I was a MN3, and I checked into MOMAT 321 in March of 1967, at Yorktown, VA. At that time, Lt. Lyle Syryker was the O-in-C, and Lt. (JG) Toby Horn was the Exec. I was part of Alpha Detachment headed by Stryker, and Bravo Det. was headed by Toby Horn. When I checked in, Bob Rome was our leading first class, and Joe Baldarama was the leading second class.
We didn’t stay there long, by early June, we de-commisioned the mine shop and moved to Charleston, to join 0322 and 0327. One big happy family. Not! I think Joe was shipped to Siggy or Subic, but he did not go with us to Charleston. On the 28th of June we, Det. Alpha, deployed to Mildenhall, England, to begin closing down that bomb dump, and shipping weapons, (MK 39’s I believe) back to Charleston, and begin moving all othe material to Machrihanish, and de-commishion Mildenhall. I don’t know how, but the bomb dump where we were was right in the middle of a farm. We had enough explosives there to rattle windows in London, about 90 klicks away. Det. Bravo was to leave about 6 or 8 weeks later, and we would join-up at Mach. Life was easy in Mildenhall, no duty. The Air Force watched over the place at night for us. The duty section’s only job was to bring fresh water there each day for the coffee and for drinking. No running water there, just a big tank on the roof that the fly boys would fill with one of their fire trucks. That water was only for flushing, and washing your hands. One day, they filled the tank with chemical foam by accident...what a mess! In the beginning, Toby was at Machrihanish, and there was a ton of hand-to-hand going from Mildenhall to Machrihanish, and I always seemed to get tapped to do that.
I must have about 100 hours on a C-47 doing the round trip up the west coast of England, to a R.A.F. base at Balley Kelly in the north of Ireland, up through the Shetlands and down the east coast. The trip took about 12-14 hours. And even though I had a brief case handcuffed to my wrist, as long as you were on that bird, you were part of the crew and had to on- and off-load material.
We began moving material by truck up to Mach. And I got tapped to do most of those runs. On the first trip, there was six of us driving three 5-tons. We had no idea of how to get to Machrihanish and the first night we slept in the trucks on the banks of Loch Lomand. We only had a bottle of gin, so that was breakfast and mouthwash. We got to R.A.F. Machrihanish around lunch time, and being we had nothing to eat since the day before, we blew by Mach, and went straight to Cambletown. The locals were all out to see us, kept the pubs open late that night, and we all got very, very drunk. They put us in taxis, and got us to base that night, although I don’t remember this.
When the move began in earnest, we were loading C130’s and local trains to move the material, along with flat-beds and other trucks we borrowed fron the Air Force at Mildenhall. The one stipulation the fly boys had was that my good buddy, Glenn Troutman (We called him Smokey Moose.) who was a star football player in high school, about 5’ 7”, and about 270 lbs. had to play football for the Air Force on Sundays down in London. On Sundays, Smokey was in the Air Force, and the rest of the week he was Navy. True story...honest-to-God. At the ’92 reunion in Charleston, I asked Stryker why I did all the moves back and forth, did he trust me that much, or just want to get rid of me? He said he didn’t remember, but Smokey, me and a couple of the other boys did have some outlandish times. So I think Stryker was happy to get rid of us. I remember Smokey painting SMOKEY MOOSE’S VEHICLE MAINTENANCE over one of the hanger doors. He was, and still is, a great, fun-loving guy.
By the time we finished the move to Mach., Bravo Det. was there. Thirty of us in barracks made for about 400 I think. (Scuttlebut was that a group of AUW boys were comming there to stay, I don’t know if this did happen or not. Does anyone?) It got to the point that about half of the young ladies of Cambletown were in the barracks every night. You had to get dressed to go to the head.
In the history book, our senior chief, Swede Carlsen called us the Mildenhall Movers, but he had so much trouble with us when Stryker was away in London, I’m sure he really wanted to call us other things. We drove him to drink. Others called us McHale’s Navy we screwed up so much. Hey, I spent my 22nd birthday there, and had a great time. The one thing I feel bad about, is that I had such a great time, and the ground pounders in Nam were catching all the hell, and I never did get to help. We also did a side trip to Glen Douglas for 2 weeks..lived at the Loch Long Hotel and created more hell. The staff of that place was glad to see us leave.
On 13 December, 1967, we flew a C47 to Prestwick, and flew a C141 home, in time for Christmas. What a crazy time with some crazy, but great guys. I wouldn’t trade these memories for anything. Seems to me, that we did everything but work as minemen.
Thanks for listening,
Ed Smith