First Battle Part 4

Lance Corporal Chris Buchs looked up out of one of the hatches in his tractor at the rising sun. When the vehicle slowed right before it reached the soft sand of the beach and nosed slightly upward, Buchs and the other members of Cpl Robert O'Malley's squad locked and loaded their weapons in preparation for rushing out as soon as the ramp was dropped. They did not know what would greet them.

The beach at An Cuong 1 is a soft, white, sandy shelf less than thirty meters across at most places. It runs north and south and is about a kilometer in length. It is a gentle, white crescent bordered by a dark rocky hill on the north and a stream that flows through black, rocky lowland on the south. Landward, the vegetation lies thick and green around the ancient fishing village. A few hundred meters inland, in most areas, the sand disappears and the soil becomes the familiar laterite that is the color of dried blood. On the morning of the landing, like all mornings, there were several tiny round fishing boats lying with their nets on the sand. The air was hot and still. The temperature was to rise to 95 degrees before noon and would rise to over 105 later in the day.

The amtracs, about thirty of them, came out of the water more or less on line, dropped their ramps on the beach, and disgorged Marines.

A few of the Marines did not have much experience with amtracs. Private First Cla.s.s Chuck Fink of India Company was one of them. He had been among the first to board his amtrac before it left the mother ship. He thought that the ramp would drop from the rear of the vehicle after it hit the beach. He didn't want to be the first man off the machine on a hostile sh.o.r.e, so he had squeezed his way up to the front of the tractor and faced to the rear. He expected to be the last man off. As his tractor came ash.o.r.e and gained traction on the sand its bow pointed slightly upwards. The rearward-facing Fink was astonished and dismayed to find that the ramp was behind him, that it was beginning to drop, and that he had not only figured wrong about which end it was on, but he had to turn around before he could get off. Just as he recovered from his mistake, took a deep breath, and chased his shadow across the ankle-deep sand an explosion punctuated the activity around him.

From the ground just landward of the beach, grit and debris geysered upward in a noxious cloud of black smoke and flew everywhere. The blast was caused when Duong Hong Minh set off his command-detonated mine. It is likely that all the Marine combat power coming across the water convinced Minh to set it off as soon as he could, so he could clear out. Moreover, his instructions to fall back and protect the regimental command post colored his decision. Fortunately for the Marines, Minh's anxiety attack caused him to detonate the device prematurely. No Marine was killed or wounded, but the blast convinced the skeptical among them that the enemy knew they were there.

INDIA COMPANY, 3/3. 0630.

As the smoke and dirt cleared, Pfc Chuck Fink spotted an elderly Vietnamese running away from the beach. The man didn't appear to be armed; indeed, he seemed to be hobbling with a cane. Fink wondered if he should shoot him. He asked himself what John Wayne would do and finally just stood there and watched the man disappear into the brush.

INDIA COMPANY, 3/3. 0645.

Following a brief pause in the wake of the explosion on the beach, India Company, 3/3, shifted a bit to the south and proceeded into the brushy area beyond the sand. The company commander, Capt Bruce Webb, sent a squad to check out the source of the explosion. These Marines found a large hole with wires leading to it through a trench and on back into a cave complex. After they confirmed the origin of the blast, and found no enemy there, they commenced movement without incident through the southern half of An Cuong 1, which was adjacent to the beach.

A short way into the wooded area, the action ground to one of those halts that occur in combat while the situation is being rea.s.sessed. Private First Cla.s.s Glenn Johnson and a squad went on a short patrol and discovered a VC hospital; they found b.l.o.o.d.y bandages and beds up on stilts but no other equipment. They were between one hundred to two hundred meters in from the beach at this point, and isolated from the rest of the unit. They didn't know what to do, so they moved back to report their findings to India Company.

KILO COMPANY.

Abreast, and to Webb's right, Capt Jay Doub's Kilo Company came ash.o.r.e and moved rapidly inland. A few rounds of enemy fire snapped these Marines awake to the fact that this was an opposed landing. Lt Burt Hinson's 1st Platoon secured and searched its portion of An Cuong 1 with little resistance. As it went through the village, Sgt Frank Blank, Hinson's 1st Squad leader, reported seeing several VC as they ran from the huts away from the Marines. Hinson personally saw one or two dead VC on the ground.

