First Battle Part 5

While his 2d Platoon was struggling with Hill 43, Lt Mike Jenkins and his other two platoons formed up and moved toward Nam Yen 3. They started a slow winding trek down a long ravine into a series of tree lines surrounded by rock- hard, dried-up rice paddies covered with stubble. There were still helicopter gunships available, and fixed-wing Skyhawks and Phantoms that bombed and strafed everything that looked like a target. Black smoke billowed out of the ground and tree lines. .h.i.t by previous fire missions. While skirting a large dried-up rice paddy by following the surrounding tree line the Marines took some sporadic sniper fire. Despite the danger, Pfc d.i.c.k Boggia, who was moving with his machine-gun team leader, Corporal Renfro, and with LCpl Ken Stankiewicz, the gunner, felt fairly secure. After all, his fellow Marines were all around him. Sergeant Jerry Tharp, inspired confidence and stood out among the NCOs by walking around upright, ignoring the sniper rounds that were snapping about.

THE ATTACK ON NAM YEN 3.

As Hotel, 2/4's 1st and 3d platoons closed on Nam Yen 3 the first sign of life from the village was a black-pajama-clad man who emerged from nowhere and ran along the edge of the little settlement. Several Marines shot at him as he disappeared into some high gra.s.s, apparently unscathed. It may have been the man's purpose to encourage a number of Marines to follow him into an ambush. The Marines were to learn the hard way that this was a favored enemy tactic. One or two of the enemy would leap up and run through a killing zone well covered by other Viet Cong. Pursuing Marines would be trapped as they crossed the zone. In this case the Marines from Hotel Company only pursued by fire.

Mike Jenkins ordered the 1st Platoon to a.s.sault the village and the 3d Platoon to provide a base of fire. Nam Yen 3 remained quiet. No one was shooting at the Marines from the village, but as they drew closer they found camouflaged punji pits and other signs of defensive preparation.

This all changed in a split-second. Fire suddenly poured into Jenkins's men. Without warning plants came to life. Every place the Marines looked there were dozens of bushes moving in all directions. The situation became very, very intense. The VC shot at the Marines from spider holes, hootches, and bunkers. The Marines countered with gunfire and grenades. Snipers tied to trees fired at the Marines from twenty feet in the air.

The 1st Platoon moved past the edge of the village as the VC small arms fire sharpened. Many of the houses in the village doubled as bunkers. When the action started, the sides of the houses dropped down to enable the occupants access to their pre-planned fields of fire. The village was also pitted with cleverly camouflaged one-man spider holes.

The 3d Company, 60th Viet Cong Battalion, commanded by political commissar Nguyen Ngoc Nhuan, occupied the village. The VC's practice of digging in paid off; they were very well organized for a defensive battle.

Jenkins's 3d Platoon and the company command group moved toward Nam Yen 3. There was an open field between them and the village until they ran into a perpendicular stretch of semi-wooded terrain. The point men started toward the village as other Marines hugged the tree line, waiting to advance. The VC let the point get almost on top of them before dropping Pfc Harry Kaus and LCpl Eddie Landry in a fury of automatic weapons fire. Lieutenant Bob Morrison put his platoon into the a.s.sault, and his Marines savagely went after the occupied hedgerow, firing as fast as they could from the hip.

Without really realizing what was happening Pfc d.i.c.k Boggia found that his platoon was in the a.s.sault. He was alongside his gunner, Ken Stankiewicz, as they got down in position to set up their M60 and cover the advance when their section leader Corporal "Rat" Renfro, was. .h.i.t by enemy fire just a few feet away. Renfro was lying on the ground with his pack spewing fire and smoke from flares he was carrying. Everything was happening too quickly. Stankiewicz turned the M60 over to Boggia and tried to pull Renfro's pack off. The incoming fire was very intense, and seeing what was happening with Renfro terrified Boggia, but he hung in there and got the gun operating against the enemy. Renfro's pack began to burn even more fiercely.

Boggia knew there was other ordnance in the pack, and he expected an explosion momentarily. The unfazed Stankiewicz ignored the danger and finally separated Renfro from his pack. Renfro was then dragged away and medevaced. Boggia never knew what became of him.

The VC gunfire increased, and grenade after grenade exploded among the Marines. The Marines, too, turned up the volume of rifle fire, and reinforced it with machine guns and 3.5-inch rocket launchers. When they got up to the hedgerow they could see large, ghastly piles of enemy bodies. But they could not see into the village itself and could not staunch the torrent of enemy fire. They could get any further into Nam Yen 3.

The rounds seemed to be coming from everywhere, cracking overhead and tearing up the ground around them. The intensity of the fire forced the Marines to withdraw back to the tree line to regroup. Boggia pa.s.sed the bodies of the two Marines who had been covered with ponchos.

