11 August 1965
Reporting Unit: Bravo Company, 1st Bn, 4th Marines
Generally, all were well marked with bent bamboo or X’s.
A. M-26 grenade wires were cut, grenade was left in place, due to darkness and spoon appeared to be exceptionally lose.
B. Grenade at 424063 was approx 4 inches high and 2 inches in diameter. It was made up of a serrated cast iron body with wooden striker type plug in top. There was hole carved out in top of wooden plug with what appeared to be match heads in small bag or wax paper and string attached. The entire booby-trap was wrapped in oilcloth and tied with string, small eye type hook on bottom was attached to wooden stake driven into ground to hold firmly in place. Entire unit was about 2 or 3 inches off trail set in at 45-degree angle, aimed at ankles.
Trip was small vine about 5 inches above ground with only about 3 inches of wire attached to and on vine and to pull string on grenade.
At this point the trail was overgrown slightly and about 10 inches wide.
DESCRIPTION: Cut wire and string and taped pull string down. Hid booby-trap about 100 meters away in bushes. Did not carry out, due to not knowing if tape would render grenade safe.
C. Punji traps: Of the 3 found on trail, they covered an area of about 9”x9”x9” and were well camouflaged.
Punji trap on side of hill in brush was a pole about 6 foot long with 10 punji stakes tied to it. They were placed in brush so stakes would stick straight to or slightly down. When rising foot for step up hill, the stake goes into top of foot.
This page last corrected 17 September 2011