Veteran Interview with Jay Gregory (D)
(6:31) Mr. Gregory tells about his service in the Navy during the Vietnam War and describes the artillery used on his ship.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library Interview with Jay Gregory June 15, 2011 Florence, Alabama Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood Clip 4 Clint Alley: So, when you went t...
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| Format: | Electronic |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library
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| Online Access: | https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/war/id/167 |
| format |
Electronic |
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| collection |
War Years at Home and Abroad Collection |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
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Florence-Lauderdale County Public Library |
| topic |
Military life |
| spellingShingle |
Military life Veteran Interview with Jay Gregory (D) Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
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Military life Naval operations; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; Artillery (Weaponry); |
| description |
(6:31) Mr. Gregory tells about his service in the Navy during the Vietnam War and describes the artillery used on his ship.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Interview with Jay Gregory
June 15, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 4
Clint Alley: So, when you went to San Diego did you then redeploy back to Vietnam?
Jay Gregory: Yeah.
CA: Okay.
JG: Yeah. Right—couple of weeks after I got there.
CA: Okay, okay.
JG: Yeah.
CA: And it was more of the cruising and the escorting and things like that?
JG: Now, that one, the second trip—the first trip we probably, I don’t know, on the land we maybe fired eight or ten thousand rounds, probably closer to eight than ten.
CA: Okay.
JG: So we spent most of our time chasing aircraft carriers and doing ‘market time’. And we spent—you’ve got your map here.
CA: Yes. Yes.
JG: In the Lind, ah, they don’t have the DMZ on here. Okay, in the Lind we stayed pretty much below Da Nang—
CA: Um-hm.
JG: ―and we went—
CA: There’s the DMZ.
JG: ―yeah, yeah, and we went all the way around, over here there’s an area called the U Minh and we spent quite a bit of time over in here, did a lot of our firing over in there at targets.
CA: Okay. JG: And we spent a lot of time right off the Mekong Delta here playing, you know, doing ‘market time’.
CA: Um-hm.
JG: In the MacKenzie, we spent most of our time between, and I don’t see—I’m looking for Quang Tri on here and I can’t find it. Not on there. We spent, we spent most of our time in ICORP [northernmost military district]—
CA: Um-hm.
JG: ―up to Vinh, which is, the Hai Phong River I believe comes out at Vinh which is a port city.
CA: Okay.
JG: And, and so we spent, the MacKenzie, we spent most of our time up in there—
CA: Okay.
JG: ―and we fired about, relatively speaking, a little bit of, very little carrier chasing on the MacKenzie. We would go carrier chase when we needed to do maintenance.
CA: Yeah.
JG: And we fired 17,400 rounds that trip.
CA: Wow. Okay. So, when you were firing these rounds on land—
JG: Um-hm.
CA: ―was that at military installations or was it like as, ah, sort of, not backup, ah, I’m trying to think of the word.
JG: Yeah. Some, some, something, and then this is why I brought you this picture; you’ve probably never seen one of them. This is a unique picture, the reason I saved it, this is out of this left gun here. This is normal, out of the right gun. This gun barrel was worn out, is the reason it was blowing those smoke rings is there, there was a space around the projectile. A steel bullet has a brass ring around it called a [burlay ??] that fits into the rifling in the barrel and there was a little gap around there, three, four, five thousandths of an inch so it would blow those big rings and one of the kids that worked for me took that picture.
CA: Wow. That’s amazing.
JG: But that’s what we were doing. So we had, on the MacKenzie we had four of them, and on the land we had six. CA: Okay. What was the range of a gun like that?
JG: Ah, it depends. Normal, normal range was about 17,000 — 17,400 yards and that’s, a gunnery mile is 2,000 yards, so 8½ to 8¾ of a mile.
CA: Wow.
JG: Um, then later on they invented something called a, a rocket assisted projectile for the 5-inch gun and it, it was really cool. And they’re about this long, and of course, they’re about five inches in diameter and they weigh about just short of seventy pounds and these, these had a little deal on the back end, a little aluminum cap back there and went in the, the shell had a barometer inside and when the shell sensed—the barometer sensed that it got to the apex of the ballistic arc and started back down it’d fire this little rocket motor in the back. So with, with rocket assisted rounds, we could go to 26,000 yards which is, you know, thirteen miles.
