King of Cumshaw

He hardly looks like the stuff of legend: plump and puckish, a shy grin on his broad leg-of-mutton face, a shoulder holster sagging from the armpit of his sweat-blotched, green T shirt, a drinker of nothing more stimulating than cream soda. Yet Senior Chief Petty Officer Bernard G. Feddersen, 35, of the Seabees, is renowned from Danang to the Delta as the sharpest cumshaw artist in all Southeast Asia.

Cumshaw derives from the Chinese kam sia (grateful) and entered U.S. naval argot during the 19th century when ships calling at Canton began swapping rum and ratguards for labor and litchi nuts. Today's scrounger can be an Air Cav supply sergeant or an Air Force crew chief, but Viet Nam's Feddersen outdoes them all--both in Yankee horse-trading skill and sheer inventiveness. In a scant 14 months, he unplugged the logistical bottleneck that had plagued the development of the Chu Lai enclave, and in the process set up his outfit as the most efficient unit in the area. "Over here it's a self-help program," says Feddersen, "where you're the self doing the helping."

Deal or Die. When Feddersen's Mobile Construction Battalion 10 arrived at Chu Lai a year ago last May, Saigon's harbor was clogged with ships unable to unload their cargoes, and airstrips elsewhere were glutted with traffic. Morale at Chu Lai itself was desperately low due to an overabundance of sand flies and a dearth of comfort. It was a perfect situation for cumshaw, and fortunately Bernie Feddersen was on hand.

Within 23 days of Feddersen's arrival, he had shaken loose 2,600 lbs. of spare parts for failing trucks and bulldozers, procured vitally needed aluminum sections for the airstrip's 8,000-ft. jet runway, and made MCB 10 the only outfit on the base with a perpetual supply of beer, steaks, lettuce, tomatoes and lumber. In the past two weeks alone, Feddersen has turned up a truck engine, two electronic workbenches, 15 file cabinets, 35 electric fans, 1,000 lbs. of small automotive parts and 42 hickory-handled carnival mallets. "You're dead if you don't deal," he explains.

Cold Pop & "Snivel." Feddersen's real coup in Viet Nam was the establishment of a private, self-contained, ship-to-site supply route--an exercise that by his count took 17 steps. First he sounded out a Saigon source who, for twelve cases of C rations, revealed the whereabouts of a warehouse that needed 100 shipping pallets. To get the pallets, Feddersen traded surplus steel cargo boxes (bummed from the Army) for enough lumber and nails to build 200 pallets. Another army company built the pallets for Feddersen, keeping 100 of them as payment. Feddersen then gave his 100 to the warehouse in exchange for two mechanics. The mechanics repaired 16 burnt-out Seabee trucks, which Feddersen then turned over to another supply depot in exchange for the services of two large semitrailers (from 9 p.m. to 4 a.m. every day for six months).

The semis were used to haul cargo to Chu Lai from the piers of Danang, where Feddersen assured the cooperation of dockside boatswain's mates with cold soft drinks ("You get a guy who's been working twelve hours in the sun, and he'd give you the pier for a cold pop"). Simultaneously he began luring empty Marine and Air Force planes through Chu Lai to haul his barter goods. Along with the soda, Feddersen plies his contacts with leather film canisters, elephant-hide wallets and captured Communist weapons that he picked up on forays to upcountry Special Forces camps. He also throws in plenty of "snivel"--the cumshaw artist's constant con talk. Today the "Flying Feddersen Line" carries up to 172,000 lbs. of gear into Chu Lai on a good day.

Next week Feddersen leaves Viet Nam for the Naval Station at Great Lakes, 200 miles from his home town of Shelbyville, Ill. Officially, he will not be remembered--unless by the parsimonious accountants of the Pentagon. "There's an unwritten law in the outfit," says one Seabee officer at Chu Lai. "We don't ask Feddersen what he's doing or how he's doing it. We only talk about what we want and the weather." Thanks to Cumshaw King Bernie Feddersen and his kind throughout Viet Nam, the weather is a lot finer than it might be.

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