A few months ago, I began collecting stories about these Rock Ape encounters.
From Bob J
(this is a second hand story, friend of a friend)
An Army unit was out on patrol when they heard screams from their rear guard guy. Fearing the worst from the enemy, they rushed back to find a large ape or monkey on top of him beating the crap out of him. The creature ran away as the other soldiers approached.
From Tom H
(1) We had them often when we were in the jungle. Especially when in triple canopy. Freaky stuff. Hear them outside the perimeter and try to get rid of them by throwing rocks at them, they'd throw the rocks back! I guess they were baboons or some other primate. I think they had red hair. I'm sure my buddies in the company may have stories.
(2) I remember what we called Rock Apes being in our perimeter wire defenses when we were on top of Hill 214 in the Que Son mountains in December '68. This is a pretty vivid memory, but after reading the other stories I don't know if what we experienced was what the legend became. Some sort of primate was out there, we knew it wasn't Charlie and we'd throw rocks at them to get them to leave. They'd throw the rocks back at us - which I though was the basis for the name "Rock Apes." I never gave it much thought as having any Big Foot connections, but that was so long ago and I've never discussed it much - other than with my wife.
(3) It would be interesting to see a story on the Rock Apes that I remember, to better explain the experiences. I know a lot of my Vietnam experiences are foggy/incomplete - my guess is it is partially due to so many years of hiding it all and not discussing it; guess I did pushing it back in the old gray matter a bit too well. But I do remember vividly one particular night (may have been the first night on watch after settling in) the Rock Apes (for lack of a better term - but what we called them) messing with us. We had cleared fields of fire, put out concertina wire and claymores, etc. In triple canopy jungle we'd pop an illumination flare in suspected areas of activity, it was VERY dark there! I swear there were primates of some sort in the trees - no Charlie. Throwing rocks didn't deter them, and they began to throw them back. We didn't want to shoot them, or have them get caught up in the wire. We were in a semi-permanent position, security for an artillery support base so our emplacements and perimeter were pretty elaborate. I had not, as I said, spoke too much about them except to my wife. So when I saw your mail it piqued my curiosity.
From Dave L
(1) My 2 rock ape stories are true. (short tho, so may not be worth much).
First, YES there were rock apes in the mountains around Da Nang. My pal (Marine) Capt. M had one. He was marine liason to Navy Security/Intelligence. The marines found it abandoned as a tiny baby and took it for a pet at the Navy Security base. Somewhere I may be able to dig up a pic of it - it was so small it fit sitting in 2 hands. BUT in a few months time it grew A LOT - and they had to take it to the mountains and let it go before it got completely out of control. His name was WILLIE. The year was 1969.
The other rock ape I just saw on Monkey Mountain, where my Harbor Security boathouse was located, just south of Da Nang city. It was CALLED Monkey Mountain because of the little rock apes that inhabited it. My idiot division guys would sometimes throw old fruit into the trees and see if a critter would come out. After being scared by random gunshots, I put a stop to people whacking away at the occasional ape with M16 fire. The apes were quick and my guys were fairly bad shots so they never hurt one. But they were made to move pretty fast the couple times I saw them. Mostly, they were wild and the adults (esp males) were very strong so we pretty much ordered the troops to stay away from them.
(2) No tails. The only one I saw up close was the baby, which was darker than the one in your picture. The ones in the bushes were typically moving so didn't get a real clear look. If I can ever find the picture of the baby, I'll send you a copy.
(I had sent Dave the photo Jack W sent me from his summer 2012 trip to Vietnam).
From Jack W
There are a bunch of monkeys on top of Ba Na Mountain. In the 1930s the French built a resort on top of the mountain to escape the summer heat in Danang. It was destroyed probably during the 1950s during the French Indochina war. When the Marines were in Danang there was a permanent radio relay station and recon outpost on top of the mountain. It has been recently rebuilt for tourists and is called Ba Na Hills. The new tramway that goes to the top is the longest continuous tramway in the Guiness Book of Records.
Here's a photo Jack took of a monkey at Ba Na Hills on his summer 2012 trip to Vietnam:
From John W
I was with B. Co. 326th Eng. 1st Bde, 101st Abn Division and arrived in country 12 September 1967. After jungle training at Phan Rang I was shipped north to B. Co. 101st Base Camp. They informed me that they had no need for my MOS 62B4p Engineer Construction Supervisor and that I would have to be transferred to a leg outfit or I could stay with the 101st but would have to be converted to a 12B4P Combat Engineer. I opted for the latter. BIG mistake! They issued me all my gear and told me to get ready as my platoon was to deploy to an infantry unit in three days.
