Michael Belis Page 17

Michael Belis Company C 1/22 Infantry 1970-1971

Me with M-79 rounds Tuy Hoa 1971

At about the middle of the base at Tuy Hoa, on the western side, a village outside the perimeter
came very close to the wire, as seen in the photo above. One night a small group of VC made an attack
on one of our ground level bunkers at that point, believing our Soldiers would hesitate to return fire, in fear of
sending rounds into the village. It was a mistake on the enemy's part, as the guys in that bunker
fired them up good. In the morning I was part of the team that went to inspect the scene.
There were two dead VC left behind, one old and one young, and the B-40 rocket launcher (RPG)
they had fired at the bunker the previous night.

A hut from the village close to the perimeter on the western side of the base at Tuy Hoa.

Vietnamese made DUI ("beercan construction") for 1st Field Force (IFFV)
I bought this at the tailor shop next to the PX on the base at Tuy Hoa

Rucksacks drying out on the sun deck behind the 3rd Platoon barracks at Tuy Hoa
Note the ruck with the steel "x-frame", which is the 1968 Tropical Rucksack model.
That's the kind of ruck I carried, but mine was lashed to the same kind of tubular frame
used by the lightweight rucksack, as seen by the rucks in the center of the photo.

Platoon SGT on left, Hernandez on right

Me with 1st generation night vision "starlight scope" mounted on an M-16 rifle.
We used these on night ambush sometimes. They worked good about half the time.

3rd Platoon detachment getting ready to go on guard duty -
foreground: Woodbury on left, Platoon SGT on right
background, front row, left to right: unknown, Spanky, unknown, "T", JJ Jackson
back row, left to right: Gene, Utah, McCoy, Lewis, Hernandez, Beatty

Guard tower in the northwestern corner of the base at Tuy Hoa.
The hardened shelters for the F-100 fighter bombers can be seen in the background.
I was SGT of the guard one night, and had climbed up to this tower, to take some long
camera exposures of the runway lights, when the enemy attacked the ARVN garrison
at Tuy Hoa, about a mile and half away.

I got one photo taken of the runway lights before the VC started their attack.

Illumination flares light the sky over the South Vietnamese garrison at Tuy Hoa
as the VC attack, while part of the garrison burns. I took this and the following photos
from the guard tower at the base pictured above. The shelters for the aircraft at the runway
can be seen in the foreground.

More flares

A lone flare overhead while the ARVN garrison burns

A helicopter gunship fires its minigun in suport of the garrison.

My hand is a bit shaky as I take another photo of a gunship run.

The ARVN ammo dump explodes at left center, as the garrison burns on the right.
At about this time the VC started "walking" mortar rounds straight toward
the tower we were in. Bo Bonnema was my jeep driver that night, and he and I
zoomed down the ladder of the tower, got in the jeep and hurriedly drove off to seek
protection behind a sand dune. The enemy fired mortars at us apparently as a warning,
as they never mounted an attack against us that night, content with the damage they had done
to the South Vietnamese garrison at Tuy Hoa.