Friendly Fire - Isn't
"...Later, during an operation in the howling wilderness near Cambodia, we (the battalion) were digging in for the night at the clearing that had been selected as the location of our NDP. It was in the late afternoon, and we had humped through the jungle and elephant grass most of the day to get here. There were OPs around the perimeter, working parties gathering wood for overhead cover out in the jungle, and soldiers busily digging their fighting positions all around the perimeter, to the accompaniment of howling chainsaws, the metallic clink-chunk of shovels, axes, entrenching tools and cursing GIs as we struggled to dig holes in the damned ladderite(gravel-clay mix).
It was nearing darkness, which comes fast in the jungle, when we heard the round coming in from Out There, addressed to Whom It May Concern. We could tell it was a big round from the noise it made as it ripped through air, a real big one, and we could tell it was coming toward our NDP clearing.
Soldiers that had a hole below ground level to jump into, did so, while everyone else above ground level tried to sink into the ground, trying to get as low as possible for safety. I jumped into the open topped and incomplete fighting position along with my work mates. The shell hit the platoon area next to my platoon with a soundless red flash that tossed us about inside the hole like we were beans in a can. The explosion deafened us, and stunned us, too, literally knocking the wind out of our lungs. I do not know how long we just lay there, too stunned and disbelieving to move, but it could not have been very long. When no more monster rounds arrived, we cautiously stuck up our heads to see what had happened. What had happened was that one shell killed or wounded most of the neighboring platoon. ONE SHELL!
Later we found out it was a rogue 8" howitzer round, a damned round that was either misdirected or just short of its target, that was aimed at a set of map coords for H and I fires far from us. We were just unlucky and under the trajectory of the shoot. We were lucky that it was all alone, and not part of a battery shoot that was on target. If it had been, one hell of a lot of GIs would have killed and wounded. Those 8" howitzers are widow-makers of the first class..."
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