Doub's 2d and 3d platoons moved through the village and secured the high ground to the west, paused for a bit to check their orientation, and then moved inland around three-hundred meters.

3/3 COMMAND GROUP.

The 3/3 battalion command group, embarked in flat-bottomed landing craft, followed behind the a.s.sault waves. The landing was conducted smoothly except that the landing craft carrying the 3/3 Alpha command group, including LtCol Joe Muir, became stuck for about twenty minutes on a submerged sand bar about four hundred meters off the beach. Landing an hour after low tide had a price, but this was one paid in inconvenience, not in blood.

KILO, 3/3. 0645.

Lieutenant Burt Hinson kept his men going until they came up to the crest of Hill 22, a small rise to the west and a bit north of the landing area. Lieutenant Jack Kelly's platoon was tied in on the extreme right flank of India Company, and Hinson's 1st Squad, commanded by Sgt Frank Blank, was tied in to Kelly.

Hinson never got a chance to walk the line and see where it was tied in. While the Marines from Kilo Company were resting and planning their next activity a great deal of action started in the India sector, to their left.

Just before activity with India Company intensified, two or three amtracs, including a command tractor with 3/3's LtCol Joe Muir aboard, somehow got out ahead of Kilo. When Captain Doub asked for a position report from the battalion command group, he checked his map and found that Muir's group was in front of Kilo Company. Doub radioed Muir, "Colonel, what are you doing out in front of me? Are you trying to tell me that the CP group is now five hundred meters out in front of the lead company?" The amused Muir ordered Kilo forward to its next objective, and to be quick about it.

After just a few yards, the 2d and 3d platoons of Kilo Company attracted a tremendous amount of automatic weapons fire from across their front, and halted in place. Much of the fire came from another piece of high ground to the right front, and some from a trenchline to the left. This fire came from a delaying force commanded by Phan Tan Huan, who had the mission of screening the relocation of the regimental command post.

Lieutenant Hinson did not know that one of his casualties was Sgt Frank Blank, his 1st Squad leader, who was. .h.i.t in the stomach and died. At about the same time Hinson's platoon sergeant, SSgt "Catfish" Campbell, took a single round in his s.c.r.o.t.u.m. He was medevaced later in the day, st.i.tched up, and returned to the fight that night.

Unbeknownst to either Kilo Company, or the 3/3 CP group, Jay Doub's Marines were headed directly for the 1st VC Regiment command post, which was located in the village of Van Tuong 1. The fire that greeted Kilo Company was designed to buy time and permit the withdrawal of the CP to Van Tuong 3, farther to the west, if necessary. Duong Hong Minh, who had set off the initial charge at the beach, and Huan were in charge of the force that faced Doub's Marines. Nguyen Dinh Trong, the political officer who had inherited command of the regiment in the absence of his commander, ordered his men to pack up and prepare to move if it became necessary.

Except for one squad in Burt Hinson's 1st Platoon, Kilo Company was pinned down by VC fire. Hinson grabbed this squad of Marines and took off after the enemy. He shouted encouragement to his men and fired his .45 at the VC as he moved. The meager force fought its way up a slope to the southeast of the village of An Thoi, about a kilometer from An Cuong 2. By driving the enemy and their automatic weapons from the crest of the slope, Hinson and his squad relieved the pressure along the entire 3/3 front. To this day he has no idea how many Viet Cong his Marines killed. He just remembers blazing away at the enemy on his way up the hill.

Upon reaching the crest Hinson saw four VC running down a path and squeezed the trigger of an empty .45- caliber pistol he had pointed at them. He was completely out of ammunition despite the fact he had gotten all those extra rounds and magazines from Staff Sergeant Bradley.

