The U.S. Navy deployed a variety of small boats to South Vietnam during the Vietnam War, but perhaps the best known of these is the river patrol boat. The “patrol boat: riverine,” or Navy PBR, was the first watercraft built for the so-called brown water navy in Vietnam. During the height of the conflict, Navy personnel scouted the rivers and canals of the sprawling Mekong Delta for communist guerrilla forces, arms, and ammunition. In addition to patrolling, Navy PBRs participated with Navy and Army troops in hit-and-run raids, reconnaissance patrols, and day and night ambushes.
Patrol Boat, Riverine, or PBR, is the United States Navy designation for a small rigid-hulled patrol boat used in the Vietnam War from March 1966 until 1975.
Cost: $400,000
Speed: 28.5 knots (53 km/h 32 mph)
Length: 31 ft (9.4 m) (Mk I); 32 ft (9.8 m) (Mk II)
Draft: 2 ft (0.61 m)
Complement: 4 enlisted
Displacement: 8.9 ton for Mk II
Preserved: 1 operational
My dad was on a PBR in 68 and 69. Never talked about it. After he died I found his DD214 and he was awarded the bronze and silver star. I have no clue what he did to earn those since he refused to talk about his time in Vietnam.
ReplyDeleteFriend of mine in grade school through high school died on one of those boats.
DeleteDangerous MOS.
If interested in obtaining a copy of his DD214 and the citations to those and any other awards submit SF-180 to the National Archives' military service records branch (https://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/standard-form-180.html) and request them and his assignment history.
DeleteThank you. I'll submit it.
DeleteAnonymous, I wonder if the DD 214 has all the awards. I got a the standard ie. firewatch ribbon and what the Battalion got. I reckon I had a couple rows coming back to the world. My one self achievment is the Navy Com with V. I got it after discharge and it and the citation caught up to me as a civilian. No purple heart for severe concussion, medivac to Guam with blood coming out my ears and nose initially. Today I have a cochlear implant from said concussion, I'm totally deaf. Regardless and to the point, I got my DD 214 years ago and this was not on it. I wrote and asked about it and they sent me an addendum that did have it. Just thought I'd pass that along.
DeleteHad a buddy who joined the Navy to avoid being drafted into the Army-ended up on a PBR-shot at every time he went out. Lots of good stories though.
ReplyDeleteBrings back old memories. The tracers at night. Man I hated that shit. At night in a firefight looked like a thousand fireflies all flying erraticlly. Couldn't hardly tell where the source was. Every fifth round a tracer and if one of those fireflies hit ya it was for keeps man. Had four more rounds right behind it. I was never on a boat. Rode mainly on CH 47's, a few tanks and amtrak's the rest I walked. Good film. Keep em coming lest we forget.
ReplyDeleteworked with a guy who was with the brown water navy as he called it.
ReplyDeletehe had a few stories to tell about being scared shitless at times.
I remember telling another co worker about pissing yourself and not knowing it.
he agree with me on that one. most of the time, you didn't even know you did it until afterwards. and anyone who had that happen to them never gave anyone shit about it either. he didn't think much of that asshole kerry either.
remember the swift boat guys, he was one of them.
I worked with a guy in the ‘80s who drove one of those, but he wasn’t Navy-he was Coast Guard. He said when they were drawing down the Navy in Vietnam they replaced the river boat drivers with Coast Guard. He said the deal was the CG personal were sent home when the boat they were assigned to was removed from duty or in his case blown up.
DeleteJFM
$400k (in 1966 $'s) for a 31 ft boat?? Fucking wow!
ReplyDeleteAgreed. I was hoping it was inflation adjusted dollars. Apparently the MIC was just as disgusting 50-odd years ago were just as bad as today.
DeleteOdd it should be Raymond Burr narrating the second half of this video. I helped his homeless Vietnam vet nephew back in the days when I lived at the Zen temple. He was a wonderful guy, just stressed past the ability to deal with the world. He needed someone to hassle with things like car insurance and banking overdrafts while a conservator was being found to handle the disability benefits yet to be paid to him. He lived in his station wagon. His uncle had just died, and I asked him if maybe he wasn't about to come into a fortune. He said, "No. That's going to Uncle Ray's life companion, and he deserves it."
ReplyDeleteHe'd been a bomber pilot in the war. He started losing his marbles when our government would make him fly over antiaircraft weapons without being able to do anything about it. No bombing. You gotta fly over that shit and if they shoot you down, you're shot down.
I don't think many of us understood that the NVA had serious business weaponry from Russia and China. Most people think we were just over there to pick on rice farmers and kill babies.
--nines
Rode on what was probably the first of the Landing Craft with flamethrowers on the bow. Skipper had 'em named Zippo One and Zippo Two. Impressive as Hell to see 'em set green jungle aflame, and you knew when you disembarked that Charlie had already un-assed the area. Also made you really respect the guys from D-Day who faced some real shit when the ramps dropped and there was nowhere to go but forward.
ReplyDeleteDid a couple of quick walking tours of PBRs. No real protection for crews, whereas on the Landing Craft us grunts could stay down on the deck. The swabbies who ran those boats had some big, brass cojones. They were up top, being targets. We just got to hear the occasional "ping" of a round hitting the side and be glad it wasn't an RPG.
Actually talked to a guy a few years back who was wearing a Navy ball cap and when he showed me his MRF tattoo I said I might've ridden on bis boat. Turns out I had. Told him I was Alpha Co, 4th/47th and he could even tell me my Platoon Sgt.'s name.
And John Fucking Kerry can kiss my ass!
I was there.
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