Here is the version from my copy of Tour Of Duty. Although I'm sure some small details change in every telling, it's pretty much what I've heard from Kerry and others. Note: I'm typing this from the book, so please excuse any typos or other unintended differences.
Almost casually, as though their day's work was over, the Swifts formed up and headed out from the village. The Swift boats had gone about half a mile when the blast came. Right where they had been hit on the earlier mission, a mine went off directly beneath PCF-3 just off Kerry's port side. The Swift lifed about two feet up out of the water, engulfed in mud and spray, from the banks to the middle of the river. Everybody on board PCF-3 was wounded. "At the same moment, we came under a hail of small-arms fire from both banks," Kerry recorded in his journal. "I turned the boat into the fire on the left with the intention of trying to get the troops ashore on the outskirts of the ambush, but Sandusky, who was driving the boat and who had his eyes glued on the crippled 3 boat, pointed out to me how badly hit they had been. We veered back toward her then and tried to provide cover from the engaged side. Suddenly another explosion went off right beside us, and the concussion threw me violently against the bulkhead on the door and I smashed my arm." At this instant, Army Lieutenant Jim Rassman, who was on PCF-35, was blown overboard, although nobody knew it. Kerry wrote, "We continued sidling up to the 3, and as we came closer I could see that her twin-.50 mount over the pilothouse had been completely blown out of its stand and had landed on the gunner. No one was moving on the stern. [PCF-3 crewman] Ken Tryner, on his first real river expedition, was kneeling dazed in the doorway with a small trickle of blood down his face, aimlessly firing his M-79."
Larry Thrulow had maneuvered his PCF-51 over by this time, and he hopped aboard PCF-3 to offer assistance. The boat was a shambles but they were still shooting too hard to assess any damage. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Rassman, several hundred yards in back of them, was receiving sniper fire from both banks. "Someone on the fantail must have noticed Jim swimming in back of us ducking against the fire tha was trying to pick him off because I suddenly heard the yell of 'man overboard' and looked back to see the bullets splashing in the water beside him," Kerry reported. "We turned around with the engines screaming against each other - one full astern, the other full forward - then charged the several hundred yards back into the ambush where Jim was trying to find some cover. Everyone on board must have been firing without pause to keep the sniper heads down."
Kerry ran out of the pilothouse and, thanking god the scramble nets were over the bow, struggle to get Rassman on board. "It must have looked like a comedy," he recalled. "Jim was exhausted from swimming and my right arm hurt and I couldn't pull very hard with it. Everyone else was firing a machine gun or something, except for Sandusky, who was maneuvering the boat trying not to run over Jim but also trying to get near him as quickly as possible. Christ knows how, but somehow we got him on board and I didn't get the bullet in the head that I expected, and we managed to clear the ambush zone and move down near the 3 boat that was still crawling [on] a snail-like zigzag through the river." For pulling him out of the water, a hail of gunfire causing him to risk his life, Rassman put Kerry in for the Bronze Star.
Tour of Duty, Douglas Brinkley, Pg 314-315. |
