Excerpt from Significant Event Log dated
Sunday, 27 April 1969
from CG, III MAF
PAGE TWO UUMSQ 1380
4. 27 1045H: A FIRE OCCURED AT ASP-1 (AT988733) IN DANANG
CAUSING COOK-OFF OF GRADE III AMMO, CS GAS RD S, 105MM RD S, 155MM
RD S, 175MM RD S, NAPALM AND 50 AND 100 LB BOMBS. THE AMMO
DUMP IS REPORTEDLY 80 PER CENT DEST AND ORDNANCE CONTINUES TO COOK
OFF. MARINE AND AF FIRE FIGHTERS ARE AT THE SCENE. THE
FOLLOWING NEARBY UNITS AND LOCATIONS HAVE BEEN OR ARE BEING
EVACUATED; HOA PHAT VILLAGE; DOGPATCH, CAMP MONAHAN (FLC),
3RD MP'S, MCB-5, FREEDOM HILL EXCHANGE, NSA, 1ST MED BN,
III MAF BRIG, CAP UNIT 1-1-6, FREEDOM HILL RECREATION CENTER,
R&R CENTER, CIVIL AFFAIRS TEAMS 4 AND 16, RMK, POW CAMP AND
JEEP PATROLS. THE AIRFIELD HAS BEEN CLOSED EXCEPT FOR
EMERGENCIES AND AIRCRAFT ARE BEING DIVERTED.
PAGE THREE UUMSQ 1380
CAUSED SOME OIL BARRELS TO BURST AND 2 SMALL POL FIRES HAVE
OCCURED. RT 1A HAS BEEN CLOSED. DOGPATCH AND CAMP MONAHAN
HAVE BEEN PRETTY WELL LEVILLED AND THERE HAS BEEN SEVERE
DAMAGE TO FREEDOM HILL BUILDINGS AND FACILITIES. CAUSALTIES
SO FAR 6 CIV WIA AND 2 US WIA. ALL PERSONNEL AT ASP-1
HAVE BEEN ACCOUNTED FOR EXCEPT 1 DOCTOR AND 3 CORPSMAN. THIS
IS AN INITIAL REPORT SUBJECT TO DAILY UPDATE FOR THE NEXT
FEW DAYS. (SPOT REPORTS)
GP-4
BT
1380
Excerpt from Significant Event Log dated
Monday, 28 April 1969
from CG, III MAF
PAGE 3 UUMSQ 1428
6. 27 1045H UPDATE: THE FIRE AT ASP-1 (AT988733) IN DANANG
HAS BEEN EXTINGUISHED EXCEPT FOR OCCASIONAL SMALL FLARE-UPS
COOK-OFF OF AMMO IS NOW LIMITED TO OCCASIONAL SMALL EXPLOSIONS.
EOD PERSONNEL ARE AT THE SCENE. CASUALTIES: 1 US KIA AND
27 US WIA (16 EVAC); 1 CIV (CHILD) KIA AND 50 CIV WIA; AND
NO ARVN CASUALTIES. DANANG AIR BASE HAS SUSTAINED MODERATE
DAM TO WOODEN BLDGS AND HV DAM TO METAL BLDGS. (JOURNAL SPOT
REPORTS)
GP-4
BT
1428
Shattering Blasts Jolt Da Nang
DA NANG, Vietnam — Hundreds of tons of bombs, shells and other munitions went up in a shattering series of explosions Sunday when a wind-blown grass fire touched off an ammo dump next to the huge Da Nang air base.
Explosions were rocketing the entire area at midnight, nearly 14 hours after the first blast.
No one was reported killed, but 11 U.S. Marines were reported injured — none seriously — and hundreds of civilians and military men were evacuated from threatened areas. Among them were about 250 Marine inmates and 50 Viet Cong prisoners of the Marine brig.
Marine truck drivers and MPs made their way through showers of flaming shrapnel to extricate military men, civilians and the prisoners from the western side of the big base.
The roofs of some hangars were crumpled by the titanic blasts, and parts of a two-story barracks were caved in. Damage to the airfield — the world's second busiest — was light.
Source of the fire was traced to burning papers from a Vietnamese garbage pit on the base perimeter. The papers were swept across a road and ignited tinder-dry brush and grass. The changeable wind quickly pushed the brush fire to the huge Force Logistics Command ammunition storage dump, where it ignited a stock of old ammo that was being prepared for destruction.
