Run Aground (A Story About a Big Fish)

It was early June, 1969 and we had just turned RivRon 9 over to the South Vietnamese Navy through the Vietnamization Program ordered by recently elected President Richard M. Nixon. Some of the sailors would be returning to the world, most would be re-assigned to in-country duty in Vietnam. We were all feeling happy and relieved to be leaving Dong Tam which had the feeling of ground zero in the Delta War. Our immediate plans were to ride a navy barracks ship to the port town of Vung Tau along the South China Sea. We would go on five days of in-country R&R, then report to our permanent stations to finish out our tours. We were about 100 miles up river and because the barracks ship was not self propelled we would be towed by a navy tugboat. This would be a slow trip and it was expected that we would be at it most of the day. Our escorts were four Division 151 Navy River Assault Craft, heavily armed and armored. We were at battle stations, mine being a fortified M60 machine gun on the top deck of the ship. My ammo loader was a good buddy by the name of Adkins. We had gone through training and most of our Vietnam tour together. He had, just the day before, bought a brand spanking new Nikon 35mm camera from the PX at Dong Tam. It was a good thing he got lots of film because he was taking pictures of everything.

The sun was shining, sky was clear. It was one of those magical scenes you often saw in Vietnam but didn't stop to appreciate. The beauty of the deep blue sky just sort of coming down and touching the land, and the sun... the hot sun... melting it and melding it all together. I suppose that I noticed it today because Adkins was constantly pointing to something or another and saying look at that before he shot a picture. It was early morning and already temperature and humidity were reaching the range of unbearable.

Our voyage that day was to be a bit of a back track as we headed northwest on the Song My Tho away from Dong Tam to the confluence of the My Tho and Ham Luong River. At the confluence our tug and ship then set course southeast for the South China Sea. Vietnam is known for her narrow rivers, and surprise groundings, as the river bends can get shoaled in with sand from the fast moving current. But the Ham Luong is a relatively wide river, at places 100 meters wide, and navigation is not too complicated. We would be passing some of the most hostile areas of the Mekong Delta through the Kien Hoa Province. As such, it was real nice to be floating on solid steel. It would have been even better if were going faster than 10 knots.

Running aground at slow speed on a big steel ship is not that noticeable. I was on the uppermost section of the ship and only noticed because of seeing the engulfing black cloud and smelling the distinctive choking diesel fuel coming from the tug boat stacks as it tried to chug chug chug like the little engine that could. Only it couldn't, and soon the ship and crew of 25 were at a total unmistakable standstill. We were not stuck at the narrowest part of the river, but not the widest either. There were a lot of trees lining the shoreline and so the officer in charge ordered all hands to the side of the ship opposite the closest shore to guard against a sniper attack. He then arranged for the escort boats to cover the shore with their 20 mm cannons and 50 caliber machine guns. The firepower we on the ship had to offer was a couple of M60's, 2 81mm mortars and a whole bunch of small arms. The skipper of the tug and the Captain conferred and decided, due to the tide change, we would be high and dry for about six hours.

There are any number of things you can normally do when you run aground, but in a combat zone your options dwindle exponentially. Pulling the ship off the sand bar was no longer an option as it was pretty well ensnared already and any further effort would make matters worse. In the US Navy there is always painting to be done, but that didn't seem a wise thing to do at this time. Swimming wasn't really a possibility either because of the current, water bacterial content bordering on deadly, and very real likelihood of becoming a waterborne target. Adkins of course took pictures...of us...stranded....and the shore line. Then that got old. He got bored and started digging around in one of the life boat lockers. I don't know why, perhaps he thought of taking pictures of life jackets or something. He found fishing poles and gear. What surprised me is that he found a lot of it and none of us could figure why it was stored in those lockers.

