The Spechtacle

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Month: November 2008 (Page 1 of 2)

Lam Son 719

November 21, 2008 / / 0 Comments

I was a member of a DARRS team in Vietnam. The acronym DARRS stood for Division Advisory Radio Research something or other. The whole Army Security Agency thing was disguised in Vietnam as Radio Research for some legal reason. Our outfit had 10 guys in it, with your associated vietnamese counterparts, attached to the 1st ARVN Division, and we provided intelligence support to this vietnamese division. At the time I worked out of the back of a 5 ton truck, with huge maps of northern I Corps, and a rat rig (radio module) attached to the side. I kept track of order of battle (who and where everyone was) and gave intelligence breifings to the vietnamese General. Our truck was parked in the middle of the Forbidden City in the center of Hue, and was like being in the middle of a National Geographic article.

Sometime around february 1971 we got orders to move our operation to Dong Ha, on route 9, to support the Arvn’s operation in Laos to cut the Ho Chi Minh trail. This operation was called Lam Son 719, and was mainly a vietnamese deal as we weren’t allowed in Laos. Other American outfits reoccupied Khe Sanh, which was down route 9 towards Laos. It was cold, rainy, and we had to go up Highway 1 thru Dynamite Alley, a stretch of road the zips liked to bury bombs in. We only lost 1 jeep.

Our forward base was like any other base camp in Vietnam. Lots of bunkers to dig, lots of wire to stretch and tents to put up. We usually got mortared every night, just about the time we were getting resupplied, as they had the airstrip zeroed in. We watched the show in lawn chairs, like a Mash episode. One of the guys we called speed ran into the wire the first night we were hit. I think he got a purple heart for that.

The Arvn’s spent about a month in Laos getting beat up, hung down, drug down and generally had their ass handed to them. We went in to get some of our guys out, but the Arvns wanted out to, and overloaded helicopters made the news. Some were brought down by the load. The 1st Arvn Division, for instance, lost every tank, truck and helicopter they had in Laos.

2 weeks later, in downtown Hue, there was a big parade. The 1st Arvn division marched through town with new tanks and trucks. There was a big celebration and we all got medals for our great victory during Lam Son 719. For my participation I got a Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry, with palm.

greg

Grandpa almost got some new false teeth…

November 16, 2008 / / 1 Comment

Back in the 60’s, Art Specht had some bought some ground in Missouri, specifically in the Ozark Mountains. Pa was a real rural guy. He grew up in some hard parts of Cincinnati (I think), but his heart was in the country. He liked growing his own food, and really liked organically growing things.

I remember when I was growing up, he kept getting a local newspaper from close to where the land he owned was. There were stories of the guy who had just shot a brown bear, and a picture of him standing next to his trophy. Lots of stories of encounters with rattlesnakes and the like. Pa loved that stuff.

I also remember his story of the country store. He said there was a big barrel in the corner filled with false teeth, twenty five cents each. You could root through that barrel till you found some that fit. He was all for it, till Ma found out that they were taken from people before they were buried.

Those Missourians were practical people!

greg

Anzani… Cool Engines… but not as cool as they could be…

November 9, 2008 / / 0 Comments

The Anzani 3 Cylinder engine made Louis Bleriot famous. He was the first guy to fly nonstop across the English Channel. Back in the early days of flight, having an engine light enough, with enough horsepower to get an airplane off the ground, was the Holy Grail. It was a 3 cylinder semi-radial engine and had 25 horsepower, not a lot, but enough.

Bleriot designed and built the type XI in 1908, but fitted the Anzani engine in 1909. Happy with the results, he decided to try for the British Daily Mail prize of 1000 pounds for the first crossing of the English Channel by air. The problem for Bleriot was the engines problems with overheating… it could be guaranteed to run at least 20 minutes. But that wouldn’t be enough.

