Welcome to Veterans Chronicles. I'm Greg Corumbus. Our guest in this edition is
Ken Gunner Guyer. He is a US Navy veteran and a veteran of the
US Coastguard Reserve. He served in the Vietnam War and he is joining US
aboard the USS Midway here in San Diego, California. And Gunner, great
to have you with us. Thank you very much. Greg. Where were
you born and raised there? I was born in Denver, Colorado, raised
in Phoenix, Arizona. Any military history and your family key was my great
uncle Mustang commander in the Navy Aviation Machinists and he served on the Lexington and
a Pearl Harbor survivor. My father was Coastguard on Navy LSTs in the South
Pacific. Those are the most significant ones. What can instead to join the
Navy? Growing up coming to San Diego almost every summer my life, and
spending a lot of it with my uncle on the Navy base, and it
just was a natural. I love the water and love ships, and it
was destined graduation and in boot camp. And you joined in nineteen sixty seven,
so the war was going on at that time. What did you expect
as you entered the service, did you expect to be sent to Vietnam?
To be real honest with you, I desired very very much to go to
Vietnam. I volunteered in boot camp. Manning was such that they did not
have openings in patrol boats, which is what I wanted, so they put
me on a oiler AO twenty two, the oldest ship in the navy.
USS Cimarron got a little frustrated after a few months, and a friend of
mine got married, took leave, and when he returned he had orders to
Vietnam with the approval of the captain. I took his orders, and so
how so then were you on your way? It was I actually had to
wait until I was I turned eighteen years old, so I did thirty days
leave. I did training, survival school, and originally reported to Naval support
activities Denaying and then to Denaying Harbor Patrol. And what unit were you attached
to at this point? It was it was Denaying Harvor Patrol and our job
mainly was to operate forty five foot picket boats. I was striking for gunner's
mate, so I had I was in charge of a twin fifty caliber machine
gun mount It was everything that I wanted it to be. Loved being on
the boats. Why, I don't know, I don't know. I mean
I got out of the Navy and got my coastguard license and I spent forty
five years on San Diego Harbor as a licensed captain, So I boats were
in my blood. So tell me about the assignment of the boat. What
was what was the job you as a crew were doing, and your specific
job. Okay, we had we had a crew of five, and my
specific job was gunner. We were assigned to patrol not only Denaying Harbor and
all of the Navy ships that were anchored out there or doing gunfire support out
there, but we also patrolled the Denaang River, which took us into downtown
Denang, and our main job there was to search the junks that were crossing
the river for contraband what type of response did you get from them from the
Vietnamese? It was that was you know, that was expected. Didn't really
have any incidents or anything. We did find a Russian AK forty seven in
a rice bowl in one of the junks, and we arrested the two occupants.
We did have South Vietnamese police officers with us on the boat. What
type of enemy presents was around there? There was really not a lot of
obvious enemy presents. We did have several incidents, the most The largest one
I remember was the bridge ramp. The ramp where the yfus would go to
offload their ammunition and what have you. Did get hit with a couple of
what we call sappers and basically the whole ramp area blew up. We lost
about ten sailors net incident, and it was kind of shocking. But what
it was the way it was. Things go along and they seem, okay,
I let your guard down a little bit, and then this happens.
So what was the size of your crew on the These were forty five foot
picket boats, and we had a captain, an engineer, a gunner,
and two seamen. Your nickname is gunner. So how often did you have
to engage with the gun Was that fairly rare? Fairly common? How would
you well down in denaying? It was rare, and most of it was
gunfire support for the Marine Corps on the other side of the harbor. They
would give us a coordinates and we'd we'd lay in a little bit of fifty
caliber rounds to help them out and they would adjust our fire. My nickname
really came when I transferred up to the Quabet Patrol, which was about three
miles from the DMZ up in the northern part of South Vietnam. Pretty much
action all the time, and well, I won't say all the time,
because there was enough time in between to put you a little on edge.
Daytime we were escorting the supply boats to Dongha and during the night we were
interdiction for North Vietnamese Army trying to get across the river. I can see
why that would be a significant fire spot, so talk to me about what
that's like. That type of frequency in combat. I almost would have preferred
more frequency. There was enough time in between where you kind of wondered whether
you would react the same way. It's the first fire fire, the very
very first one that you remember, and the one thing I do remember about
it is being scolded by the boat captain after we were done about my rate
of fire. It was a little a little too much, a little too
often, and tended to get the barrels on the machine gun a little glowing.