I knew NOTHING about being a Combat Engineer; demolition’s, arming and disarming mines and booby traps, tunnel exploring etc. so I assigned the most experienced man in my platoon to be my teacher and sidekick to teach me everything he knew. Anyway I learned very fast as we were assigned to an Infantry Unit that was green and just off the ship and never in combat. Within 90 days we lost 63% of our battalion and they had to retire the colors of the unit and of course my platoon was reassigned to another Infantry unit.
Finally we ended up with an Infantry unit and we were traveling in the mountains in the Central Highlands. It would take us days to get up one mountain and then back down we would go and then back up another one again. Such torture those mountains were. I never would have believed the human body could endure such hardships. I carried 13 canteens of water as I sweat a lot and many times I have seen men beg for one mouth full of water. I actually saw one soldier sell one mouth full of water for $40 to another soldier. Could not believe it but water was more precious that gold. Anyway, a few months had passed and I had gotten my comfort zone as a combat engineer and whenever we would encounter the enemy we combat engineers were automatically reorganized as infantrymen and deployed to the side of the perimeter wherever needed the most.
Since we were assigned to a non-airborne infantry unit that was green we engineers took it upon ourselves to begin walking point. We were always the third or fourth man in line anyway in case we ran into a booby trap or anything unfamiliar or suspicious. So we began walking point most of the time with one of our own engineers as our “slack-man.”
One day we had just descended from a big mountain and were walking along the creek edge and were heading for a knoll to set up for the night as it was getting late in the afternoon and we had to set up, dig in, eat, and prepare for the night. We were about half a mile from this small mound that we could see on the map that we had chosen to spend the night on. I was walking point and I was rounding a curve in the edge of the creek and out of the corner of my eye I saw something black move. I froze immediately turned my eyes towards the black object(s), I thought it was VC in black pajamas at first sighting, my weapon of course was on rock-n-roll, and something very strange was happening with these black objects. They were taking bamboo by the side of the creek and breaking the stalks of it as though it were toothpicks and throwing it to the side grabbing another stalk breaking it and throwing it. My heart was beating out of my chest I would not flinch for I did not want to be detected by them. Then all of a sudden, they must have gotten my scent, it was like chaos with them, I have never seen such thrashing, screaming, barking, running, scrambling in a furry across the stream toward the mountain we had just come down off of and they all started climbing up different trees. I started moving on down the trail as they were moving away from me and I had determined that they were apes and that they were fearful of us and were running away, or so I thought.
It was the strangest thing because they all climbed up different trees and it looked like there must have been thirty of them, maybe more, I would say they were 4 1/2 feet tall and weighed 150-175 pounds each, four feet but walked on two mostly, black, no tails, but they moved across the tops of the trees and moved all the way up the mountain. It was like watching a tidal wave move up the mountain as the tops of the trees were moving in unison. They got almost to the top of the mountain, probably 600-700 yards away and then they all spread out across the mountain in a somewhat straight line and remained in the tops of the trees.
We made it to the knoll and set up camp and had two men assigned with night vision binoculars to keep watch on them. As it got dusk we watched them start moving back down the mountain towards us which made us very uncomfortable as we thought they might attack us during the night. They moved all the way back down the mountain in the line formation and stopped just on the other side of the creek, which was about 75 yards from us. We were on 100 percent alert that night and everyone was edgy.
The next morning as dawn started to break they started to retreat again back up the mountain and by daylight there was no sign of them and we saw no evidence of them after that.
When we departed the knoll we did go by the creek where they were breaking the bamboo and it was exactly as I described it above. I cannot imagine the strength required to accomplish such a physical feat.
Sorry I do not have any photos.
End of that story!
One more!
We were bedded down in the jungle somewhere, don’t remember where, but the jungle was very thick and we had to cut our way through with machetes. During the night there was some kind of ape or baboon that would climb down the tree and just knock the crap out of a soldier and then run back up the tree. This happen twice that night and of course no one shot at it for fear of giving our position away. But no one could figure out what it was. It was kind of funny but at the same time could have been really serious as those animals can do some serious damage with their paws and teeth.
End of that story!
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