"Incoming Mortars!"

"Incoming Mortars!"
Submitted by - Al Paulsen, CWO, Headhunter, Pleiku

"My orders tell me that I was assigned to the 219th on 21 September 1967.  I left the unit on 20 June 1968. The incident that I described happened in January or Feb 1968.  I’m thinking that it happened shortly before the Tet offensive began in earnest, but I’m not positive. We had a lot going on during that period of time. The event I remember happened about the same time, in the early morning, as your event. We took a real beating.  In addition to the hit on the roof of the orderly room, we had 3 rounds hit the roof of the Headhunter hanger.  The wings and fuselages of three Birddogs in the hanger looked like sieves.  We also took a round on the ground just outside the maintenance office attached to the hanger. The round landed a couple of feet from the south wall and peppered the office with shrapnel.  The large water jug we had in the office was shattered and water flowed all over the floor inside. During another attack a couple of Headhunter barracks also took hits and shrapnel came through the walls of my hooch and tore through some family photos that I had under clear vinyl on top a small desk in my room.  I still have those photos too.  I’ve attached photos of the hanger roof and the south wall of the maintenance office where the mortar round hit. The guy pointing at the impact crater was a flight school classmate of mine that was with the 185th RAC “Pterodactyls.  He had RON’ed the night of the attack.  For some reason he never came back for a visit after that!  I’ve also included a hooch that took a hit.  It may have been the Officer’s Club at Camp Holloway."