With the VC along this sector on the run, 3/3 began moving forward again. It was here that Burt Hinson was told of Sergeant Blank's death and that Staff Sergeant Campbell had been wounded. Jay Doub later remarked to Lt Dave Steel, the battalion a.s.sistant operations officer, that he didn't have any idea why Hinson was alive, because every type of weaponry the enemy possessed was fired at him as he led his people forward. Doub, "The Boiled Owl," was not a person who normally got excited by something like this. Burt Hinson was awarded the Silver Star Medal for his heroic actions this day.

At the same time Hinson's action was taking place, the reserve 1st Platoon pa.s.sed through the line, a.s.saulted, and carried the trenchline to the left. Because of the action in the adjacent sectors, Kilo Company was not able to advance any further that day, so it dug in about a kilometer short of the 1st VC Regiment command post. Huan and Minh had accomplished their mission; they had delayed the Marine advance on their command group.

LIMA, 3/3. 0730.

Captain Jim McDavid's Lima Company, the battalion reserve, and the second wave of the a.s.sault, came ash.o.r.e next. That wave also included the battalion secondary, or "Bravo" command group, with Maj Andy Comer in charge. The Bravo command group vessel, an LCM-8, struck a submerged bar at high-speed, causing numerous minor injuries to those embarked because of the sudden impact. The boat was able to retract rapidly and deposited Comer's group on dry land a little after 0730.

Lieutenant David Steel, the a.s.sistant operations officer, landed with Major Comer's Bravo command group just as a VC machine gun low on the right of the beach opened fire. A redheaded lance corporal was talking with Steel on the beach and the lieutenant cautioned him to be careful. Within seconds the lance corporal was. .h.i.t in the chest and slightly wounded. Marines quickly silenced the gun, and there was little additional fire from that sector.

THE RLT HQ COMES ASh.o.r.e.

Shortly after 0730 and closely following the 3/3 command groups, the tactical control elements of the RLT-7 headquarters landed on Green Beech. By noon, when the RLT-7 command post was established a thousand meters inland, overall command of the operation shifted from Comdr William McKinney, the amphibious squadron commander, to Col Peat Peatross, the landing force commander.

Peatross could have gone in with the heliborne force, but, in accordance with doctrine, he chose to travel with the amphibious force. This permitted him to employ his command amphibian tractor's communications capabilities and to be closest to the heavy elements of his command and his logistics base. In other words, he was best able from that location to control the battle. His command, control, and logistics organization was set up and functioning by the end of the day.

CHAPTER 7.

a.s.sAULT FROM THE AIR.

While the Marines of 3/3 were crossing the beach, BLT 2/4 was staged for pickup. The number of helicopters that came for them was amazing to the Marines. Most of them had never seen so many in one place before. They kept coming in, one after the other.

Major Homer Jones, a former helicopter pilot and now fighter jock, approached Maj Al Bloom, the HMM-361 operations officer. Jones was an old friend of Bloom's and wanted to know if he could go along as co-pilot. Bloom quickly a.s.sented. On their way from the ready room to the aircraft, MSgt R. M. Hooven, the maintenance chief, intercepted Bloom. Hooven wanted to fly as crew chief and, moreover, he wanted to bring along 1st Sergeant Dorsett as gunner. Dorsett, an old infantry type, had just joined the squadron and was less than impressed with what he regarded as the unmilitary appearance and att.i.tude of "Airedales," a pejorative that ground troops used to describe aviation Marines. Master Sergeant Hooven wanted to show the first sergeant what his Marines could do. Major Bloom agreed and loaded up his high-priced and over-qualified crew, lifted off, and followed Lieutenant Colonel Childers's lead in the fifty-minute flight to the pick-up area.

Golf Company was loaded first to make the run into Landing Zone Red. The company landed on the zone without incident beginning at 0645. The troops were all on the ground by 0715 and headed toward their first objective to the northeast.

Echo Company boarded next and took off for Landing Zone White. The company quickly disembarked and set up a perimeter to await the battalion command group, which was to land directly after it.

2/4. 0700.