He took off on July 25th, 1909 and headed for England. He handed his watch to his friend and said that there was no use ruining a perfectly good watch (since he probably was going to ditch in the channel). All went well till about 20 minutes into the flight when the engine overheated and locked up. As the plane slowly descended to the channel, a rainstorm blew up, cooling down the motor, which Bleriot restarted and finished his flight into history.

greg

2 Shots in Anger… My Chanh River… Easter ’72

November 9, 2008 / / 0 Comments

Things were heating up in 1972. Most American troops had left and the NVA were getting bolder. When I got to Vietnam in October of 1970 there were 500,000 American troops in the country. Now there were 5,000… not a lot of people to watch your back.

Not too far away the NVA had advanced to the My Chanh river during their Easter offensive. I was hanging around with some Time and Life guys, who were on their way up to the river to cover the story. Our side of the river was covered by Arvns (Army of the Republic of Vietnam), the other side was manned by how many? Who could know, you never saw them. Could have just been one guy banging away with an old Maxim gun.

Then things got started… a couple of Cobra’s made a run at the other bank from behind us. A rocket fell short, blowing up a couple of Vietnamese Marines to my right. A smoking shell splinter flew past my head and lodged in a nearby tree. I dug it out, the threaded portion burning a pattern into my hand. That was my good luck charm for the rest of the war.

The old Maxim was still methodically chugging along, when a F-4 came screaming out of the sun. Funny how they look like they’re heading right for you! The other bank exploded in a wave of Napalm. I’d had enough sightseeing. I held my rifle over my head and fired 2 shots at the opposite bank.. then split.

The South Vietnamese held the line at that river till ’75. Without our backing, the end was inevitable.

greg

Beading for Life!

November 8, 2008 / / 0 Comments

My wife, Kathy, likes to bead. She knits some, and has some other interests, but beading is tops. The advantages are saving money.. cheaper than buying jewelry, and also, it’s unique. No two peices are the same… and they look good too!

Lately, she’s been using beads from BeadForLife.

This is a non-profit started by two women from Colorado who, while wandering around Uganda, came across a women selling home made beads. These were made from old magazines and newspapers and were really cool. They brougt some home, and they were a hit! It is now a 3.5 million a year venture!

There are 300 Ugandan women making these beads, with more in training. It’s not hard to imagine this income will make a difference in their lives. So get some beads.. not only will you do some good but will look good too!

greg

New Guy.. Oct 1970.. Republic of Vietnam

November 7, 2008 / / 0 Comments

October.. It’s still hot as can be… just got off the plane.. walked into a wall of air so thick you can feel it pressing on you… I was waiting in the replacement hooch for a ride upcountry to our Darrs unit.

Some guy in faded fatigues and a 3 day growth on his chin drove up in a M151A jeep. He was our ride. Our fatigues were bright green, as opposed to his, faded, rotted around the collar.. and stained where you sweat. This guy looked like he’d been here for a hundred years, tho in reality he was just finishing up his one year tour.

“You guys going to Hue?”… We nodded yes, and got in the jeep. “Those guns loaded? This ain’t exactly Disneyland, you know…” Now I was freaked out. He took off while we scrambled through our duffel bags looking for our bandoliers…

I heard a machine gun empty next to my head! Both of us new guys were out of the jeep before we knew what hit us… I was laying on my back, looking up at the sun wondering what the hell happened… when the old guy came into view over me… smiling… “We’re never gonna get back if you guys keep falling out of the jeep!” That son of a bitch aimed his M-16 at the sky and empied a clip while we were scrambling for ammo..

A year later… I had to go down to Phu Bai to pick a up new guy for our Darrs unit. I had a 3 day growth of beard and my fatigues were practically rotted off me. This kid looked like he was in grade school… “That gun loaded?…”

greg

2009 Saabs fresh off the truck!

November 5, 2008 / / 0 Comments


11/5/08
We just got a load of nine new Saabs… our lot has been empty for the last 3 weeks for the changeover, but now they’re rolling out. Now all we have to do is sell them, I hope Obamo winds up the economy!

