FSB Le Loi - Chris Stock W3

Submitted by Editorial team on

Chris Stock describes the work undertaken by W3 Company during their stay at FSB Le Loi, July 1970. 

Transcript

This is for the guys in Whiskey 3 Company.

[Screenshot of map] And we're showing Fire Support Base Le Loi.

And we were there, basically as protection for engineers I think.

[Picture of soldiers building bunkers] We helped build the bunkers and also do patrols from the same place. It was wet season and pretty boggy muddy.

[Pictures of FSB Le Loi under construction] Everything was wrong about the place as far as I was concerned. Just ugly. I don't know whatever happened to that in the end. We were there for about two or three weeks and then we got exchanged for other people. But I think we did some pretty hard work while we were there.

[Picture of soldiers sitting on sandbags] As you can see there's humps and bumps and crap everywhere. If it wasn't for these guys here woulda been hard work, we would never have done it with hammer and shovel.

Why was it in such a mess?

[Picture of earthmoving vehicle] Just because, y'know, it's just red dirt which in the dry season is dust and if ya didn't get dust and the wet season came and it was mud.

[Picture of dirt road inside FSB Le Loi] And look at it, that activity there, you kind of, the guys were trying to protect the place as well as work there.

[Picture of urinal surrounded by corrugated iron] Oh, look at that, the only urinal in the place [laughs].

[Picture of Chris Stock with towel] There's a shot of me, at lease you can see that's a white towel.

[Picture of soldier with M60 machine gun] Roy. Roy Whatarangi. We're playing silly buggers there – we wanted a good shot.

[Picture of soldiers playing volleyball] And we still found time to play these volleyball games. Amazing.

[Picture of food supplies] This was flown in from memory I think, flown in, the meal.

[Picture of soldiers taking shower outside] The only shower in the place, great stuff, yeah luxury.

Beautiful at nighttime.

[Picture of soldiers next to helicopter] And here's the boss come to check us out. He'd be the 6RAR Commanding Officer I'd say.

[Picture of soldiers firing mortar] The boys on the mortars testing in, setting in.

Reference

Words and images: Chris Stock
Interviewing and production: Anaru Dalziel
Soundtrack: Jason McClelland (Loudhaler)

How to cite this page: ' FSB Le Loi - Chris Stock W3 ', URL: https://vietnamwar.govt.nz/video/fsb-le-loi-chris-stock-w3, (Ministry for Culture and Heritage), updated 06-Aug-2014