CA: Wow. Okay.
JG: But, you lose some accuracy ‘cause that rocket, the timing on it wasn’t all that good, so.
CA: Were, were they, were they accurate most of the time or were they maybe off a couple of yards every now and then?
JG: Depends on who’s shooting.
CA: Oh, yeah?
JG: I was very accurate. Well and that’s, that comes back to, you see, see right there on the side there’s an ‘E’.
CA: Um-hm.
JG: That’s a, a gunnery ‘E’ for excellence, and so you’d, you’d have contests every year and the guys that could shoot the best, we, we always shot, all three of the ships I was on, we shot. That's what we were there for.
CA: Wow.
JG: And, now, ah, one time we were training Marines and I stuck a round right in the bunker with the Marines and they had a, a big old safe in there, they all dived inside the safe and could, and there were—we could put, if we really worked at it, we could get about forty rounds in the air before the first one hit, if we were shooting at a long enough range and so we were, we had more than one round in the air when the first one hit, so, you know, I just, you can’t get them back. So, you know, stop everything and take pictures of the computer and you know, listen to the tape recordings and all that and it turns out that this young Marine spotter had set his magnetic compass on top of his radio.
CA: Oh, no.
JG: And, of course, that affects what direction the compass is pointing so the, the information, he was ge—, ah, giving us was, was totally, totally bogus.
CA: Oh, no.
JG: I’ll give you a gunnery lesson.
CA: Yeah.
JG: Shore line. Ship. Marine, okay? Target. Well, I’m gonna make it so it’s right angles. Okay. If this is north, all right, he’s looking west. I’m looking north. All right? So if he says, “Left a hundred, add a hundred,” to me that’s ‘drop a hundred, left a hundred’.
CA: Yeah.
JG: Okay? And you have a, they use a circular slide rule called an is-was to do that calculation. So, if he’s got his compass sitting on top of his radio and it’s 15˚ off, then this calculation is completely off.
CA: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. My goodness.
JG: So, but things like that, but other than that we, we never did anything bad. |
| title |
Veteran Interview with Jay Gregory (D) |
| titleStr |
Veteran Interview with Jay Gregory (D) |
| author |
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
| author_facet |
Florence-Lauderdale Public Library |
| id |
FLCPLwar167 |
| url |
https://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/war/id/167 |
| thumbnail |
http://cdm15947.contentdm.oclc.org/utils/getthumbnail/collection/war/id/167 |
| _version_ |
1705462192927670272 |
| spelling |
Veteran Interview with Jay Gregory (D)Naval operations; Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975; Artillery (Weaponry);(6:31) Mr. Gregory tells about his service in the Navy during the Vietnam War and describes the artillery used on his ship.Florence-Lauderdale Public LibraryFlorence-Lauderdale Public LibraryJay Gregory2011-06-15sound; textaudio/mp3; text/pdfEnglishPart of the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library CollectionMay be protected by U.S. Copyright laws. Contact the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library for permission to use.Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Interview with Jay Gregory
June 15, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 4
Clint Alley: So, when you went to San Diego did you then redeploy back to Vietnam?
Jay Gregory: Yeah.
CA: Okay.
JG: Yeah. Right—couple of weeks after I got there.
CA: Okay, okay.
JG: Yeah.
CA: And it was more of the cruising and the escorting and things like that?
JG: Now, that one, the second trip—the first trip we probably, I don’t know, on the land we maybe fired eight or ten thousand rounds, probably closer to eight than ten.
CA: Okay.
JG: So we spent most of our time chasing aircraft carriers and doing ‘market time’. And we spent—you’ve got your map here.
CA: Yes. Yes.
JG: In the Lind, ah, they don’t have the DMZ on here. Okay, in the Lind we stayed pretty much below Da Nang—
CA: Um-hm.
JG: ―and we went—
CA: There’s the DMZ.
JG: ―yeah, yeah, and we went all the way around, over here there’s an area called the U Minh and we spent quite a bit of time over in here, did a lot of our firing over in there at targets.
CA: Okay. JG: And we spent a lot of time right off the Mekong Delta here playing, you know, doing ‘market time’.
CA: Um-hm.