My father, in his letters, often asked me whether I was doing any fishing. He read in National Geographic that the Mekong river systems had some of the biggest and varied species of fish in the world. I never explained to him that we were throwing concussion grenades and dynamite in the water every 20 minutes to keep Viet Cong swimmer sappers away from our mobile base and that it probably pretty much screwed up the fishing. He bought me a Mitchell 300 reel and accompanying rod when I was 10 years old. I was fishing the Wisconsin River every summer day as a kid and missed it quite a bit. I was thinking of the Blue Buffalo Carp I caught when I was ten. I hooked it in on the Sauk City bridge which was 25 feet above the river, but couldn't land that 30 pounder, so I put out line and walked off the bridge and onto the beach. It was quite a feat. I was so proud of catching that fish that my buddy Mike and I dragged and carried it the two blocks to my home, filled a metal wash tub with water, and carted the fish all over town, pulling it in my red coaster wagon and showing anyone who was interested. There were several Mitchell 300s in Adams booty and I claimed one for myself. The Captain gave us the OK to fish and so we loaded the hooks with cheese from the galley and went fishing off the "safe" side of the ship. It was getting to be mid-afternoon and fishing was not that good, but we were having fun. I was thankful that Smitty, a gunners mate, didn't like fishing and relieved me on the M60. As we got into early evening the tide was flooding which meant the ship would soon float free. I didn't know much about tidal fishing at that time but noticed the fish were starting to bite. At first they were light nibbles and no real strikes, then one by one, we would start hooking mostly carp or small catfish. The sun was getting lower in the sky and a red shade reflected off the river. It was stunning. I was so happy just fishing and enjoying the magical setting. A breeze set in and the humidity and heat were displaced by cool air coming in from the sea. I could feel the ship move and knew we would be free soon. I just wanted to stay and fish. I had placed my fishing rod along the rail of the ship and was sitting on the deck with a life jacket as a cushion, leaning against the bulkhead and smoking a Marlboro. Suddenly, I heard the whine of fishing line spooling off my Mitchell and the pole jumped up, headed toward the river. I leapt and caught the rod by grasping the reel and rod between my index finger and thumb of my right hand. With my left hand I grabbed the rail to steady myself. I could tell it was a big fish by the way it took off with the hook and line. It headed for the bottom and I knew there was going to be a fight to land it. Adkins had positioned himself on the outside of the rail to take this action picture of, as he announced to all, "The Great Mekong Fishing Guide landing the world's largest catfish." No sooner had he lifted himself to the water side of the rail than the ship broke free and seemed to rise several feet in the water. This motion threw Adkins off balance and into the coffee colored brown rolling river which was now flowing at several knots. I saw him go under, then I saw his camera come up over his head and float with the current for several seconds before quickly sinking to the bottom. Adkins was not wearing a life jacket and those of us along the rail scrambled to throw him life jackets, life rings, anything else that would float. I was still holding onto the fishing pole with my left hand, listening to my line go out as the fish continued his run. After what seemed like hours, but was merely several minutes, one of the assault boats came alongside and plucked Adkins from the water. We were all cheering and very thankful for his rescue when I noticed the boat was backing down on my line. I jumped up on the rail, yelling and waving for the boat crew to change direction, but they were all involved in checking out Adkins and didn't see me. I felt slack in the line and knew at once the boats propellers had cut my line.

When Adkins came back on board he was bitching and moaning about losing his camera. I knew he paid a bunch of money for the thing and really loved taking pictures, but I was not feeling too much sympathy, as I had lost the biggest fish in the whole Mekong Delta because of him and his stupid camera. During our trip to Vung Tau, Adkins and I resumed our battle station on the upper section of the ship and enjoyed one the most stunning sunsets I have ever seen. We arrived after dark and were tired. I was still ticked about the fish, but was feeling a little more sympathetic toward Adkins and his camera. We went out on the town and somewhere between a beer and six beers with a shot of Jack Daniels I found my humanity and generosity and gave him half the money for a new camera. I never went to bed that night and at sunrise I cast a line from my newly acquired Mitchell 300 into the South China Sea. Four days later Adkins went to his new duty station up on the Cambodian Border and I went to mine in the Rung Sat Special Zone. That was the last time we ever saw or heard from one another.