I am squatting on the (175) 2nd from the right with the light green shirt. Ray Mottis (Chicago) is standing. JB Jordan (Texas) 2nd from left. Jerry Fahrenbruch (Nebraska) died 11/2/00 is 3rd from left.
I received several emails, photos and letters written home at the time from Steve Sipos, one of the 8" Artillerymen firing support from LZ Bass for the 1/12th in May of 1968. While serving in the the Fire Direction Center, Steve Sipos helped direct the fire of thousands of rounds and recorded the radio transmissions from the action on the night of 15 May 68.
"We were the 5th Bn 22nd Arty. We formed on the Mojave Desert in June 1967. I was one of the early guys in the battalion. We trained for 6 months. We shipped out of Long Beach on 5 December 1967 on a troop carrier and arrived in RVN on 24 December 1967. Our Operations /FDC was farmed out to various units either in whole or broken down in parts.
"We worked primarily for the 4th Division. I participated with the 4th, 1st Cav , the ROKS, 101st, 173rd Abn, 5th Special Forces and 23rd RVN Division out of Song Mao. We were IFFV artillery. Our patch is IFFV."
LETTERS:
EMAILS from Steve Sipos:
Subj:
Poleikleng
Date:
02/26/2001 10:27:41 PM Eastern Standard Time
From:
To:
Able Scorch 13Tango checking in.
I was with the 5th 22nd Artillery. We moved into Polei Kleng on or about 24 March 1968 and pulled out on or about 19 June 1968. I was with the HHB operations section. We ran all the artillery in the Polei Kleng AO including Brillo Pad and LZ Incoming AKA FSB 14. We were controlling 5 or 6 firing batteries including our C Battery 5th 22nd. We had (2) 175s and (2) 8".I pulled the 7:30 PM to 8:00 AM with 2-3 other guys in my section. We fired thousands of rounds in support of the 4th. I have a tape I made one night in April or May when Brillo Pad was getting hit. Mike 40 , Uniform 40, Uniform 50, 49er Echo, Mike 50.Mike 40 Charlie, Mike 43. We were working with Target 43, November 43 and others. We were firing on grid 950 860 which was just about on top of Brillo Pad. We were taking 122's that we ignored (they were dropping just outside the wire) to keep firing in Brillo Pads direction. I would like to provide a copy of the radio transmissions to your web master. Possibly it could be put up as an audio file.
Please advise if anyone out there is any of the above and who I can copy the tape to.
Thank you,
Steve Sipos, Poughkeepsie, NY
Recorded radio transmissions from the action on the night of 15 May 68 and/or early morning hours of 16 May 68, posted in an auto loading, ASF Streaming Audio Format. ASF Files can be heard on all Internet Explorer 5+ and AOL browsers and many, but not all other browsers. For those with Netscape, simply go on-line with Netscape and then open the Internet Explorer browser and type or copy and paste this URL at the top of the browser: http://1-14th.com/MemSteveSiposTape.html and it should play for you. Our server currently does not support the larger Real Media files, but I'm working on changing that. Be advised, the tape was posted in its entirety. After automatically loading, the first 50 seconds is almost inaudible. The remaining 20 minutes is actual FDC radio traffic from that night, giving us all an idea of the work that went on in the Fire Direction Centers, despite incoming enemy122 rocket barrages, to save our hides so many, many times.
Our special thanks to Steve Sipos for supplying us with this tape, photos and personal documents.
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