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We've been learning about Ray Pederson's Vietnam service in the Navy to help us better understand the Vietnam War's impact on our region.
Ray Pederson was born in Echo; grew up on a farm; and graduated from Belview High School.
He enlisted in the Navy in 1965; completed boot camp; married his girlfriend, Nancy; and then reported aboard the Landing Ship Tank (LST) USS Floyd County in San Diego.
The Floyd County, with a cargo of Marine vehicles and forty Marines, departed San Diego on February 1st 1966 and steamed west for Vietnam. She arrived at Chu Lai, Vietnam after forty days at sea and off-loaded the Marines and their equipment. Ray remembered writing about their arrival, "I wrote home and told Mom, 'Now I know how Noah felt for forty days and forty nights.' "
The Floyd County left Chu Lai for Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines for engine work before returning to an anchorage off Vung Tao in the Mekong River Delta region of Vietnam. Ray explained their mission.
"We were on an operation called Operation Game Warden to help prevent infiltration of arms from the north to the Mekong Delta. We supplied PBR (Patrol Boat River) gunboats with food stores so that they could go out for a couple days and have enough food on board. We [also] supplied them with ammunition."
The PBRs were thirty-one foot, fiberglass craft, crewed by four sailors. They were powered by dual engines that drove water jets, making them speedy and maneuverable. They were armed with dual .50 caliber machine guns on the foredeck, another .50 caliber machine gun aft, and M-60 machine guns on both sides, amid-ships.
Ray explained that when the PBRs came out to the Floyd County for provisioning they would tie onto boat booms extending from the ship's bow and kept rigid with guidewires. The PBR crew then climbed up rope ladders to the boat boom, which had a flat, non-skid top, and walked to the ship's Main Deck.
The Floyd County supported Operation Game Warden in other ways.
"We supported Huey (helicopter) gunships and two crews of Army personnel. We provided living quarters and they went to chow with us. We would load them with rockets and machine gun ammunition and they'd go out and do their thing. We had JP-5 (aviation fuel) down in our tank deck."
Ray recalled the pilots' skill operating from the helipad the crew built on the Main Deck.
"The warrant officers that were pilots of these choppers could put their blade within inches of a bulkhead and not hit it. They were that good."
Ray explained his security mission while the Floyd County remained at anchor in support of Operation Game Warden.
"Aboard ship my main duty was an assault boat Coxswain. I drove boats around the ship at night all the time, but during the day on and off. I would try to keep sampans and junks away from the ship so that divers could not get after us. We were out in the ocean quite a ways, but you never knew what to expect. That's why you always carried your small weapons."
He smiled at one memory from driving his assault boat.
"The first time I went out, all of the sudden I heard this noise. It sounded like a John Deere tractor. It was a junk that went, 'putt, putt, putt.' (Ray laughed) It was kind of a reminder of home."
Ray also drove his assault boat to Vung Tao for crew liberty. They could buy souvenirs and cold beer in town. His Vung Tao visits led to an unsettling experience.
"The thing that probably bothered me the most was a little boy. He called me 'Sailor Pete.' I'd bring him candy (and sandwiches from the galley) because he didn't have any parents. He was a street kid. I tried to see if I could bring him home because he had nothing. They said you couldn't get him on the ship. He was probably six or seven years old. He could speak a little English -- enough to get by. I often wonder what happened to that little boy."
Ray recalled another unsettling experience. The Floyd County received orders to steam upriver to Saigon with PBR escorts and return by another river to take river depth soundings. The General Quarters drills they practiced while crossing the Pacific paid off during that mission.
"We went up the river and we saw merchant ships that were laying on their side from mines that Vietcong had blew. But we got to Saigon and then we went down the Soi Rap River. We were taking sonar soundings. We could never get below a minute and a half (for General Quarters) until one morning the alarm [went] off about 5:30. It says, "This is not a drill." Then reality hit and you wondered what's going to happen? When you're in a war zone, you're kind of on pins and needles all the time. We were manned and ready in a minute and 25 seconds because of all that training. We had radar contacts and the gunboats took care of it."
The Floyd County left its Vung Tao anchorage in June, after two months on station, when the Navy reassigned her to another operation for the remainder of her 1966 Vietnam cruise.
The Lyon County Museum is organizing an exhibit about the impact of the Vietnam War on Lyon County. If you would like to share Vietnam experiences or help with the exhibit, please contact me at prairieviewpressllc@gmail.com or call the museum at 537-6580.