Pershing Field

       I was a Platoon leader with B Company, 720th MP Battalion and several months after finishing our duties as the Advance Party I was reassigned to the 300th MP Company and later the 188th MP Company, 92nd MP Battalion in Saigon. I later became the pay officer for the 92nd and traveled around to the various detachments via helicopter paying the troops with MPC. I was promoted to Captain in early 1967 and took over as the S-2 and 3 of the 92nd. I recall Cpt. Lemon took over as the company commander of the 188th.

         The main mission as I recall was security of the Saigon Port, the ships and barges in addition to convoy escort of military goods distributed from ships to vehicles bound for various US Army units scattered around the Saigon - Bien Hoa area. The battalion was supplemented by an infantry rifle company, D Company 87th Infantry (Rifle Security), and ended up doing the same jon duties as the regular MP’s.

        Working at the port was quite busy with workers offloading supplies from the ships and storing supplies. I observed a number of accidental deaths of Vietnamese civilian workers who were really careless. Most were killed while removing the hatch from the ship and as it swung out of the way they were not looking, were hit in the head and ended up in the Saigon River. We also had a number of MP’s attached to Navy river boats which patrolled the Saigon River and the Newport Bridge.

        A helicopter pilot hit one of the large cables that spanned the river and went down south of the main port area. We searched the river and finally found his body a few days later. Recovering the body was a real experience I’ll never forget. Our MP’s were also assigned to guard supply barges moored in the river. This resulted in a number of problems caused by people going to sleep on duty. I felt sorry for these MP’s being stuck out on some barge in the middle of the night with only misquotes to keep you company. We were lucky we never had any real problems with the shipping and the port itself.

         Our off duty time was spent watching movies, the normal things GI’s do. Almost every week we would have a BBQ in the battalion area for the people who were off duty. Beer, hard liquor and cigarettes were so cheap then. I think beer was a nickel a can and a fifth of booze was about $1.50 to $2.00 depending on the brand. The PX only had certain kinds of booze at any one time and if you did not like what they had, you were out of luck. I don’t remember what cigarettes were going for, but they were cheap.

        If you wanted to do any kind of business without getting wet you had to do it before approximately 1:20 PM, it started clouding up just prior and would rain until 7:00 PM at night. I had never experienced rain coming down in three directions at once, and you could not stay dry. I remember taking some advise from an old salt who said, “throw away your underwear, put your wallet in plastic and throw away your poncho.” He was right.

        The battalion cantonment was a large flat area with fencing and gun towers on each corner. We were located adjacent to a small cemetery to the north and in close proximity to Ton San Nhut Air base, just west of our location. There was a large soccer field just to the south and a U.S. hospital across the field.

        We had approximately three CONEX (Container-Express) box containers which we used as temporary cells to house prisoners awaiting trial. We also had a number of kennels for sick sentry dogs that were in Saigon to see a vet. We also used CONEX containers for storage of materials assigned to each company.

        The motor pool was large and they could fix anything. A number of jeeps were either wrecked or had been hit by enemy fire and they fixed them by using spare parts or scrounging and trading, which was the norm at the time. They actually constructed their own motor pool jeep from scratch, and a little help from the S-4 shop.

We had out own mess hall which was a large structure and fed meals 24-7 for the MP’s coming and going on shift. In addition, we had a barber shop, PX and a stage which had a movie screen. When I got to the battalion the headquarters structure did not have air-conditioning, just fans. We had one of the best scroungers in the business as our S-4 and the two of us hooked up and traded everything in the world to various units and American civilians. We came up with an air conditioner for the Battalion Commanders office. The S-4 was an infantry Captain, his last name was Smith, but I can’t remember his first name.         Smith and I were at Ton Son Nhut Air base and came upon an old surplus nose cone from some type of plane. We asked if we could have it and they told us to take it. We loaded it on a truck and hauled it over to the MP compound where we had it cut down and painted like an MP helmet. When we finished we mounted it on a 4x4 post and placed it in front of the battalion headquarters building. It was still there when I left.

        All the officers lived off post in a typical Vietnamese Hotel. Most were not well constructed to say the least. Our hotel was located across from the Phuto Beer Warehouse which turned out to be a real blessing, especially when I ran into a sergeant I served with in Fort Hood. He supplied us (officers) with plenty of beer. We some how ended up with some steaks from the Saigon Port and used a 55 gallon barrel as our BBQ. We watched the war at night from the fourth floor of our hotel as the AC47’s (Puff The Magic Dragon) streamed rounds from their Gatling guns on targets and the B52’s shook our building during their bombing runs.

Cpt. John A. Hannon, HQ Detachment S2 & 3, 92nd MP Battalion, 89th MP Group, 18th MP Brigade.