Narrative for the following photos:
The A Shau valley was the recon target. It was common knowledge the valley was a main supply line from the Ho Chi Min trail, just across the border west, into South VN. The closer we got to the valley itself, the hotter it got. Teams were not even getting in on their infil points so they were picking secondary infiltration/insertion LZs and in some cases a third LZ, just in case the first two were "occupied". There was a lot of contact and Road Runner teams had picked up information leaflets printed on the "bamboo press" and distributed to NVA units in the area. These leaflets spoke of Project Delta being a recon unit and not to make contact with a Delta team, just monitor them, unless it was about to stumble onto a big cache or unit. Then, only attack them if they could eliminate the team within 10 minutes. The NVA had earlier learned the hard way. There were three old camps in the valley. The three had originally been built by the French. A Luoi was northern most, them Ta Bat, and on the south end, A Shau, It was also closest, 3 miles, from the Lao border. That was probably why it was chosen for an A camp. This camp was overrun a year earlier and never re-occupied. I still have an Argosy magazine, dated August 1967, which details the fight for camp A Shau and its evacuation. The NVA couldn't tolerate its presence on their main trail. The PSP (perforated steel plate) airstrip at old camp A Shau was being cannibalized by the NVA to repair their main trail down the middle of the valley, which was constantly bombed, especially at night. Cpt Alan Groth, FAC (Forward Air Control) was very familiar with the valley. He was trying to catch a bulldozer which he had seen carrying PSP from A Shau to the craters in the road. He would be there at first light but by the time he called in TAC Air, the dozer would hide in the trees. The morning I went with him, he had the TAC air standing by and the dozer was toast (see photo no. 37 below).

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Narrative for photos 39 - 47:
The McGuire Rig is used when the team needs to be extracted and 30' rope ladders are not long enough to reach the ground through jungle canopy. The "rig" is a loop of A7A webbing, sewed into a loop with a smaller loop of more flexible webbing sewn into the larger one. You sit in the larger loop and run your hand through the smaller loop. That way if you are wounded or get shot during extraction, you cannot completely fall out of the rig. The rig is attached to a 120' nylon rappelling rope which in turn is attached to the inside of the helicopter. There are 3 rigs per chopper. Arms and legs are locked together to keep the three unevenly weighted men together so they don't swing into each other and if a rope is shot in two, that man won't be lost.

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Narrative for photos 48 - 51:
The Radio relay Otter got to landing at the dirt strip on the north side of the FOB to pick up the relay operators. It would RON at Phu Bai. There was a double strand of concertina around the strip and the pilot was used to clearing it with his tail wheel. Someone had decided to add a third roll on top of the other two. When the pilot took off, the tail wheel caught the top wire and pulled it until the weight was too much and pulled the plane into the ground. It crashed and burned. SFC Bartlett was the US operator that day. Everyone on board was a casualty. Someone else will have to give more specifics, Ken Edens, Andy Sheppard, Jerry Estenson?

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All photos Copyright 2004 Maurice Brakeman

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