The big guns!

As we con­tin­ued train­ing five days a week, week­ends free with pass­es and leisure times spent at the slop chute or off base at the USO, more spe­cial­ized train­ing took place.  We were exposed to map read­ing uti­liz­ing the com­pass, even at night.  Escape and eva­sion.  Ambush.

Even seri­ous train­ing can con­tain an occa­sion­al humor­ous event.  While train­ing at night dur­ing a com­pass course I was attempt­ing to read the com­pass direc­tion on the dim­ly-glow­ing dial while one of my mates backed away from me as I motioned him away, cor­rect­ing his direc­tion as he went.  Suddenly he dis­ap­peared!  Had he been snatched away by some for­est-dwelling crea­ture?  Taken by aliens?  As it turned out he had tum­bled back­ward into a depres­sion in the ground and van­ished from sight.  As I moved to his last seen spot I found him lying very com­fort­ably in the depres­sion, tak­ing advan­tage of a brief respite from our endeav­or as we both laughed at his misadventure.

While every Marine is con­sid­ered a rifle­man, he must also be acquaint­ed with a pletho­ra of oth­er weapons, and those weapons were far less com­pli­cat­ed in the 1960s than they are today.  The abil­i­ty of a Marine to uti­lize a vari­ety of weapons at his dis­pos­al has been a hall­mark of his train­ing and his suc­cess in combat.

One of the largest weapons with which we would become famil­iar was the 75 mm recoil­less rifle.  It’s capa­ble of destroy­ing tanks and for­ti­fied posi­tions at dis­tance.  It is usu­al­ly oper­at­ed by more than one per­son but can be oper­at­ed by an indi­vid­ual once it’s set in place.  It is loaded from the rear and, when fired, exhausts gas­es out the rear.  Training showed us that we must not be behind the weapon when it is fired!

We also fired the bazooka — whose tech­ni­cal name is the 3.5‑inch rock­et launch­er.  This weapon was first used in World War II when it was intro­duced as the 2.36-inch launch­er and was upgrad­ed when larg­er and larg­er tanks (its pri­ma­ry tar­get) were rou­tine­ly being built.  It got the name bazooka from a pop­u­lar car­toon of the era and also a bub­ble gum from the same peri­od. It, too, is a weapon loaded from the rear and also exhausts gasses as it’s fired so the loader must be to the side dur­ing firing. 

I was unusu­al­ly ter­ri­fied on the day I fired the bazooka.  It was a very cold day and the guys who were fir­ing before me were com­ing back from the fir­ing range with red welts on their faces.  The prob­lem was that it was so cold that the pro­pel­lant charge was not being ful­ly con­sumed as the round left the tube and embers were blow­ing back into the faces of the oper­a­tor.  I was nat­u­ral­ly con­cerned about being burned and I can recall quite clear­ly that my knees were lit­er­al­ly – lit­er­al­ly – shak­ing as I shoul­dered it, aimed and pulled the trig­ger.  Fortunately, I was not severe­ly affect­ed by uncon­sumed propellant.

We also got to fire the 81 mm mor­tar, anoth­er crew-served weapon, typ­i­cal­ly requir­ing a two-man crew, one of whom car­ried the tube and one car­ry­ing the base plate, which was the heav­ier of the two loads.  It is also com­mon for most mem­bers of sup­port­ing troops to car­ry extra ammu­ni­tion for this weapon.  It works on a very sim­ple prin­ci­ple.  A sta­tion­ary fir­ing pin in the bot­tom of the tube caus­es a round dropped into the tube to fire just like the round from a rifle or pistol. 

One hairy oper­a­tion of this weapon is in the event of a mis­fire, when the round doesn’t imme­di­ate­ly come fly­ing out of the tube.  The first rem­e­dy is to kick the bot­tom of the tube!  After wait­ing a rea­son­able peri­od of time, the tube is dis­con­nect­ed from the base (a sim­ple oper­a­tion) and, with one crew mem­ber hold­ing his hands around the tube out­let, upend the tube in an attempt to get the round to slide out.  The one hold­ing his hands around the tube out­let must form an open­ing with his hands so that the nose of the round does not touch and is caught between his fin­gers and thumbs form­ing an open­ing.  Safe enough as long as the round doesn’t hit the ground and explode!

Safety is some­thing that is con­stant­ly empha­sized dur­ing train­ing on every weapon, and I can­not recall any mem­ber of our com­pa­ny ever being hurt by a train­ing acci­dent due to improp­er use of a weapon.