But this post isn’t about that… It’s about quality control. All carmakers have made giant strides in the last 10 years, but especially in quality control. I checked in these 9 cars we got this morning, looking for damage and any initial problems. How many problems did we have. None. And normally we usually don’t have any problems. They all started, everything worked.. and nothing was falling off of them. The truck driver didn’t even scratch anything.

It wasn’t like that back in the eighties when I started working on Saabs. They would flood trying to start them. They rattled, stuff was left off, and when you prepped a car that was sold, you had to literally tighten all the bolts under the car! And the quality of a European car was much better than American cars of the time. Those guys in Chevy dealers were putting water pumps on cars before they were sold.

I guess it was the Japanese who brought everyone’s game up. It’s a good thing too. It’s a pleasure to watch traffic go by and not see a rusty fender in the bunch.

greg

On the Job Training… American Style

November 4, 2008 / / 0 Comments


Poor Ben… He’s was our clean up guy and all around gopher at a Cincinnati Saab Dealership. Now he’s our parts guy, parts manager, the whole works. He’s been a parts guy for 2 days now.

There isn’t that much to being a parts guy, other than looking up the right part, producing it from a giant bin of shelves, and getting the right price logged onto the right program in the computer. So far he hasn’t done so good, but on day 2, who can complain?

I started fixing cars straight out of the Army in ’73. I needed a job and saw one in the paper. ‘Mechanic needed, will train’. I had a small toolbox and a couple of hand tools, all the other guys in the shop had towering tool boxes with thousands of dollars worth of tools in them. They gave me a lift, pulled a car on it and said “fix it”.

I did and have been doing it ever since. The same will happen with Ben. He might stay with it and might not, but the training will all be the same.

greg

Rolls Royce Merlin.. Serious Engine for Serious Times…

November 3, 2008 / / 0 Comments


The Rolls Royce Merlin engine is argueably the greatest airplane piston engine of all time. It’s what made the Spitfire (The iconic British fighter plane of Battle of Britain fame). During the 30’s the Spit couldn’t get accepted by the British Air Ministry, for the most part because of it’s underpowered engine.. but the Merlin put it on the map.

The engine started out as a 1600 cubic inch, 1000 horsepower engine with evaporative cooling… not so great, but by 1943, with ample supplies of anti freeze from the Americans, and improvements in fuel octane and supercharger design, the engine was easily pumping out 2000 horsepower! And in fighter planes, faster is better…

One of the things that made the Merlin was it’s reliability. It was said to be able to run at full power for 8 hours! This was undoubtedly due to Rolls Royce inventing quality control… they pulled engines off the assembly line and ran them at full power till they blew up, then took them apart and redesigned whatever failed.

This engine was deemed so important to the war effort that Packard in the USA was selected to build it also. The Americans redesigned some parts that didn’t suit them, changed the bearing material, and more imortantly, added their own supercharger. They used a Wright 2-staged supercharger, added intercoolers and aftercoolers.. put it in a P-51 and turned out the best fighter of the war.

After the war, a lot of surplus engines and airframes were sold off cheaply… and started the whole air racing thing. Lot’s of them are flying around today in restored P-51’s and some P-40’s, one P-51 based at the Tristate Warbird Museum just flew over yesterday…

greg

1922 Miller Indy Car…Brand New..

November 3, 2008 / / 0 Comments

In the 20’s Harry Miller built the most beautiful and fast racing cars of the era… won Indy at least 9 times, and Miller’s spiritual offshoot, Offenhauser went on to do more of the same, dominating American open wheeled racing, until the 60’s.

One of these cars is being restored down the road from our shop at Zakira’s. It’s really hard to say if this car is restored or new, as they have all Millers plans and jigs for the car. When it’s done, it will be just as entered at Indy in 1922, but what a work of art. It’s hard to believe you drive this thing, it should be on a wall at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The pic above is the engine sitting in the Machine Tool room getting done up.

It’s no wonder Harry Miller went out of business in the 30’s. He spent way too much time making this thing look good.

greg

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