First Battle Part 3

The purpose of this conference, convened after the VC victory at Ba Gia, was to determine how to deal with the Marines at Chulai. Other than the a.s.sertions of Vo Thao, the seventeen-year-old defector, there is no evidence that the 1st VC Regiment ever seriously contemplated a full-scale attack on the Chulai base. The Viet Cong had never fought the Marines in this type of a.s.sault before.

Inasmuch as the commanders were absent, it fell to Political Officer Nguyen Dinh Trong and his a.s.sistant, Hu Tuong, to meet the Americans. Among the things under consideration was the question of whether or not to bring up the 45th and 90th battalions from their positions fifteen kilometers south Van Tuong. Trong and Tuong delayed this decision until the battle was already joined, and at that point it was too late. In the meantime the 40th and 60th battalions were fully alerted and going through drills to meet various contingencies.

The VC officers disagreed as to the direction from which the attack would come. They considered three possibilities: The Americans would attack south over the Tra Bong River; overland from Route 1; or by helicopter. At this point in the war they were not fully appreciative of the ability of Marines to project power ash.o.r.e through amphibious operations, so they fatally discounted the idea of a landing from the sea. After much discussion they finally agreed that the enemy did not have enough helicopters to mount an effective a.s.sault from the air. So their immediate preparation concentrated on overland attacks from the north or west. They felt confident that they could meet the Marines on VC terms. That is, they could ambush and inflict casualties on the Americans and then fade away as they had in the past.

RLT PLANNING CONTINUES.

A tent was erected on the beach at Chulai on the morning of August 17 for another briefing of the staff of Amphibious Squadron 7 and Regimental Landing Team 7. The beaches in the landing area had been surveyed by a Navy underwater demolition team both before and after the Marines landed at Chulai the previous May. Two of them appeared suitable for landing the amphibious force. The two are about 4,000 meters apart, and both have sandy bottoms. Other than that, they differ.

After flying over the area the commanders discussed the characteristics of each beach: gradient, width, shelter afforded, tides, terrain inland, etc. Finally, Peatross and McKinney agreed upon the southern beach, near the small fishing village of An Cuong 1. From there the VC could be driven toward Chulai and into an area in which a blocking position could readily be established by a unit that would march overland from the base. The selected area was named Green Beach. The rejected beach was farther north, at the village of Phuoc Thuan 3, and situated midway between two headlands about a mile apart. Although low tide on the August 18 was to be just before H-hour, the rise and fall of the tide, surf conditions, and beach gradient at An Cuong 1 were thought to be satisfactory for an amphibious landing at any time of the day.

Then there were the helicopter landing zones. In war-fighting theory, it is desirable to land helicopters in the rear of the enemy front line, but in Vietnam there were no such lines. The Viet Cong either did not defend at all, or they defended the entire perimeter of whatever they occupied, and there were usually trees and houses within the defended area. The landing zones would have to be large enough to accommodate the helicopters and far enough inland to isolate the targeted VC units from others outside the objective area. They would also have to be far enough inland to permit the use of supporting arms by the water-borne force during its advance from the beach. Moreover, they could not be in heavily populated areas, because it would be necessary to use naval gunfire and other supporting arms to prepare them. For the same reasons they could not be located too close to one another. The three landing zones selected ran roughly north to south and were about 2,000 meters apart.

While Muir and Comer discussed the beach areas, Bull Fisher pointed decisively at the map and a.s.serted, "I'll land here, here, and here," as he designated the helicopter landing zones for his a.s.sault companies. He named the LZs, from north to south, Red, White, and Blue.19 The plan, having been agreed upon by the commanders, was coordinated and put to paper by Peatross's operations officer, Maj Elmer Snyder, who worked his staff all night.

Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Childers, whose helicopter squadron was responsible for much for the support, was not invited to the meeting because of the extreme security concerns. Instead, he got a brief and operationally useless fragmentary order. As a result, his HMM-361 was deprived of information that would have made it more effective. For one thing, he did not know that the 7th Marines command group would be running the operation. He thought, logically, it would be the 4th Marines, which had occupied the Chulai enclave for three months. Thus, no one thought to obtain the 7th Marines radio frequencies for the operation. Until this was sorted out, the aviators and ground forces would have to relay their traffic through the 4th Marines CP. This would considerably slow operations at critical times.

3/3 HUSTLES TO GET READY.

While the two battalion commanders continued to meet with Colonel Peatross and his staff, Maj Andy Comer hustled back to 3/3 command post to get the battalion moving. D-day was set for the next morning, August 18, and H-hour was coordinated with sunrise, 0630. There was not a moment to lose. Things went somewhat easier for the battalion as it had already had completed contingency planning for an operation in this area. Even with this advantage, it was a stretch to get the troops ready and loaded aboard the transports on the afternoon of the August 17. Captain Bruce Webb's India Company, 3/3, was recalled from a company operation in the field and dispatched directly to the amphibious ships. It would be in the first wave of the a.s.sault. The other first-wave company was Capt Jay Doub's Kilo, 3/3.

APPLICATION OF DOCTRINE.

Peatross's plan was to isolate, then destroy, the enemy. To insure this isolation, all elements of RLT-7-those landing in the helicopter landing zones and those coming across the beach-would have to link up during the early afternoon of D-day. They wanted the VC to think there was only one escape route-to the north. That route was to be blocked by a rifle company infiltrated into place the night before the operation began.

Commodore William McKinney directed his ships to be anch.o.r.ed 2,000 meters offsh.o.r.e at first light. Muir's battalion had been chosen to be the amphibious a.s.sault group simply because it was located closest to the beach and was therefore easiest to embark.

The operational plans were based on established amphibious doctrine, developed in the 1930s and honed to near perfection in World War II. The big difference was the helicopter element. The Marines and Navy had practiced combined helicopter and amphibious landings time after time but never before against an armed enemy. The Navy called the guiding doc.u.ment NWP 22 (a) Doctrine for Amphibious Operations, and the Marine Corps referred to the same publication as LFM-01. Plans were completed quickly because the units were so well trained in this doctrine and had practiced it religiously.

Most of the Marines in both battalions had done this together for more than two years, albeit in non-hostile settings. The officers and men of 3/3, for example, had been aboard more than twenty amphibious ships long enough to have a meal. They had internalized the five-paragraph combat order that leaders issue to their troops, and gave them without having to think about them very much. To most of them this was just the way they made their living; there was no sense that this operation would be different from what they practiced many, many times.

The landing force was fortunate to have three ships in the area that could provide naval gunfire. They were the cruiser USS Galveston (CLG 3) with six 5-inch and six 6-inch guns; and two destroyers, the USS Orleck (DD 886) and USS Prichett (DD 561), each with four 5-inch guns.20 Their captains, as is normal, did not take part in the planning conferences, but they were professionals who had been indoctrinated in the art of naval gunfire support.

Equipment and supplies were sorted and staged on the beach and at helicopter staging points on August 17. By 1400 that day men, supplies, and equipment were being embarked in the ships of PhibRon-7. Colonel Peatross and the headquarters of RLT-7 went aboard the USS Bayfield (APA 33), Commodore McKinney's flagship. The BLT 3/3 headquarters, plus India and Kilo companies, went aboard the USS Cabildo (LSD 16), and Lima Company was embarked in the USS Vernon County (LST 1161).

The commanders and staff got little sleep as planning and coordination continued well into the night. The task force weighed anchor and sailed due east at 2200. All an observer on sh.o.r.e could tell was that the American ships moved east over the horizon. Well out of enemy sight and under the cover of darkness, the ships turned in order to reach the objective area just in time for the a.s.sault to begin. A makeshift armored force of both flame and gun tanks from both the 1st and 3d Tank battalions and Ontos from the 1st Anti-tank Battalion boarded several landing craft, utility (LCUs), which sailed independently towards the amphibious objective area, timing their arrival to coincide with that of the troop transports.21 As they loaded aboard ship that afternoon the troops, who were completely uninformed, were pretty much unconcerned; they played grab-a.s.s aboard the ship and didn't think the operation was going to be much different from all their previous "long walks in the sun."