Lieutenant Colonel Bull Fisher; GySgt Ed Garr; Captain Riley, the a.s.sistant operations officer (S-3A); and the colonel's radio operators were on one helo team, and all boarded together. In his months in Vietnam, Garr learned to check the deck of a chopper for spent cartridges to see if the door gunners had fired their weapons. If they had, it was a sure sign that they had been into a hot landing zone. All Marines dreaded going into a hot LZ. There is no more helpless feeling than dropping into an LZ under fire and having bullets pop up through the floor of one's helicopter. This time there were no spent cartridges, and the crew chief had no news about what was happening on the ground. Garr was greatly relieved.

Fisher's command group flew to LZ White and, after it landed, followed Echo Company in the direction of its first objective, to the northeast. The VC, who manned firing positions on a ridgeline east and northeast of the LZ, engaged Echo Company with a moderate amount of mortar, automatic weapons, and small arms fire.

The last company to board was Mike Jenkins's Hotel. Pfc Jim Scott, Lieutenant Jenkins's company radio operator, and Pfc Morris Robinson, Jenkins's battalion radio operator, piled aboard with their skipper. Scott looked out to see Pfc Henry Jordan run by to get on his chopper. Jordan had a smile on his face, and his thumb was pointed up. The day before the operation, he had received a bunch of pictures of a family reunion from home. Jordan was a happy Marine.

Back in LZ White, the call came over the radio for Sudden Death 6, Bull Fisher's radio call sign, to remain in the LZ because Colonel Peatross was coming in and wanted to talk to him.

While it waited, the battalion command group had visual contact with Echo Company, which was still engaged and taking casualties. They could see Marines under small arms and mortar fire going up the hill. Echo was a fine company, not one to back down from anything, so the troops doggedly kept at the enemy.

Some of the helicopters had already made multiple trips, so those lowest on fuel peeled off for a refueling stop prior to picking up their last load, which was Hotel Company, bound for Landing Zone Blue.

INTO A HOT LZ.

Private First Cla.s.s d.i.c.k Boggia was a Marine with a big job. He was an eighteen-year-old who had never had an eighteenth birthday. He had crossed the Pacific by ship, and when they pa.s.sed the International Dateline the calendar had jumped a day ahead and skipped the anniversary of his birth. Boggia was the junior man in his machine-gun squad, an ammo humper who was burdened with 400 rounds of the heavy 7.62mm ammunition for the M60 machine-gun. Inasmuch as the squad was shorthanded, he also had to carry the tripod and the traversing and elevating (T&E) mechanism for the gun. This was in addition to his rifle, ammunition, and personal gear. Despite the enormous load Boggia was proud and excited to be going on the operation. He had been told that Hotel, 2/4's mission would be to force the VC into a blocking position set up by other Marines. This was one of the few times Boggia had ridden in a helicopter and he enjoyed the ride. By chance, he drew the seat opposite the door gunner, so he could look out the door at the countryside. He was amazed at how beautiful it was as the mist burned off and revealed the greenery below. As they got closer to the objective, he could see helicopter gunships strafing nearby hills.

Corporal d.i.c.k "Nootch" Tonucci was an infantry squad leader with Lt Jack Sullivan's 2d Platoon. On the way into the landing zone he worried about getting linked up with the others and finding some cover while forming a 360-degree perimeter around the LZ to protect the subsequent waves that landed. He did not think it would be a routine landing; he was ready for the worst. It would not have comforted him if he had known in advance that the landing zone they selected was, by pure chance, within the defense perimeter of the 60th VC Battalion. He had been told the LZ would not be hot, but his blood ran cold on the approach to the landing zone. He could not stand helicopters.

Corporal Ernie Wallace was Corporal Tonucci's machine-gunner. Wallace's ammo humper, Pfc Jim Kehres, was not even supposed to be there. He was only seventeen years old, and while the Marine Corps permitted the enlistment of seventeen-year-olds, regulations forbade sending them into a combat zone until they were eighteen. Somehow Kehres had gotten by the administrators.

Machine-gun squad leader Juan Moreno knew that they were going to make contact with the enemy, but he tried not to think about dying, because he was afraid it would keep him from concentrating on what he must do. He worried about his men and thought that they were a great bunch of happy-go-lucky kids. Once a fight started they immediately turned into men. But after it was over he had to get on top of them again: "Clean your weapon, brush your teeth, take your malaria pill ..."