The dump is at the base of "Freedom Hill" a 1,000-foot pile of rocky earth that rises just west of the base.
The ignition of the old ammo touched off a chain reaction. Fireballs shot into the air and all Da Nang was rocked by the thunderous explosions.
Windows in downtown Da Nang, three miles away, were shattered by waves of concussion. The Marine recreation center, less than a mile from the dump, was abandoned in a hail of fiery debris and shrapnel.
Flaming shards fell on smaller ammo storage areas in the vicinity and touched off new waves of explosions, though the biggest blasts were still coming from the main dump at near midnight. Fresh grass fires, result of far-spread sparks and fiery shrapnel, were quickly contained by Vietnamese and U.S. military firemen.
The Marines' III MAF headquarters, though near the recreation center, was sheltered from the blasts by small hills and was hardly touched.
Marine officers credited fast, valiant work by the MPs and the 1st Marine Div. 5th and 7th Transport units with keeping casualties to a minimum. The transport men drove 20 to 50 truckloads of Vietnamese and Americans to safety through falling debris. The Marine policemen went into nearby villages — including the "dog patch" shantytown less than 1,000 yards from the ammo dump to extricate frightened Vietnamese civilians.
This was the third time in little more than two months that an ammo supply area has exploded in the Da Nang area. A Vietnamese army dump was destroyed by enemy rockets Feb. 23, and last month a dockside LST ramp loaded with ammo was hit by enemy rocket fire.
Pacific Stars & Stripes, Tuesday, April 29, 1969
An Explosive Job, Every Inch Of It
Da Nang, Vietnam — The shells and shell casings stick out of the ground like small crosses in a large cemetery. The land itself is burnt and littered with twisted metal like a junkyard. Giant mounds of earth cover not tombs nor treasure, but bombs of unknown type and number. And there are craters 100 feet across, 100 feet deep, and big enough for several swimming pools.
The Da Nang ammo dump disarmed itself with the proverbial bang. The present problem is cleaning it up. A Vietnamese — if his name were known, he might be as famous as Mrs. Leary's cow — was burning trash on the morning of April 27. The trash set the grass on fire, and the grass fire swept a short distance to the U.S. Marine ammo supply area. The munitions started to explode. The troops pulled out. The air filled with smoke, fire and hunks of metal. Some of the bombs were buried across the road where they set off secondary explosions in the Air Force ammo dump.
The explosion continued for 15 hours. Cleaning up the mess is taking a lot longer. The amount of munitions stored here and the totals of what was lost have not been released. But right after the explosion the estimated cleanup time was about six months. By this week the job was about one-third done.
The Marine ammo dump covers 332 acres, the Air force dump is about one-third that size. Munitions are separated by type and sorted in revetments, areas about 40 yards square and surrounded on three sides by high, thick walls of dirt. There were 215 revetments in the Marine dump and 60 more on the Air Force side. One guess is that about one-half of the stored munitions exploded. Some of the ammunition is still usable. It was either untouched or buried by dirt from other explosions. Other munitions were thrown through the air. Marine ammo landed in the Air Force dump and vice versa. Most of the ammo that didn't explode has been subjected to enough heat or stress to make it highly dangerous. Some of this ammunition, scattered on the ground as casually as pickup sticks, has taken all the temperature or tension changes it can. One more nudge and it will explode. There's no way to tell which piece of explosive is about to go off. So it's all treated the same. Most Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) work is classified, so the men don't talk about the tricks of their craft. But it looks like a giant police call.
A man slowly picks up an explosive and carefully carries it to a group of the same kind. If it's small, like a hand grenade, he'll cradle it in sand inside a box. These will be boxed and trucked away, to be dumped at sea or blown up in specially designed holes. In the meantime, the men continue the cleanup. Nobody rushes, they take frequent breaks. They work only a half a day to cut down on accidents caused by fatigue. There is a look of casualness about the work, but of course it's not like a police call.
“Everything you pick up is different. You remember that it might kill you," said S/Sgt John L. Lorentz, with the Marine EOD team. "You must treat everything like it was the first time you touched it. You never let it become routine. I like the work," he continued, "not everyone can do it. And I'd go crazy if I had an office job, filing the same papers day after day.”