The fire was confusing, particularly so to the young Marines for whom this was the first taste of combat. Grenades seemed to be going off everywhere, there were casualties on both sides; and the smoke, noise, and smells of combat caused a lot of bewilderment.

In the face of overwhelming fire, the 1st Platoon was pulled back out of the village. Mike Jenkins finally reached Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, back at LZ White, and admitted that he had his hands full. This report went back to the RLT headquarters at about the same time Capt Bruce Webb, the commander of India Company, 3/3, reported fire from An Cuong 2, which was out of his area of responsibility but between himself and Jenkins's Hotel Company, 2/4. Webb requested permission to cross over his boundary to attack An Cuong 2 in the hope India could take some of the pressure off Hotel Company. Permission was readily granted.

Mike Jenkins came upon Lt Chris c.o.o.ney and told him to get his 1st Platoon back away from Nam Yen, because he was calling more air strikes. The Hotel Company Marines had no sooner moved back toward the paddy area than the aircraft came in and pounded the village with snake and nape. The aviators laid their 250-pound bombs dangerously close to the Marines on the ground. Although the friendly lines were marked with yellow smoke, fragments from one bomb cut down a small tree right next to Jenkins. A hot, sharp, high-velocity fragment of that type will cut a human body in half. The Marines continued to receive small arms fire from the village as the air strike continued.

Fragments from the bombs also made their way over near An Cuong 2, where India Company, 3/3, was attempting to advance to the aid of Hotel Company, 2/4. They wounded several India Company Marines. Jenkins's men saw several human torches-VC covered with jellied gasoline from the napalm run out of the village. The Marines shot them down.

Inasmuch as Hotel, 2/4, was catching fire from all directions, Lieutenant Jenkins decided to handle just one objective at a time and opted to secure Hill 43 first. The hill was the highest piece of terrain within range of small arms, and it was still bedeviling his rear.

Hotel Company recrossed the 500 meters that separated the objectives and, as soon as the air strikes were complete, renewed the attack on the hill. This time Jenkins threw all three of his platoons against the hill.

The Marines encountered heavy fire and had initial problems securing the crest of the hill. The VC fought back tenaciously, but the Marines fought forward just as hard. A timely reinforcement by tanks that had landed over the beach and more Marine air support helped carry the hill.

As the final air strike was conducted Hotel Company evacuated eleven of its own wounded and one KIA. While loading a wounded Marine on a tank Pfc Jim Kehres, who had been helping with with wounded since becoming separated from his gunner, Ernie Wallace, was shot through both b.u.t.tocks and knocked to the ground. He was himself evacuated.

WITH SUDDEN DEATH SIX.

The radios with the 2/4 battalion command group were very busy. They reported that Golf Company was moving to its a.s.signed objective from LZ Red with relatively little contact, that Echo Company had a handle on what was confronting it, and that Hotel Company had stepped in it. Lieutenant Colonel Fisher learned that Hotel had been taken under fire immediately and had problems, but poor radio communications prevented him from getting a clear picture of what was going on.

Waiting in the LZ for Colonel Peatross seemed like an eternity, especially because Fisher's command group was under fire from small arms and the occasional 60mm mortar round.

Peatross flew in, and he and the Bull talked. They were extremely concerned with what was happening to Hotel Company. Although Hotel was just over the next short ridgeline there was no way they could find out what was going on. They knew that 1stLt Mike Jenkins was in a major fight, but the Bull trusted him and was doing what he could to make sure that all the supporting arms knew the priority was for Hotel Company. After hearing that, Peatross flew back to the regimental CP and Fisher and his group went up the hill behind Echo Company.

In the original attack on the first hill, Echo Company had suffered two KIA and three WIA while three fleeing VC had fallen to a direct hit from a 3.5-inch rocket launcher. As Echo's attack continued the Marines sustained another twelve WIA. It was a constant fight over ground that reminded Gunny Garr of the hill country in Texas, but with hedgerows.

Garr, Captain Riley, Bull Fisher, and the radio operators walked abreast, fairly well spread out. A mortar round landed in front of them and Riley was the only one to get hit. He was able to run to a ditch about twenty yards away along with the Bull and the radio operators. Garr hit the deck and stayed there for a moment. Then, remembering from Korea that two rounds never land in the same place, he crawled over to where the last one had impacted and lay there. The ground was extremely hot, but Garr stayed there for a bit, although the Bull was hollering, "Gunny! Gunny! Are you okay?"

A squad of MPs from the 7th Marines CP was along to act as prisoner security. A Marine from this squad was behind Gunny Garr. Garr asked him if he was okay. He said that, yes, he was, but he sounded a bit uncertain. Garr said, "Crawl over to where I am and we'll wait this out." The Marine, glad of the company, joined him. Colonel Fisher was still yelling; he wanted to know if Garr was okay. Garr yelled back that he was and that he was going to stay in the little depression in the ground with the MP.

