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Casualty Info
Home Town Santa Clara
Last Address Santa Clara
Casualty Date Sep 28, 1966
Cause Non Hostile- Died Other Causes
Reason Other Accident
Location Quang Nam (Vietnam)
Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Oak Hill Memorial Park - San Jose, California
Other Memories DETAILS OF THE ACCIDENT PROVIDED BY LTJG CHRISTOPHER (CHRIS) WULLE
It was an unfortunate accident. The way the routine worked on this deployment was to load up with supplies and offload either at Cue Viet River offshore or at Da Nang and then return to Okinawa and load up and return and offload. As explained to the crew, while offloading from 2nd Division hatch, SN Reed was one of the line tenders, to keep the load steady, and, for some reason, the 5" nylon line stretched and became so taut that it snapped, and the recoil hit SN Reed and sent him over the hatch and he fell to the bottom of the hold. This was a nite operation. I can't recall if it was during rough weather, when the ship can sway back and forth, we encountered a lot of that. He was helicoptered out - I don't know if he died immediately or later. I believe that the investigation that followed determined that it was an accident and no one was at fault. The BM2 running the offload was devastated. He was a highly respected 20yr+ veteran and I believe that he retired shortly after the cruise. The original picture in the cruise book is not that clear to begin with - kind of shadowy. Sorry for the delay in answering - left work and stopped at store. Can't retire yet. Appreciate your maintenance of his profile. I noticed that you do the same for quite a few others. Many, many thanks.
