When 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines deployed to Okinawa for their six month
"pump", some of us were loaned out to some of the permanent facilities for
the length of the deployment. I was "FAPped" to the Camp Schwab Guard.
Camp Schwab is the northern-most base on the island, (the Northern Training
Area's Camp Gonsalves is the furthest north, but it's not much of a base),
and commands quite a bit of beach, about two miles, overlooking Orowan Bay.
One of the duties of the Camp Guard is to patrol along the beach, looking
for passed out Marines, nationals inside of the fenceline, and couples
playing "patti-cake" where they aren't supposed to be.
During our orientation tour, where the members of the detachment getting
ready to head back to the States take us around and get us "snapped in",
the Guard driver, nicknamed "Crash", was driven in the Guard high back
Hummer. "Crash" treated us with an incredible amount of contempt...
We went down to the beach and got to a place filled with nothing but silt.
We said, "I don't think you ought to try it-Go around..." but "Crash" was
sure he could plow through. He gunned the engine and we barreled in- And
bogged down.
As we watched the nose of the truck sink down at a forty-five degree angle,
up to the windshield, we abandoned ship to stable ground, as "Crash" tried
to use brute force to extricate Hummer. After a while, he decided to
abandon the effort as well. He told us to keep an eye on the truck, and he
went to get help, while we rolled around on the sand howling with laughter.
He came back with the Guard Officer, and an Amtrack retriever. The
retriever was an LVTP7A1 Amphibious Tractor with a tow boom. An LVTP7A1
weighs in at about 23 tons. We watched, amazed at this giant machine, as
the crew chief hooked a tow cable up to, not the lifting shackles, but the
tow pintle of the Hummer. The retriever fired up its engine, and heaved.
The cable pinged a couple of times, and then, with a resounding shriek of
metal, the cross members that the pintle is mounted on impacted the armored
back of the Amtrack.
The Amtrack was undaunted. The crew chief attached the tow cable to the
two lifting shackles on the rear of the Hummer. The leader of our little
band silently made the signal to back away, and we did, stifling our
chuckles.
The Amtrack heaved again, and there was a tremendous CRACK. The aft end of
the Hummer went skidding across the sand, and the front of the truck
vanished into the muck.
We died with laughter at the amazed look on "Crash"'s face as he watched
the ass end of his truck skitter past him. The Guard Officer stood there
at the side of the silt, looking at the bubbled slurping up through the
mud. One last big "blurb-splat" made him lose his composure, and he walked
away, trying not to let us know he was laughing almost as hard as we
were...
It was a great example of how NOT to recover a vehicle...
Have a great day!
Bill
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