Lieutenant Burt Hinson was on the beach loading his platoon, when Staff Sergeant Bradley from the battalion supply section asked if he had plenty of rounds for his .45-caliber automatic pistol. Hinson wasn't even sure how much ammunition he had, because his skipper, Jay Doub, didn't think that officers needed weapons anyway. They should be too busy directing their troops to fire weapons. In any event, Bradley talked Hinson into taking several extra loaded magazines of .45-caliber ammo.

There were no sleeping quarters on the ships for most of the Marines, so they rested as best they could among their gear and the amphibian tractors (amtracs) and the landing craft. Many reflected on the sun as it sank over Vietnam and wondered what they would see in its early morning rays when they hit the beach the next day. The religious among them prayed, others wrote letters home, and some just smoked and talked with their comrades.

That night they lined up for a hot supper of chili and rice. Chili and rice does not sound like much of a meal, but the Marines were grateful. It was a welcome relief from the canned fare on which they subsisted for the three previous months.

They were a.s.signed to amtracs just like the diagrams they used in schools would indicate and as they were trained. The Marines of 3/3 had been doing this, together, for a long time. They knew the drill.

The ships weighed anchor at 0200, set a course of 70 degrees, east-northeast, and sailed from the pick-up point. At a little after 0400, after the Marines had eaten a breakfast of eggs and pancakes, all hands were called to general quarters and the ships reversed course. They arrived off the objective area shortly after 0500, dropped anchor in seven fathoms of water a mile-and-a-half offsh.o.r.e, and prepared to launch their a.s.sault boats.22

ALARM!.

Although the VC did not expect the Marines from the sea, here they were! As soon as the ships were spotted, messages rang over phone lines and messengers hot-footed around the 1st Viet Cong Regiment area to inform the VC that the Americans were not only coming in from the sea but they were coming in now, much sooner than expected. The ships were off a beach that was less than four kilometers from the 1st VC regimental command post.

The Viet Cong immediately reacted. Duong Hong Minh was sent down to the beach as quickly as he could get there to set up and prepare to set off a command-detonated mine against the American force. Phan Tan Huan, a staff officer, organized a small force that moved into a blocking position between the beach and the command post. His mission was to fight a delaying action, if necessary, to slow the enemy down and permit the 1st Viet Cong Regiment command post to relocate to a more secure position.

THE ANVIL MOVES INTO PLACE.

Captain Cal Morris had moved his Mike Company, 3/3, into place the night before. Morris was not a physically imposing figure, but he was tough and well-liked by his men and his peers. Mike Company was to be the blocking force, the anvil, in this operation, and it would set in along a ridgeline to the north of the objective area. The amphibious landing force, that is the other companies in 3/3, and the helicopter landing force, Bull Fisher's 2/4, were the hammers that were expected to drive the enemy toward Morris's Marines, so they could complete the job.

The Mike Company Marines bedded down about dusk on the August 17. They awakened at 2230, saddled up, and trekked down to the Tra Bong River. From that point they marched down the beach about two kilometers and then loaded aboard amtracs to cross the river to the peninsula. Then they marched inland until they reached their blocking position. It was a very dark night, and the only way they could keep in contact was to march one behind the other with the man behind holding on to the pack of the man in front. They would have been easy targets for an alert enemy. Luckily, they were not spotted.

Mike Company reached its objective at around 0230 without incident and turned to digging in. A battery of six 107mm howtars from 3/12 were heli-lifted into Mike Company's position at dawn to provide close artillery support.

Among the Marines that set up the blocking force that night was Lt Bill Krulak, one of Lieutenant General Krulak's sons, who was a platoon commander in Mike Company.

By daylight, as the amphibious a.s.sault force was about to cross the beach, Mike Company was ready.

THE MAGNIFICENT b.a.s.t.a.r.dS.