Tonucci's bird was one of the first to touch down, and the Marines all jumped off. As team leader, Tonucci was first out. He directed the men to their spots on the LZ. Jimmy Brooks the tall, thin lance corporal they called "Buzzard" was off, Lou Grant was off, and a couple of other guys.

They were just getting oriented and setting up around the landing zone when enemy fire tore into them from Hill 43, to the southwest. The Army Huey gunships from the 7th Airlift Platoon took the VC on the hill under fire as the Marines completed their defensive perimeter around the landing zone. Three VC were killed at this position as the Marines struggled to attain fire superiority. When one of the Army pilots, Maj Don Radcliff, was shot through the neck and killed and another crew member was wounded supporting the Marines on LZ Blue, his section of aircraft withdrew. The major was part of a site selection team looking for a camp for the 1st Cavalry Division, just then en route to Vietnam. He had volunteered for the mission and had become his division's first KIA in Vietnam. The 1st Cavalry Division named its first base Camp Radcliff in Vietnam in his honor.

Tonucci had just started moving his squad toward a dike, which would provide some cover, when LCpl Jimmy Brooks appeared to trip. "Nootch, I'm hit. I'm hit in the shoulder." Tonucci carried Brooks to the dike and, while he was ripping the Marine's shirt open, noted that there was blood all over the place. Where was it coming from? Then he saw that Brooks shoulder wound was merely the entry point for a .50-caliber round that had gone all the way through the young man. A .50-caliber projectile, a, half-inch across and two inches long, packs a very lethal punch. Tonucci cradled Brooks in his arms as the corpsman gave Brooks a shot of morphine. The mortally wounded Marine turned blue and his life pa.s.sed out of him. Brooks was the first man Nootch had ever seen die. He would not be the last.

The helicopters kept coming in, adding the roar of their engines, the clattering of their blades, and the smell of exhaust to the hammering of gunfire and the stench of cordite and blood. The VC fire mounted as the remainder of the company landed. When a mortar round detonated near Tonucci's position the young corporal got on the radio and pa.s.sed the word to get some elevation on the mortars, that they were coming up short and endangering friendly troops. He quickly found out that they were not friendly mortars. Lieutenant Mike Jenkins heard the same explosion and yelled to one of his radio operators, "Find out what the h.e.l.l they are doing over there. Who threw that d.a.m.n grenade?" Jenkins, too, quickly found out that the explosion was an enemy mortar round.

Other Marines died in the first few minutes of the operation. One was Henry Jordan, who had happily boarded his helicopter, pictures of his family in his pocket.

As one of the last few waves came into LZ Blue under fire, SSgt Coy Overstreet, a helicopter crew chief, spotted khaki-clad man with a weapon racing toward his bird on the LZ. He figured it was a friendly interpreter until a black-pajama-wearing man jumped up and joined the man in khaki. It was the first time Overstreet had ever seen the enemy run toward a Marine helicopter. He swung his M60 machine-gun around to bear on the two and prepared to fire when the pair pa.s.sed a dike. As they did, what Overstreet had thought were about twenty small bushes jumped up and also ran toward the LZ. They were well-camouflaged enemy soldiers in echelon formation, firing their weapons right at him. The Marine opened up, nailed the original two, and caused havoc among the others. As his helicopter began to lift off it was severely jolted when what appeared to be an anti-armor weapon detonated immediately beneath it. The pilot poured on full power and got out of the LZ as quickly as possible. Once he got the helicopter in the air and stabilized, he came up on the company radio net and told Jim Scott, Mike Jenkins's radio operator, that the Marines were surrounded by Viet Cong, who were disguised as bushes and could be detected from the air.

The .50-caliber machine gun that got Jimmy Brooks was directly in front of Hotel Company, on Hill 43, and it and some snipers were able to pin down the Marines. Like most of the others, Cpl Victor Nunez was firing back at the Viet Cong, but the enemy was well camouflaged, very hard to see. Only the fact that their positions were so close to the LZ allowed Nunez to pick out the brief yellow-blue muzzle flashes on which to train his machine gun.