But in all honesty, because it's it's a group of people. Two
Marines for Navy. The two Marines augmented us with the searchlight, an infrared
searchlight, and it was nice to have them on board because they're training in
how to handle weapons. I would say much more extensive than ours was what
were you expected to do as a gunner? If what you had done was
too much? What did he want you to do? Well? It just
judicious use of your ammunition is the way I would put it. It didn't
take much, just a little. You're a little anxious your little tents.
You're not really paying attention. You have tracers coming towards you. You know,
I don't know if you're really trying to keep them from hitting you or
what have you, but you just you just are a little more excited.
I would say within two or three weeks, I was pretty calmed down.
Did most of the enemy presents come from the water or from the shore?
It was definitely shoreline and there was always North Bank. We did get ambushed
one time. They had presence on the South bank in two different locations and
presence on the North Bank in two different locations. So when we the standard
procedure once anything would happen would be to clear the area and then get all
of the equipment that we're going to be using to rendezvous and make our firing
runs. So U the one time that they were on both sides of the
bank, we got a little bit snookerd and we called in close air support,
which we received from the South Vietnamese Air Force A one sky raiders,
and they took care of them. How wide is the river? So how
far apart were view from them as they tried to ambush you? Well,
the narrowest part of the river, which is where they were, not like
what's down in the in the Mekong Delta at all. These are these It's
a pretty wide river. I would say it's probably at the narrowest part maybe
an eighth of a mile wide, to the widest part maybe a half mile
to you know, it was it was a wide river. It was the
banks weren't that overloaded, so it wasn't at all the delta. Um they
had plenty of brush to to hide themselves in. But these these were primarily
North Vietnamese Army regulars. These were not What kind of protection did you have
on the boat as you're exchanging fire? For me, it was there were
there were twin armored shields on either side of the weapon, and then we
had flat jackson in helmets. What's the most harrowing um experience that you had
was at the ambush? You know, I don't I don't recall something that
would that I would describe that way harrowing um. It it became not routine,
but it became a matter of how we operated once once an engagement would
start. So it wasn't as bad as as you might think. But I
really can't don't remember anything that just kind of stands out. What kind of
speed would you be going on a patrol before you would be engaging, Probably
probably between as slow as four knots too, maybe ten or twelve. And
how fast could you reload your weapon? I had quite a few boxes of
fifty caliber ammunition right near me, so as I was getting low, resupply
was actually pretty quick, so I got pretty good at it. And how
how did the communication work on the boat since it was forty five ft long?
Could you all pretty much holler to each other or did you have different
ways of communicating especially when things got a little heated. Now, the boats
up in Quaviette were actually about thirty two feet. They were the old LCpl
steel boats. Probably saw action in Normandy, so loud engine, loud gunfire,
anybody that needed to get anybody's attention could I got direction quite a bit
from the skipper. We have pretty good communications. As you think back on
your service, what specific events come to mind when you think back on those
years. Is it that for a skirmish like you mentioned, Is it another
instance? Is it when you finally laugh? What moments are most vivid still
in your mind? The one that and I still am in touch with members
of my gun gang on the USS Jewett, the last ship I was on,
our Captain Sam Gravely, great skipper enjoyed being part of his crew.
Sam found out when we were down in Wellington, New Zealand, that he
was admiral select He was the first Black to make admiral in the US Navy,
and that pretty much stands out as something that was very significant in our
career because it was it was not just that he made admiral, but it's
it's the fact that our captain made admiral and he definitely deserved it. What
made him a good captain poise, calm, cool, He was a large
man, I remember him sitting on the stern of the Jewet and when we're
in port in Hong Kong and fishing. But he was a good six foot
six barrel chested, you know, very imposing. I do remember one incident
where he was on sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge and there was
a Russian troller in the way of one of the aircraft carriers that was refueling.