JG: In the MacKenzie, we spent most of our time between, and I don’t see—I’m looking for Quang Tri on here and I can’t find it. Not on there. We spent, we spent most of our time in ICORP [northernmost military district]—
CA: Um-hm.
JG: ―up to Vinh, which is, the Hai Phong River I believe comes out at Vinh which is a port city.
CA: Okay.
JG: And, and so we spent, the MacKenzie, we spent most of our time up in there—
CA: Okay.
JG: ―and we fired about, relatively speaking, a little bit of, very little carrier chasing on the MacKenzie. We would go carrier chase when we needed to do maintenance.
CA: Yeah.
JG: And we fired 17,400 rounds that trip.
CA: Wow. Okay. So, when you were firing these rounds on land—
JG: Um-hm.
CA: ―was that at military installations or was it like as, ah, sort of, not backup, ah, I’m trying to think of the word.
JG: Yeah. Some, some, something, and then this is why I brought you this picture; you’ve probably never seen one of them. This is a unique picture, the reason I saved it, this is out of this left gun here. This is normal, out of the right gun. This gun barrel was worn out, is the reason it was blowing those smoke rings is there, there was a space around the projectile. A steel bullet has a brass ring around it called a [burlay ??] that fits into the rifling in the barrel and there was a little gap around there, three, four, five thousandths of an inch so it would blow those big rings and one of the kids that worked for me took that picture.
CA: Wow. That’s amazing.
JG: But that’s what we were doing. So we had, on the MacKenzie we had four of them, and on the land we had six. CA: Okay. What was the range of a gun like that?
JG: Ah, it depends. Normal, normal range was about 17,000 — 17,400 yards and that’s, a gunnery mile is 2,000 yards, so 8½ to 8¾ of a mile.
CA: Wow.
JG: Um, then later on they invented something called a, a rocket assisted projectile for the 5-inch gun and it, it was really cool. And they’re about this long, and of course, they’re about five inches in diameter and they weigh about just short of seventy pounds and these, these had a little deal on the back end, a little aluminum cap back there and went in the, the shell had a barometer inside and when the shell sensed—the barometer sensed that it got to the apex of the ballistic arc and started back down it’d fire this little rocket motor in the back. So with, with rocket assisted rounds, we could go to 26,000 yards which is, you know, thirteen miles.
CA: Wow. Okay.
JG: But, you lose some accuracy ‘cause that rocket, the timing on it wasn’t all that good, so.
CA: Were, were they, were they accurate most of the time or were they maybe off a couple of yards every now and then?
JG: Depends on who’s shooting.
CA: Oh, yeah?
JG: I was very accurate. Well and that’s, that comes back to, you see, see right there on the side there’s an ‘E’.
CA: Um-hm.
JG: That’s a, a gunnery ‘E’ for excellence, and so you’d, you’d have contests every year and the guys that could shoot the best, we, we always shot, all three of the ships I was on, we shot. That's what we were there for.
CA: Wow.
JG: And, now, ah, one time we were training Marines and I stuck a round right in the bunker with the Marines and they had a, a big old safe in there, they all dived inside the safe and could, and there were—we could put, if we really worked at it, we could get about forty rounds in the air before the first one hit, if we were shooting at a long enough range and so we were, we had more than one round in the air when the first one hit, so, you know, I just, you can’t get them back. So, you know, stop everything and take pictures of the computer and you know, listen to the tape recordings and all that and it turns out that this young Marine spotter had set his magnetic compass on top of his radio.
CA: Oh, no.
JG: And, of course, that affects what direction the compass is pointing so the, the information, he was ge—, ah, giving us was, was totally, totally bogus.
CA: Oh, no.
JG: I’ll give you a gunnery lesson.
CA: Yeah.
JG: Shore line. Ship. Marine, okay? Target. Well, I’m gonna make it so it’s right angles. Okay. If this is north, all right, he’s looking west. I’m looking north. All right? So if he says, “Left a hundred, add a hundred,” to me that’s ‘drop a hundred, left a hundred’.
CA: Yeah.
JG: Okay? And you have a, they use a circular slide rule called an is-was to do that calculation. So, if he’s got his compass sitting on top of his radio and it’s 15˚ off, then this calculation is completely off.
CA: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. My goodness.
JG: So, but things like that, but other than that we, we never did anything bad.http://server15947.contentdm.oclc.org/u?/war,167 |