanoi and Haiphong. There were F-4 Phantom jets to keep up with also. They stayed with us and we watched their tail until they returned. They had many successful "Alpha-strikes" and they fought the good fight. Some, did not return no matter what the effort. We diligently searched for one downed pilot with the promise of an unopened bottle of brandy had we spotted him. He was never found as I know of. I wonder where he is today. Is he with family or is his name written on some wall somewhere? We picked pilots out off the sea and landed numerous "Big Mothers" daily. They were always welcome. Many times they were pretty shot up during SAR's. We were WELL over the 500 hundred limit just months into the gun line. Danger is suspenseful and can be exciting and sometimes addicting. It was the uncertainty that made the heart beat rise. One bloody scrape with "The Danger of the Closest Kind" and suspence and addiction and uncertainty fly out the hind-end while it puckers up, tucks its tail, and rolls over on its belly in submission. As Haiphong and Hanoi burned from the bombing and missiles, I watched not really knowing that I was seeing something that not many could talk about. Very few have seen this. The country as far left to as far right as a person's eye could see was burning. Orange, kind of like the world's night light. When bombs and shells hit, and they hit hard, you could feel the heat and the push from the explosions. You could feel it on your stomach. Immediatley following the explosion the force would turn back and pull toward the hit, another forward thrust came after that. Night after night this came and night after night I watched. Ships from all over the world were shelled (and sunk) right in Haiphong just because they would not stop supplying the North while we were trying to stop them. There was no escape for them after we had been there for so long either. All of them had been warned long before hand. The sweeps came and every harbor up and down the coast was mined. These were dangerous times on land or sea. North of the DMZ in The Gulf there was no rescue once the heat started. You had to go in force and stay that way. Some nights the sky would light up in a mini-second. You could never tell when it would happen...there was seldom notice of these kinds of nights. You might have been on the main deck or signal bridge, anywhere. The big guns would start first with a starshell that could light up the sky like daytime. Then hell broke loose. One explosion, two, three...the fifth one was the tracer so, if you could keep your eyes open long enough you could count the rounds. If you were deaf enough or stupid enough you could stay on deck and maybe get a glimpse of what real power could be. The sky would be lit up for long periods, then silence, then the night would light up from so many tracers, like long hot orange fierce and fast arcs of fire. Sometimes this was directed toward the mainland and sometimes the island of Hainan. Hainan was a piece of land across the gulf that the Vietnamese thought worthy of protecting. Somebody should have told them we didn't want their land or anything else, just for them to stop. Hundreds of the fastest hottest most inaccurately fired shells and tracers flew at our shotguns late one night we didn't know what was happening. Not one damn shell hit! However it was my understanding that our shells and missiles did hit the mark that night and others as well. Sorry Charlie... Should we have dropped the bomb? Everything else we had done so far was being taken as wrong. You have got to be in that situation to call a shot like that. What a time. All seemed forsaken. Try it sometime. Nights could be an escape in the gulf. It could get so dark on a starless night that only a memory of what your hand looked like served as a measure. This could be a good time alone or a dangerous time when others would want to see you over the side or at least cut up. It was always too dark to tell anything. After a half hour or so when you found a pretty good roost your eyes became acclamated as much as they were going to. You could sit and rest and no one would really know you were around. They couldn't see you and no one dare call out on the 1MC. There was no light that shone from the ship. No smoking was allowed on the open decks due to the easy target it made of your head. The hatches were guarded inside by black canvas partitions staggard so when a hatch was opened no light would escape. You had to step right, step left then right again before proceeding through the passageway. The lights came on after the hatch was closed and dogged. Peaceful, almost resting, sitting as high up to catch the breeze as you could away from others. Sometimes when cards got old a few pals would spend time like this. All seemed well for awhile, then boom! You'd fly off of whatever you were on and hit the deck (you knew that was the only thing you could count on being there). It showed a person just how quick you could not get out of the way of anything incoming. It just happened this was not a shell. It was ours and could go extremely fast. Fast and low to the ground, or water, on the way to it's destination. No running lights, no prior notice, just the loudest most damaging, ear shattering sound imaginable. I was always glad these great flying enforcers were ours. They sure could scare you back to reality that was sometimes forgotten. I've spent days looking for downed aircraft. Pilots, Navy at least, always head out to sea when their aircraft is damaged.