So we were sent to kind of engage the troll and let him know
that we'd appreciate him to move. And it's just the way he uh,
you know. We he loaded up the missile launchers, he had the five
inch gun trained on the troller, and we went as close as we possibly
could and sending messages to the trawler, you know, it's time for you
to leave. And he just sat in that chair like he was, you
know, casually watching the sunset and very calm, very cool. I assume
the troller moved, Yes, yeah, he moved rather rapidly. He didn't
need a whole lot of extra encouragement. No, tell me more about your
time aboard the Jewet. Jewet was I came aboard as a third class petty
officer and was put in charge of a three inch fifty gun mount. We
did a lot of a lot of gun drills and things like that, so
I got to fire the three inch quite a bit, and then they put
me on as mount captain for a five inch fifty four. With that one,
it seems to me we did a couple of gunfire supports for the Marines,
oddly enough, right off the coast of where I had served on patrol
boats. In particular, we were involved in the Sante Pow Camp raid,
where the Green Berets had infiltrated a Pow camp that was right next to Hannoi
and the purpose was to rescue the POWs. Unfortunately, the North Vietnamese had
already taken the POWs out and relocated him to the Hannoy Hilton, so even
though it was a successful raid, we didn't get to complete the mission by
getting the POWs. Were the troops very cognizant of the POWs as the war
one on. I'm sure you knew about them, but was that a motivating
factor to a win the war and b make sure they got liberated as soon
as possible. I don't remember it being something that we talked about a lot
until I got home. Once I got home and got out of the service,
the POWs became something that I kept an eye on, and I was
grateful for their release. It's been since then. Here on the Midway.
When I first got here, there were four pilots that had been POWs,
Ev Southwick, Will and I can't remember this name, but Ev and Will
have since passed away. And the nice thing about it, and talking with
Ev about the Sante raid here, I was thinking that we had failed at
something, and he kind of set me straight. He said, you know,
because of that raid, they moved the POWs into the Hanoi Hilton and
for the first time we had, you know, cell mates and people that
we could we could interact with. So he said it was a good thing
for us, and that kind of made me feel better. But knowing the
POWs here in what they went through, it it's still something that's on my
mind. You had many different roles in theater over there, you had you
did you were on smaller boats and in different parts of the country, one
with less action and one with a significant amount of action. And then what
we just talked about from the Jewet and so what did that experience do for
you, and working with other people and being in combat and a lot of
different type of situations. Probably the best thing it did for me is I
ultimately became a San Diego firefighter, and and I think it was it was
the experience that I had on the boats in different situations, both dangerous and
not so dangerous. I think that's what made me a good firefighter. I
know it's what prompted me to want to become a paramedic. And unfortunately San
Diego did not have paramedics in the fire department at that time. But I
think my Navy service served me all the way through my life. How are
you treated when you came home? Well, I tell people on the Midway,
I don't remember too much about the day to day patrols that I went
on. I can think real hard and picture them, but I remember every
single step I took in the San Francisco airport. When I came home.
It was shocking. Here we are, we didn't know anything about this.
We come home home, and all of a sudden we're faced with gauntlets and
ticket lines and people yelling at you and calling us baby killers. I didn't
even know where that came from. I had captured a Russian SKS rifle and
went through the process of getting permission to bring it back home as a war
trophy. Back in those days, when you did that, you had to
carry it out in the open. So here I was in uniform walking through
the San Francisco Airport with a weapon, So it drew an awful lot of
the shouts and screams. Looking back on it, I don't know how I
feel about it. I don't know what prompted America to go this route.
So it's it's it's kind of a confusing time, but it was not pleasant.
I'm very glad to see that veterans retreated a whole lot better today.
Did it make you think any differently at that time about your own service or
was it just confusion over how they got to that point where they were so
hostile? No? No, I never doubted anything in my service, never
doubted the Vietnam War. I didn't get into the politics of it. I
was assigned to do a job, and I did a job a gunner.
When you think back to the different things that you did and the impact that
it made on the war effort, the success along the DMZ. Hearing that
story from the former pow about how what you thought was unsuccessful was successful.
