billy1
36
Issued Tornek history!
Hello gents,
In response to Brian's post below: "Lets see your issued bp's!", I thought I share the history of my Tornek Rayville TR-900.
Years ago I had the chance to purchase and lucky enough to acquire a
TR-900 that had belonged to a very special Marine. Along with the watch
came a few things; the original strap and wrist compass, some photos,
documents, and a note tucked inside a book stating it would explain the
original owner’s (and the watch’s) history.. The book is titled "Sergeant Major, US Marines - The Biography of Sgt Major Maurice J. Jacques, USMC" .
Maurice Jacques and his story began in Lawrence, Massachusetts where he was born on July 17, 1931. At the age of 13, a then bored Maurice decided to quit school and go to work for the L.C. Cry Construction Company. It was during the following four years, while working for L.C. Cry, that a World War Two USMC veteran would regale the young Jacques with stories of adventure and valor. Those stories would lead Maurice to pursue a military career of his own. Enlisting with the Marines in 1948, at the age of 17, Maurice Jacques’ career would take him from boot camp at Paris Island, to his first duty station on Guam, on to Hawaii where he served under the famous Colonel "Chesty" Puller, to combat in Korea where Jacques served as a squad leader with the 1st Battalion, 5th Marines.
After Korea, Jacques would continue to serve in various posts which included an assignment to the 1st Engineering Battalion at Camp Telega, with a primary purpose to support Marine infantry regiments with demolition capability. He would move on to become a Drill Instructor before finally volunteering for a tour with a Force Reconnaissance Company in 1964.
In May of 1965, now assigned to 1st Force Reconnaissance, Sgt Jacques was first flown the naval facility at Subic Bay, in the Philippines and then moved aboard the USS Diachenko which was attached to Task Force 77 to conduct beach reconnaissance along the coast of Vietnam with Underwater Demolition Team 12 (UDT-12). During these missions UDT-12 was responsible for the hydrographic survey of the beach while the men of 1st Force Recon went inland to conduct reconnaissance of the beach and identified access and exit routes for later use.
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Sgt Jacques is 9th from the right, front row:
In July of 1966 his distinguished service in Vietnam would be noted in LIFE Magazine by the renowned war correspondent, Peter Sherrod. Though Mr. Sherrod’s interview took place in the summer of '66 it wasn’t until January 27, 1967 that the article would be published by LIFE.
"During this time, the use of B-52 Arc Light bombing strikes was a
familiar tactic, and it was during our next patrol that we received
word, a day ahead of time, to move to our LZ for an early extraction.
Since the area we had been patrolling was full of NVA, we thought they
wanted to pull us out to protect us from five-hundred-pound bombs
dropped from an altitude of thirty-five thousand feet. We started for
the planned LZ, and on four occasions we nearly made point-to-point
contact with the NVA patrols. When we finally arrived near our LZ, I
contacted the COC and told them we were ready for pickup. When the two
birds came in, I headed for the second one and handed my rifle to the
crew chief and started to pull myself into the helicopter. I grabbed for
the right wheel strut when the helicopter suddenly lunged forward and
up, and I ended up hanging onto the right wheel strut for life. We were
nearly one hundred feet in the air before the pilot learned of my
position outside his aircraft. He quickly set down on a small hill, and
my radio operator and the crew chief pulled me back inside. After
landing at Dong Ha, we made it back to the company compound and were met
by one of the the SNCOs assigned to the S-3 shop. He told me we had
been extracted a day early because my team and I were supposed to be
interviewed by a writer from LIFE magazine. I could of shot the idiot
who thought up the idea of pulling our team out early, jeopardizing the
lives of seven men."
Members of a Marine reconnaissance force, a highly professional unit trained for patrolling and paratrooping, pose for Author Sherrod after completion of a three-day patrol naer the DMZ.” - note Sgt Jacques far right, second row.
While majority of 1st Force Recon’s missions would continue to take
place in the jungles of Vietnam there were at least a few instances when
Sgt. Jacques would be required to practice his diving skills, such as
the following mission which took place during his third tour:
"But on 15 July, during the second week of junior jump school, I
was called to the company's COC to be briefed on a special mission. On
the night of 14 July, one of the 101st AirCav's Cobra gunships belonging
to C Battery, 4th Battalion, 77th Artillery, had gone down in the water
east of Camp Eagle. Along with Lietenant Holly, I was joined by Staff
Sergeant Lynch and Gunnery Sergeant Fowler to fly the location of the
downed bird and hook up a sling to lift the Cobra from the water. At the
site, were met by a group of soldiers and helicopter's technicians who
warned us the Cobra was heavily armed and that we were to exercise
extreme caution in touching the helicopter's instruments or its minigun.
With Gunnery Sergeant Fowler as my new diving partner, we were schooled
in the proper manner of rigging the helicopter, and then swam out to
its location. The Cobra lay on its side in fifteen feet of water, one of
its skids buried in the mud. After working for about an hour, we were
able to rig the Cobra so that an army CH-47 Chinook could lift the Cobra
out of the water and salvage the bird. The army was kind enough to send
letters of appreciation to the four of us."
Scuba training was continually practiced and equipment checked on
regular intervals throughout these years. The following photos show Sgt
Jacques checking and testing new SCUBA equipment at Camp Pendleton, CA -
late 1966 / early 1967.
Missions continued to be varied throughout the tours Sgt. Jacques would spend in Vietnam. The following image is from 1968; 1st Sgt. Jacques is holding an M-14 with grenade launcher:
In 1966 Sgt Jacques was issued a Tornek Rayville TR-900 dive watch (serial number 0794), which was paired with a wrist compass and worn on the original strap throughout the following years of service in Vietnam with Force Recon. The watch would leave Vietnam with him on January 15, 1971 and would be kept in his possession even after his retirement from the Marine Corps in 1978, at the rank of Sergeant Major. Nearly two decades later the watch would re-emerge, still attached to the original strap with wrist compass, from the Sgt Jacques’ mementos showing its age and telltale signs of heavy use, with its crystal badly scratched and the movement in need of a talented watchmaker to bring it back to life. The following show the watch in the condition before being restored to its former glory by Jack @IWW. The work was done 3 years prior to my purchasing the watch and Jack posted about the restoration around that time on the Military Watch Resource.
Though it's hard to see, Sgt. Jacques wears the watch and compass in the following photo (the compass is pretty easy to make out, while the watch is only in profile):
1st Sgt. Maurice Jacques, Echo Company - at Observation Post on Hill 146, some 20 miles SSW of Da Nang, 1968.
Maurice Jacques’ remarkable career came to a close, as he served as Sergeant Major of the 5th Marine Regiment, when he retired after 30 years of service on August 31, 1978. Sgt. Major Jacques passed away in 1997, but the many Marines who served with him, and whom I’ve had the pleasure of corresponding with over the past few years, remember him fondly. Special thanks to Col. William Warren - USMC (Ret).
Apologies for the long-winded nature of this post, but there wasn't anything here I thought could be discarded! Hope this was of interest and kind regards,
B.
Issued Tornek history!
What a great story
Billy, thank you so much for posting it here. I know this story very well, as a faithful
My thoughts on missing serial numbers ...
The only example I knew, till recently, was the same than the one you mentionned.
Further thoughts on serial numbers ...
Of course it is interesting!
Thanks for this great Tornek story.
Hands down the coolest tr-900!
Thank you for all the kind replies!