The 2/4 commander, Joseph R. "Bull" Fisher, was one of the most colorful battalion commanders in the Corps. He was a large Marine, 6'3" or so, and about 220 pounds. He had enlisted in the Marines in 1942 and two-and-a-half years later had landed on Iwo Jima as a platoon sergeant. Twice hit by machine-gun bullets he refused evacuation from the battlefield. Fisher left that terrible island with a Silver Star Medal and a recommendation for a commission. As a first lieutenant, Fisher had commanded a rifle company in the legendary Chosin Reservoir campaign during the Korean War and had won the Navy Cross Medal there. By the time of Starlite, he was balding and aging but still tough. He was a rough and profane man who suffered no fools. He took care of his men and they loved him. They proudly called themselves "The Magnificent b.a.s.t.a.r.ds."

HOTEL SIX.

On the evening before Starlite, the officers and NCOs gathered at the Hotel Company, 2/4, command post. 1st Lieutenant Homer K. "Mike" Jenkins, the company commander, was brief. Using the standard five-paragraph format, he told his men that a large enemy force was thought to be south of the Tra Bong River, and he generally outlined his plan of attack and a.s.signed objectives on a map. The 1st Platoon, under Lt Chris c.o.o.ney, was to travel with the command group and act as a reserve. Lieutenant Jack Sullivan's 2d Platoon was to secure Hill 43, which the Vietnamese call Pho Thinh Mountain, southwest of the helicopter landing zones. And Lt Bob Morrison was to use his 3d Platoon to attack and secure the village of Nam Yen 3, northeast of the LZ. Hotel Company and the remainder of 2/4 would either drive the enemy toward the sea and 3/3, which was landing over the beach, or they would have the enemy driven toward them. In no case did their experience with the VC indicate that the Viet Cong would stand and fight.

There were a couple of things about this operation that worried Mike Jenkins. One was that 1/7 came in to man the lines so Hotel Company could get plenty of rest. The other was that they there would be naval gunfire on call during the operation. Neither one of these had precedent in their experience in Vietnam.

Jenkins told his men to be saddled up and ready for the pickup at first light. He closed the briefing with instructions to draw plenty of ammunition and fill up all their canteens.

Jenkins was one of the few junior officers in the battalion with combat experience. Months before his Hawaii-based unit went to Vietnam, Jenkins had volunteered for an advisory program that was rotating young officers into Vietnam for sixty to ninety days. But Jenkins was a Marine Corps Reserve officer and Bull Fisher was determined that only Regular officers be sent from his battalion to get combat experience. Jenkins was not a Marine who gave up easily; he kept after his boss to send him to Vietnam. After five or six trips to the colonel's office to repeat his request over a period of some months, Fisher finally shook his head and said, "Pack your bags, you're leaving tomorrow."

In the early days before the commitment of American ground troops in Vietnam, transportation to that country was dicey. Traveling with another officer on the same orders, it took Jenkins a couple of weeks of bouncing around the Far East on s.p.a.ce-available flights before he finally made it to Saigon. At the initial briefing the dozen or so visiting officers were told by the colonel in charge of Marine advisors, "Statistically speaking, one of you is going to go home in a box, two of you will be critically wounded, two of you will be walking wounded, and the rest of you will not receive a scratch during your short stay here." The colonel's prophecy was close. Five of the new officers in the briefing went together on an operation with Vietnamese Marines. Two of those went home in boxes and two were critically wounded, but Jenkins emerged from his tour unscathed and with combat experience. His adventure was to be invaluable on the Starlite battlefield toward which he was headed.

Jenkins expected Hotel Company to make contact with the enemy. The day before the operation he and a couple of other officers were taken on an aerial reconnaissance of the battle area. Jenkins was sitting in the door of a helicopter comparing the terrain with his map, when someone fired a .45-caliber weapon at the aircraft. The fire appeared to come from Landing Zone Blue, Hotel's landing zone for the following day. Jenkins knew it was a .45 when one of the rounds spent its fury on the skin of the chopper and rolled across the deck toward him. He picked it up and put it in his pocket for a souvenir.

