The US Naval Forces Vietnam Command History contains the following entry: "The most serious incident reported by CB units occurred on the last day of the month at 1445H on a waterway near Kien Binh (WS 406 036) where the bodies of five USN Seabees were found. All the bodies contained gunshot and fragmentation wounds. Investigation of witnesses disclosed that five U.S. personnel armed with 3 M-16s and one pistol had been sighted in a Boston Whaler by Vietnamese personnel an hour and a half before, and ARVN units reported seeing U.S. personnel in a firefight in the same area. A Vietnamese eyewitness account indicated two VC sampans engaged the whaler, which was later found abandoned, with grenade and AK-47 fire on the Kinh Thot Not Canal. The five Seabees were attached to NMCB 74 and traveling from Cho Moi to Binh Thuy for minor medical treatment." The five Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 74 were PO2 Jerry Baxter Edmonds, Crossville, Tennessee; PO3 Harold E. Asher, Tulsa, Oklahoma; CN Edgar Peter Beck, Gowanda, New York; CN John Frank Neubauer, Mount Vernon, New York; and CN Wayne Sterling Rushton, Eastlake, Ohio. Constructionman Edgar Peter Beck was born in Gowanda, and enlisted in the U.S. Navy following his 1968 graduation from Gowanda Central School. His family had lived in Bushville for only a few months at the time of his death on New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 1970. Constructionman Beck was buried in the Acacia Cemetery of North Tonawanda. He was survived by his parents, Dorothy Ginther Beck and Edgar Peter Beck, Sr, Batavia New York.

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