Bill Warnock’s War Story #2: A Grave Combat Hip Shoot

 Photo credit Corbis via gettyimages

War Story #2. A Grave Combat Hip Shoot.

In the field artillery, you have to be ready to fire at any time. In 1967 I commanded a 105 mm howitzer battery in the 25th Infantry Division with base camp at Cu Chi, Vietnam. We spent little time in garrison and a lot out on operations. We spent the most time at an Infantry battalion fire base at Go Dau Ha, not far from Trang Bang, called FSB Martha. When set up in position, we had to have rounds in the air within 30 seconds of receiving a fire mission, day or night, firing in any direction.

One day we were ordered back to base camp to lay concrete pads for our new troop hutments at Cu Chi. Our minds were on getting a change of pace and a few days in garrison. As our convoy was about half-way home, the radio came to life and we received a fire mission. This situation is a hip shoot in artillery lingo.

Artillerymen are routinely given hip shoots during annual training tests, but they happen infrequently in combat. At least this was so in Vietnam where US units almost never ventured out of emplaced artillery range, and when the artillery moved it was often by helicopter. This mission was definitely a surprise.

We quickly pulled the guns and fire direction center off the road into a hasty firing position. In order to hit the target, we needed to know where we were, and in what direction we would be firing. The fire mission itself gave the grid location of the target so that was point B. We were point A. If we could find ourselves on the map, we could easily determine the direction and range to the target.

We had 1:25,000 scale maps. I could see our general location, but where were we exactly? The terrain in the area was flat with few natural terrain features that we might use to triangulate our position—mostly, our laterite road ran through rice paddies.  Luckily, our maps did show the location of graves. I looked around a spotted several of them: small longish mounds raised above ground level. I checked the map and was able to tell exactly where we were by comparing the real graves with the ones marked on the map.

I did not run a stop watch on this operation, but we had rounds in the air in less than 10 minutes, and after just one volley, the command was drop 200, fire for effect. Not bad considering most of the soldiers in our gun crews were 18-year old draftees, and their gun chiefs were each about 19 years old. I was proud of them then when I was only 27 myself—and I still am today from a far longer perspective. Age and treachery are not always essential ingredients.