Corporal Victor Nunez came away from Jenkins's pre-operation briefing with the understanding that the enemy force would number about two hundred. Not too formidable, Nunez thought, but it was worrisome enough to keep him from getting a sound night's sleep. As Nunez was filling canteens, he chatted a moment with LCpl Joe "J. C." Paul, a fire team leader. Paul finished with, "Vic, take care of yourself tomorrow." "You, too, buddy," was the reply. It was the last time they would meet.

Lance Corporal Ernie Wallace got the word pa.s.sed along to him second-hand. He knew, though, that he could expect to see some action.

Many of the young Marines were more relaxed about the operation. After all, they had a lot of "long walks in the sun" behind them and knew that usually nothing much happened. Up to this point in the war, encounters between American and VC forces rarely involved more than a platoon of the enemy. The enemy sent his larger forces against the ARVN, not against American firepower and technology. Antic.i.p.ating a typical operation, few 2/4 Marines carried a whole lot of extra gear or supplies. Most stuffed a couple of C-ration cans into their pockets, reasoning that the Chulai airstrip was only a twenty-minute helicopter ride away and resupply would be routine. Nor did the Marines wear the flak jackets that would later become ubiquitous in the war.

2/4. 0600.

Bull Fisher decided to go into LZ White with Echo Company. This would put him physically in the center of his three companies in the field, between Golf Company to the north and Hotel Company to the south. Foxtrot Company was left at Chulai as part of the airfield security.

The Bull had had a new major report for duty. At the time 2/4 had neither an executive officer (XO) nor an operations officer (S-3), which were both a.s.signments for majors. The new man would normally have expected to fill one of these positions in the field. Fisher decided to leave the inexperienced officer in the rear as his liaison and to take GySgt Ed Garr with him to serve as his all-around guy. Garr was a seasoned veteran with combat experience in Korea, a man that the colonel knew well, liked, and trusted.

As Garr thought about his role on the operation, he got little sleep that night, but probably more than if he was still a company gunnery sergeant. Gunnery Sergeant is both a rank and a t.i.tle in the Marine Corps. Shortened to "gunny," the t.i.tle was that of a rifle company operations chief. The gunny was the man the company commanders counted on to get things done. If Gunny Garr had still been in Hotel Company, his previous a.s.signment, he undoubtedly would have been up all night, getting the troops and supplies ready to go.

Early in the Vietnam War there were a lot of personal and unauthorized weapons floating around. When someone came up with a Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR) the old workhorse from World War II and Korea,23 Lieutenant Colonel Fisher decided to arm Garr with it, because Fisher liked the weapon and the gunny was one of the few Marines in 2/4 who knew how to operate and clean it. The BAR was no fun to carry, however. With bipod, it weighed about twenty pounds, and a full allotment of magazines could double the load.

After hauling it around for a few weeks Garr managed to trade it, with the colonel's approval, for a Thompson submachine-gun, which he painted green and dubbed the "Green Hornet." The Thompson or "tommygun" spit out a lot of heavy .45-caliber slugs, but it was not particularly accurate. Garr finally managed to trade that, the day before Starlite, for a Smith and Wesson .38 Special revolver. He was glad to be unburdened of both the BAR and the tommygun. He was also armed with his standard-issue .45-automatic pistol.

Allowing for temperatures of 110 degrees and a load allowance of 240 pounds per man because of ammunition, weapons, and gear, the helicopters could only carry seven Marines per lift. Flight times and turn-around distances were closely calculated in order to compute fuel loads. A choice had to be made between carrying a light fuel load and more men and equipment, and thus having to refuel more often, or more fuel and fewer men and less equipment.

Landing Hour for the helicopters was set for fifteen minutes later than H-hour on the beach. This would permit concentration of maximum effort in securing the beach and then at the landing zones and thus prevent having to split support resources between the two. Further, it was important that the stronger force, the one landed over the beach with tanks and other heavy equipment, be established first. The helicopters did not have sufficient load capacity for the tanks and other such machinery. Some of the tracked vehicles that were to come ash.o.r.e with 3/3 were designated to link up with Hotel, 2/4, by mid-morning.

