Members of the newly formed 2nd Platoon were issued M-14 rifles. The M-14 is a great rifle with good range, but it is sizeable and heavy. The ammo is also heavy. An M-14 is especially cumbersome for someone driving a truck. You could poke someone’s eye out just trying to get it out the window if need be. The men began to acquire ‘off-the-books’ weapons which seemed more exotic and more practical. Besides the M-14 rifles they were issued, there were a few M-16 rifles, a couple of M-2 carbines, some M-3 submachine guns, commonly called a ‘grease gun’ because it resembled the tool that mechanics used to grease car bearings, a Swedish K submachine gun and a couple of AK-47 rifles. Okay, maybe ‘more practical’ is a stretch. There were some 45 caliber automatics, 38 caliber revolvers, and 9 millimeter pistols, including a Walther PPK and a Webley 445. The platoon even had a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) which took two men – one to carry the BAR and another to carry the ammo. Anyone who ever watched the TV series, Combat, may recall that Littlejohn, the great big guy, carried the BAR. Up until Tet ’68 most of the platoon’s M-14 rifles were kept in gun bags where they got a bit rusty.
One of the NCOs sold Gary Nowak a 1938 9 millimeter Polish Radom for 50 dollars. It looked just like a model 1911 45 caliber automatic. When he transferred into the 265th RRC, the First Sergeant there made him sell it. He did get his 50 dollars back. He has looked at gun shows in the States and has seen some manufactured during WWII priced upward of a thousand dollars and has been told that one like his would go for at least 1500 dollars.
Dick Henson was issued an M-14, just like everyone else, and carried it until he went home on leave at the end of his initial tour. He turned it in to the Arms Room at Davis Station on his way out of country, but he never bothered to pick it up on his return because he had acquired an M-16 from a friend in Kontum. He carried the M-16 until he left the country permanently and passed it on to someone else in the platoon. When he was processing out, the armorer refused to clear him because he wasn’t turning in his M-14, saying that Dick would have to pay for it. Dick still had his original weapons card, though, which the armorer would have had if the weapon were in Dick’s possession, and the First Sergeant said to forget it.
One of the NCOs had a Thompson submachine gun. The word is that he had a stock of fifty of them and was negotiating a deal to trade them for a U H-1 helicopter and pilot to fly the platoon members around. Supposedly, Saigon got wind of this and nixed the whole idea.
It was probably early in 1970 that U.S. personnel were cautioned not to fire captured AK-47 rifles as they had developed a tendency to explode on firing. It was released years later that, knowing communist forces would return to retrieve whatever they found useful, the CIA had littered battlefields with AK-47 ammo that was rigged to blow up in the user’s rifle. The plan was not to just kill or severely injure a few of the enemy this way but also to make them afraid to fire their weapons and to weaken their trust in their Chinese allies by whom their ammunition was provided.
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