Your friends will always remember you. Petty Officer Eugene L. Self served in PCF-9, a "swift boat" patrol craft used for riverine and coastal warfare. On 18 October 1966, PCF-9 was delivering Naval Gun Fire Support, using its 81mm mortar, in support of some U.S. Special Forces operations. Naval mortars, unlike their infantry counterparts, are not fired by dropping rounds into the tube, where they strike a firing pin and are immediately launched. The naval mortar round is inserted into the muzzle, as with the infantry version, but the gunner decides when to fire and does so with a conventional trigger. On this occasion the gun crew had just fired a white-phosphorus round and was loading a high-explosive round when it inexplicably exploded in the mortar tube. The mortar was destroyed and its piggyback .50 caliber machine gun blown overboard. The entire fantail area of PCF-9 was extensively damaged. QM3 Self, BM2 Hubert Tuck Jr, and EN2 Gale Jackson Hays died and and two others were seriously injured in the explosion. Gene Self leading the "Riderless Horse" during the Memorial Day Parade in Carteret, NJ (1965 or 1966). VISIT THE SWIFT BOATS of Coastal Squadron ONE

 

A memorial from his friend, Wes Stokes wstokes@ems.att.com  20 Mar 2001

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