FIRE SUPPORT. 0615.

At 0615, fifteen minutes before H-hour on the beach, Kilo Battery, 4/12, which had displaced to firing positions on the northern bank of the Tra Bong in the Chulai tactical area of responsibility on the night of August 17, began 155mm artillery prep fires against the helicopter landing zones. At H-hour, 0630, the 1st Marine Aircraft Wing units Marine Attack squadrons (VMA) 225 and 214, flying A4 Skyhawks; and Marine Fighter/Attack (VMFA) squadrons 311, 513, and 542, flying F4 Phantoms; and Marine Observation Squadron (VMO) 2, with UH-1 Huey gunships, also began to prep the helicopter landing zones with eighteen tons of bombs and napalm. Two U.S. Army aviation platoons and part of a third, which were operating with the ARVN in this area and had become very familiar with it, supported the operation as well.

The 3d Platoon, 1st 8-inch Howitzer Battery (SP) chimed in with its heavy-hitting big guns. At the time of its landing at Chulai the battery's six M-53 weapons were the longest shooters in Vietnam, with a maximum range of nearly twelve miles. Their reach permitted them to support the operation without leaving the Chulai base.

CHAPTER 6.

"LAND THE LANDING FORCE!"

As the sky lightened behind them the Marines of 3/3 looked westward past the bows of the ships at the dusky coastline. The sun was not yet over the horizon. In the early morning light the sh.o.r.e appeared so dark as to be almost black but for a narrow strip of silvery surf dividing land from the sea.

The first command came, "All Marines lay up to your debarkations stations." The Marines of Kilo and India companies filed down into the well deck of the USS Cabildo and packed themselves into the amtracs with a minimum of confusion.

When Commodore McKinney issued the traditional command, "Land the landing force. Away all boats!" the landing craft splashed into the South China Sea, one at a time, and swam away from the mother ships. The Marines could hear bombs bursting ash.o.r.e as fixed-wing aircraft prepped the helicopter landing zones.

The hatches in amphibian tractors leak, so when the vehicle Pfc Glenn Johnson was in came down the ramp of the LSD and hit the ocean, water poured in through the rear hatch. The landing ahead was momentarily forgotten as the Marines all shifted forward a bit to keep from getting wet.

Low in the water and coughing clouds of blue exhaust smoke, the tractors circled until they got properly aligned. Captain Bruce Webb's India Company was in the first wave, on the left, and Capt Jay Doub's Kilo Company was on the right.

Once in place, the amtracs moved out together toward the beach, temporarily streaking the sea with wakes of white, foamy water. Most of the troops remained calm during the noisy, cramped ride to the objective. There was no sense of foreboding; they had done this before.

As the amphibian tractors moved steadily toward the sh.o.r.e, a flight of Marine aircraft strafed the beach in front of An Cuong 1, 3/3's first objective. The decision was made at some higher level that the beach area not be bombed, because of the possibility of causing civilian casualties in the village.

The edge of the sun finally burst over the horizon and illuminated the objective area. The heat was already building toward the compression-chamber steambath that sucked up energy and purpose.

The VC opened fire with rifles and automatic weapons. Dutch-born Cpl Jake Germeraad, an 81mm mortar section leader, watched as an amtrac crewman came down out of his hatch for a moment. A Marine who was curious about what was going on moved up into the crewman's seat and stuck his head and shoulders out to take a look. He was immediately shot through the shoulder and fell back into the tractor, spurting blood. The wounded Marine had collected a Purple Heart Medal sometime before under questionable circ.u.mstances.

Many Marines were superst.i.tious about Purple Hearts. They thought that if they accepted one they did not truly deserve that they would earn it later by getting hit with a serious wound. This incident did nothing to dispel that philosophy.

As the amtracs neared the beach the Marines went through last-minute mental checklists, conscientiously going over their gear and thinking about their a.s.signments.