But I have to mention I had a wife and three children who provided a lot of support. I don’t think many people had the opportunity to do something like that. I joined the Navy at the recruiting office in Framingham and I retired from the Navy in 1975 running that same office. “My boss said he could make arrangements for me to become the recruiting officer in Framingham, Mass. Then he was offered the perfect job to round out his 22-year Naval career. By the time he returned from Vietnam he had decades in the service and was thinking about getting out. It was much better in Boston,” he said remembering the incident more than 40 years ago.Ĭharles joined the Navy in 1950, right out of high school. “My wife, Martha, sister-in-law and brother were there to meet me. Things improved radically for the returning warrior when he stepped off the plane in Boston.
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having a drink, but none of the civilians would talk to you.
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I was in a lounge in the airport at 2 a.m. We got showered and shaved and changed into our dress uniforms. “On the way home I wound up in the civilian airport in San Francisco. It wasn’t just me, everybody knew something wasn’t right. “Toward the end of my stay, I had the feeling things in South Vietnam just weren’t good. Some 15 months later the country got run over by North Vietnam,” he said. He was a member of US River Division 593. “During my last two years I had four more fights with the NVA and VC while serving on South Vietnamese river boats.”Ĭharles took part in some secret adventures he doesn’t talk about in Cambodia and other places involving Navy Seal teams.Ĭharles made more than 300 combat tours as a “Brown Water Sailor” up the rivers and canals of Vietnam searching for the enemy. “We engaged the enemy 14 times during the first year I was over there,” Charles said. We nosed all three of our boats into the bank and hit them with our. “Another time we were returning to base and got a call that an ARVN unit (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) had come under siege. We caught 35 of them in the river about midnight.” “We dropped flares on them first, then we hit them with our machine guns. It was 9:30 at night when they realized the NVA and VC were moving across the river with supplies. The fighting lasted 15 or 20 minutes altogether, he said.Ĭharles’ first enemy encounter came a month early, In December 1969, when he and two other PBR boat crews were as far up the Upper Saigon as they could go. The copters blanketed the area with heavy fire and the enemy attack was suppressed.” They were hidden in the jungle along the river bank,” Charles explained. All we could see of the enemy was where their fire was coming from. “Then we nosed our bows into he river bank an came right at them with our twin. “As we were returning fire all three boats executed a turn in the river and came back by the NVA and VC and fired on them some more. “After the enemy attacked with shoulder-fired rockets it opened up on us with heavy automatic weapons fire,” he said. Petty officer Everett Charles of El Jobean, Fla. We were very lucky no one on our boat was hit by enemy fire.Ī PBR River boat charges up the Grand Canal searching for North Vietnam and Viet Cong troops transporting military supplies into South Vietnam in the early 1970s. “The river was maybe 100 foot wide where we were attacked.
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“It was shortly after 4:30 p.m., we had just left base camp and were probably no more than a mile up the river, when we came under heavy enemy rocket attack,” the the 80-year-old former petty officer 1st class recalled. They could reach speeds of 36 knots, run in six inches of water and turn on a dime. 50 caliber machine-guns and five different kinds of grenades. These boats were heavily armed with multiple. Three PBRs left their Bhu Cong base camp for a five day combat incursion up the river. The firefight Charles recalls most vividly happened in January 1970 while he was skippering a PBR on the Upper Saigon. During the Korean War he served as an electricians mate aboard the destroyer escort USS Basilone on the east coast of the United States. He received a Bronze Star for valor for his combat patrols on the Upper Saigon River, Grand Canal, Vieh Canal, Rung Sat Special Zone, and the Upper Mekong River in Cambodia the accompanying citation notes. River Division 593,” a superior wrote in a Navy performance evaluation. “Officer Charles had no peers as a boat captain in U.S.
PBR MOBILE BASE ONE VIETNAM 1968 PLUS
He made 216 combat patrols as captain, plus an additional 89 patrols into enemy territory as an advisor aboard South Vietnamese gun boats during the three years he served over there. Photo providedĮverett Charles of Vizcaya Lakes mobile home park in El Jobean skippered a PBR (Patrol Boat River) that prowled the Upper Saigon River hunting for North Vietnam Army regulars and Vietcong irregulars moving enemy supplies into South Vietnam. He joined in 1950, right out of high school. Everett Charles early in his Navy career.