The Marines were taking a lot of fire from a nearby hootch. A 3.5-inch rocket team fired a round at it but missed. Lieutenant Sullivan grabbed the rocket tube from the gunner, had a round loaded, and fired the weapon himself. His aim was off; the rocket hit the ground just in front of the target. Luckily it took a perfect bounce off the ground and flew into the hootch, where it detonated.

The VC got the range of the helicopters that were bringing the last of Hotel Company into the LZ. One Marine had his jaw shot off, and one of the choppers took hits from five or six rounds of automatic weapons fire. A pilot, Capt Howard Henry, noted that the Marines just shut their eyes and dropped to the ground in order to ignore the fire.

Shrapnel wounded 1stLt Ramsey Myatt, a co-pilot with HMM-361, as he flew a medevac mission. He bandaged the wound and continued to fly. The enemy gunfire damaged a rotor blade, which Myatt's crew chief, SSgt Dale Bredeson, changed in about ten minutes. Later that morning Myatt took a bullet in the leg, but he refused to leave the controls and kept flying until he became too weak to continue. The enemy fire seriously damaged the aircraft, so it limped back to base, where it was grounded for the rest of the battle.

Another pilot, Stu Kendall, was shot through the leg and right hand. His co-pilot took over and got the aircraft to a safe area.

No flight crewmember becomes accustomed to bullets popping through the skin of his ship, but on this day it became commonplace. To the airmen it sounded like being in the b.u.t.ts of the rifle range.

After one of the early medevacs, Maj Al Bloom was lifting off and gaining speed when he spotted a row of p.r.o.ne VC, lined up shoulder-to-shoulder to his left and firing at the Marine infantry to his front. 1st Sergeant Dorsett, the infantryman-turned-door-gunner, knew what to do. Because of the relative position to the target Dorsett was in perfect enfilade alignment. He got off a long burst that raked the entire enemy line. Bloom was not sure how many hits were made, because he decided it would be a bad idea to circle back for a body count. The VC had not seen them coming but undoubtedly would be looking for them if they made a second pa.s.s.

As planned, the 2d Platoon of Hotel Company began its attack against Hill 43, and the 3d Platoon moved to attack Nam Yen 3. Lieutenant Jenkins traveled with the 1st Platoon, his reserve, and moved off in the direction of Nam Yen 3, which was his company's main objective.

The Viet Cong who occupied both objectives stood and fought. Both a.s.saulting platoons ran into stiffer opposition than antic.i.p.ated, and both attacks stalled.

Lieutenant Sullivan's 2d Platoon, which tried to take Hill 43, got no further than the bottom of the hill.

Alert for the enemy, LCpl Ernie Wallace spotted a large number of Viet Cong moving down a trenchline toward the Marines' rear. He came upon them in a storm of machine-gun fire, rushing them as he fired his gun from the hip and from the shoulder. The big gunner was good at his trade. He single-handedly killed an estimated twenty-five VC.

In the confusion, Wallace became separated from his ammo humper Pfc Jim Kehres. Unsure about what to do, Kehres helped out wherever he thought he was needed and was later awarded a Navy Commendation Medal for evacuation of casualties under fire.

Mike Jenkins halted the attack and requested additional air strikes against Hill 43. F4 Phantoms from VMFA-513 and VMFA-342 pounded the hill with high-explosive bombs and napalm. When the Marines were lucky they got Snake Eye bombs, which were particularly effective when used with napalm in a "snake-and-nape" attack. The napalm would drive the enemy into the open and render them vulnerable to the fragmentation bombs that quickly followed. The Snake Eye bomb was especially developed for close air support. When Snake Eyes are released from an airplane, their large fins open to make a distinctive "pop" and slow the descent to the ground. This gives the plane time to get away and avoid being hit by the fragments of their own bombs. If you were a Marine on the ground, and close enough to hear the fins pop open, you were getting close air support indeed. Napalm is simply gasoline mixed with a thickener that jells the fuel. It not only burns with the heat and intensity of gasoline, it sticks to its targets. It creates a fiery h.e.l.l and is a terrifying weapon.