Friday, January 16, 2015

Vietnam Christmas and End of War



USS O'Callahan finds itself mostly near the DMZ on the gunline in the closing days of the Vietnam War. Recordings of News Broadcasts and seasonal music from the ship's radio plus radio and internal ship chatter during gunfire missions. Some photos are added for period reference. More about the ship at www.ussocallahan.org . THE NEWS reports give a very good sense of what was going on at the time. The actual cease fire occurred January 27 ZULU time - Jan 28 Our time - 1973. It is fascinating to listen to the history being; made on the radio - when many of the topics were actually concerning where my ship was at the time. Note the radio broadcasts of both news and music were simply recorded off the radio in the wardroom of the ship. There are some occasional attempts at dark humor. The Radio chatter and on board ship sound powered phone chatter might be hard to understand but if you catch it - at one point we note a point of a radio report from USS Turner Joy, having fired the VERY LAST ROUND of the war prior to the Cease Fire. My ship was at that point in time OFF the gunline and in reserve and refueling or resupplying perhaps 10 miles out in the Gulf. Our very last round was fired perhaps three to five hours earlier.

MORE AFVN radio is brought back to memories by THIS superb radio broadcast. See if you can get it sponsored to air in your area !  http://www.1330weby.com/index.php/afvn-details-mnu

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