It would be safer for the men to simply blow up everything in place, but there are so many explosives that it could set off another holocaust like the one of April 27. Jobs as big as this are rare for EOD men. Typical would be a load of bombs in a plane that crashed. For the EOD men cleaning up the ammo dump it is like a small town fire company having to battle a four alarm blaze everyday.
“First the EOD teams cleared the roads that ran past the revetments. Then they cleared the ground and piled the munitions along the roads for the trucks to pick up. The last phase is digging out the buried revetments,” said Capt. Gary J. Williams, chief of the Air Force EOD team.
The Air Force has 24 EOD specialists from all over Vietnam and the Pacific on temporary duty in Da Nang to help the base's nine-man EOD team clean up the ammo dump. The TDY personnel are in Da Nang for two-week stretches, so that every Air Force EOD specialist in the Pacific theater can probably expect to be sent there.
Lt William R. Sullivan leads about 50 men working mornings and afternoons to clean up the Marine dump. Five are U.S. Army EOD specialists working one-week shifts. Twenty-six are Marine EOD from Vietnam and the Pacific area. Another 25 are ammo technicians who worked in the dump before it blew up and who have volunteered to help clean it up. The same Marines will stay on the job until it's finished.
One other important fact; Not one of the men actually cleaning up the munitions in both dumps has been injured on the job.
Pacific Stars & Stripes, Thursday, July 10, 1969
Award Recommendation
“For exceptionally meritorious conduct while serving as the Assistant Force Ordnance Officer, Force Ordnance Section, Headquarters, III Marine Amphibious Force in the Republic of Vietnam from 30 November to December 1969. Throughout this period, in connection with operations against insurgent communist (Viet Cong), and North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces in Vietnam, Lieutenant Colonel McMILLAN consistently performed his duties in an outstanding and exemplary manner, demonstrating exceptional professionalism, planning and organizational abilities, profoundly sound judgment and total dedication to duty. Lieutenant Colonel McMillan's' normal duties as Assistant Force Ordnance Officer included planning, implementation and coordination of ordnance requirements and assets throughout ICTZ. He served as the principle advisor to the Force Ordnance Officer, III Marine Amphibious Force on all matters dealing with the technical aspects of ordnance management and control. His tour of duty included the planning and implementation of ordnance support functions necessitated and complicated by rapid and unpredictable changes in unit requirements and posture and ammunition stockages and equipment status in the ICTZ. Lieutenant Colonel McMILLAN was repeatedly called upon for council and advice on the solution of highly technical and complex problems of ordnance and tracked vehicle maintenance and management. His knowledge and grasp of weapons engineering, professional competence, and his foresight and sensitivity to ordnance matters enabled him to manage a well coordinated and responsive ordnance program throughout ICTZ. Lieutenant Colonel McMILLAN was a principal control element in the successful and continuous ordnance support of ICTZ units despite the many unpredictable and violent variations in ammunition stockage that occurred as a consequence of enemy actions.
While a primary ASP, in close proximity to a large populated area, was still burning and exploding, Lieutenant Colonel McMILLAN immediately perceived the over-riding requirements for a coordinated and controlled maximum EOD effort in order to assure maximum efficient utilization of EOD personnel assets and to preclude, to the greatest extent possible, the dangers of explosive dud ordnance that had been scattered throughout the area. Under his direction and guidance as EOD control and coordination center was established that monitored, controlled and coordinated the efforts of all US EOD and ARVNAF personnel.
Largely on his own initiative and by virtue of his depth of knowledge of small arms and his outstanding skill and reputation in this area, he was able to function as a focal point for the widely dispersed sniper personnel, to institute a preventive maintenance program for the equally widely dispersed and fragile special sniper equipment, and through a continuing series of ordnance maintenance meetings to provide advice and direction on the proper utilization and maintenance of sniper equipment. Additionally, and again largely on his own imitative, he obtained detailed information on the U.S. Army sniper program that, along with his own advice and guidance, provided invaluable assistance to the USA Advisors to CG, I Corps in the initiation of a sniper program for ARVN forces. By his professionalism, versatility and consistently outstanding performance of duty, Lieutenant Colonel McMILLAN brought great credit upon himself and upheld the highest traditions of the U.S. Marine Corps and the Naval Service.”
From:
Colonel James Leon, Force Ordnance Officer, III Marine Amphibious Force (8 Jan 1970)