You did a job, and you did it very well. Ultimately, the
end result of the war was not what we wanted. But when you know
that you did your very best, how does that make you feel? I
feel proud. I don't look at it that we lost the war, I
really don't. I believe wholeheartedly we won every engagement. You know. It's
it's the things that should stay out of war that caused the problems, and
that's the little thing called politics. I have no regrets. I volunteered for
everything. I asked for what I got. As oddly as it might sound,
I have very good memories. You also spend time later in the US
Coast Guard Reserve. Why did you make that decision and what kind of things
did you do in that role? When I was a firefighter, the Coastguard
had a great idea of bringing metropolitan firefighters on board as reservists in a special
firefighting unit that would be trained to do shipboard firefighting in different harbors, with
San Francisco, La San Diego, and I think up in Seattle. It
didn't didn't go over real big because there weren't that many incidents of shipboard fires,
but we report securityman. The great thing about is I got to get
back on small boats again doing patrols in the bay, and I got to
know about another service, which you know, looking back on it wouldn't have
been a bad alternative. I couldn't have gotten the Navy. You were telling
me before we started recording about how even after that, your your your love
for the water is perhaps the greatest thing he took out of your time in
the Navy. Yeah. I Unfortunately, I've lost my mobility due to age
in Orange the exposure, and that has put an end to my my time
on the on the water. But I enjoyed it. I was the chaseboat
skipper for Team Dennis Connor during three America's Cup up. Um. I got
to do the ultimate in sailing. I was a competitive sailor out on the
bay and skipper the old twelve meter stars and stripes here in San Diego.
So um, Yeah, the water, the water was my life. And
you know Midway's taken taking that over and I get to sit up on the
deck and watch everybody else enjoy it. That's fantastic. I didn't know about
the America's Cup part. That's that's about the pinnacle of sailing as you can
get right there. Yeah, I was. I was very pleased when Bill
Trinkle, Dennis Connor's right hand man, asked me if I wanted to join
the team, and I said, well, aren't I two olds? No?
No, I mean as chaseboat drivers, So uh so it was great.
I was. I was back driving a twenty eight foot inflatable which went
every time a raceboat went somewhere. That was the engine, so I had
to go. We spent a summer of ninety two in New York doing sponsorship
fulfillment. Actually got to meet one of our future presidents, Donald Trump,
during that We took him out sailing. So yeah, sailing has been a
huge part of my life. Were you part of the team that got the
cut back in eighty seven? No, I'm afraid not, but that's I
do remember staying up till two in the morning to watch that, and it
was really great to ultimately be working with all of those guys that did that
fantastic event. What are you most proud of from your time in service.
I think probably the fact that I participated in the conflict of the day and
I did it as a volunteer. I think that's important. I would like
to see a day where anytime we send Americans towards it's my volunteer. I
think we'd get enough, you know. But I'm I'm I'm proud of all
my service. And lastly, since we're I board the USS Midway, how
did you get associated with the museum? And what does it mean to you
to be here every day? Oh? When the Midway came in, and
I think it was two thousand and six, I was managing the Marriott Marina
just right up the street and I saw them bring it across to the pier,
came and inquired became a member. And what I would do is,
since I'm restricted to a wheelchair, I had my lunches at the marina.
I would get a sandwich and drive down the boardwalk to the Midway, and
because I was a member, I'd go on board and eat my sandwich on
the flight deck. When I decided to retire from Marriott, I was up
on the flight deck and one of the docents that I had met asked me,
what are you gonna do when you retire? And I said, I've
been active with the Maritime Museum. Maybe I'll help them out or something.
He just laughed. He said, why don't you come over here and become
a docent? So best move I ever made my life. I can't begin
to tell you how much it means to be part of the Midway, the
camaraderie, all of the people that are on board that both served in the
military and didn't serve in the military and just want to be a part of
it. Getting to know carrier operations, getting to know the pilots that were
just streaks in the sky when I was in Vietnam. It's been incredible.
It's been incredible, Gunner. I can't thank you enough for your service to
our country, and I know it continues as you educate people who come to
the museum about not only the Midway but the military in general. Telling your
story. I'm sure for those that let's stop to talk with you. So
thank you for that and thank you for your time today. We truly appreciate
it. Thank you very much. Thank you for doing this. Ers is
great. Oh you're welcome. Ken Gunner. Geyer, a US Navy veteran
and a US Coastguard Reserve veteran, served in the Vietnam War. I'm Greg
Corumbus and this is Veterans Chronicles. Hi, this is Greg Corumbus and thanks
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