Bull and his command group couldn't move, and Echo was temporarily halted by fire. When the VC fire subsided a bit, Garr told the MP, "You follow me and we'll jump into this little ravine." They got over to where the Bull was. Everyone was glad to see Garr because they thought he had been badly hit.

Mortar rounds started impacting along the little gully in which the command group had gone to ground. In addition to Riley there were soon four other wounded in the command group. A staff sergeant who was the acting S-4 for the operation was among them. There was no personnel officer (S-1) on the operation, no sergeant major, and no XO. Now, that Riley was. .h.i.t, there was no S-3, other than the supporting-arms officers, and there was no staff other than Garr. Bull Fisher looked at Ed Garr and said, "Now, my good gunnery sergeant, you are my S-3 officer." The colonel often prepped his remarks with his officers or staff NCOs with "Now my good lieutenant," or captain, or whatever. It was a sign that the Bull was thinking hard about you.

INDIA COMPANY LEAVES ITS ZONE. 0900.

Captain Bruce Webb's India Company, 3/3, had come ash.o.r.e using a streambed to mark its left flank. The stream ran inland for about 1,800 meters before bending to the north and running parallel to the beach. By about 0900 India had covered the ground to the curve in the streambed and had wheeled around toward the north. Just beyond the stream, and outside India's area of responsibility, was An Cuong 2, now on the India Company left flank.

Within minutes, Captain Webb's Marines spotted a group of about fifteen VC, and then a second group, numbering about twenty, in the center of the village. The VC opened up with small arms and automatic weapons. Webb had an immediate need to protect his flank, so he requested permission to cross over into the 2/4 sector and go after the Viet Cong who were firing at his company. By this time news was coming into the regimental headquarters about Hotel, 2/4's dilemma, so permission was quickly granted. An Cuong 2 lay between India Company and Hotel Company, and Colonel Peatross thought Webb's Marines might be able to relieve the pressure on Hotel as well as guard their own flank.

Permission received, the India Company Marines all took off at high port, running as hard as they could toward the enemy. Downhill and across a flat they went, until they came under fire from a line of small trees. Their attack so surprised the defenders that they overran them and took several prisoners. One of the captured VC, either frightened or unwilling to cooperate with his captors, lay stiff as a board and bit his tongue so badly that blood ran out of his mouth. When 1stSgt Art Petty began evacuating prisoners, he had one of the bigger Marines pick the man up and carry him to a helicopter, so he could be interrogated in the rear. The VC remained in a nearly catatonic state as the aircraft lifted off of the ground.

India Company Marines were busily trying to kill the VC troops they were not able to capture. Lieutenant Richard Purnell, the company XO, spotted a number of VC trying to go around the flank and escape from the Marines down the riverbed. He was attempting to stop them, blazing away with his .45 as fast as he could, yelling, "Get them!"

First Sergeant Petty stood with Captain Webb and watched one of the India Company platoons start across the riverbed. There was a sloping hill on the other bank that was covered with knee-high brush. The two Marines had a grandstand seat as a number of Viet Cong broke and run. Hunters who have seen quail would be familiar with the scene. One VC left his position, ran over to another VC, and stopped for a split second. Then both VC ran over to the next position, and so on until a small group of them was fleeing into the brush together. This may be because the VC broke their forces down into three-man fire teams, that were trained to move together. The Marines cut them down in bunches as they fled.

First Sergeant Petty joined a group to the left of the advance CP group. As they crossed over the riverbed, he heard what he believed were mortar rounds coming in. He hit the deck until the explosions stopped.

The streambed to the company's front ran parallel to the beach. Perpendicular to that was a trenchline or drainage ditch, which ran east and west. Captain Webb's lead elements had crossed to the other side of the trench and a lot of fighting was going on.

The India command group halted briefly before the riverbed and pretty much stretched out on line. One of the nearby Marines took a bullet on the inside of his upper left thigh. The man was screaming and hollering because he thought he had lost his genitals. A corpsman struggled to get the man's pants down and discovered that he had a serious gunshot wound to the thigh but that his manhood was intact. Captain Webb called in a medevac and sent Pfc Glenn Johnson back to get the other evacuees, thinking that they could move up more easily than this Marine could move back. Johnson who stripped off his pack and the satchel charge he was carrying and became the target of the day the instant he got up and started running. Bullets. .h.i.t all around his feet. He dove into the brushy area to the rear and told the other casualties and those helping them to move up.

One of the Marines. .h.i.t was Sergeant Ma.s.sey, the 1st Platoon guide. The bullet glanced off a shovel and went through the fleshy part of Ma.s.sey's upper arm. Ma.s.sey decided to stay in the field. He fought through the day and survived Starlite.

THE 2/4 COMMAND GROUP 0900.

The 2/4 command group called for a medevac for Captain Riley and the other wounded. As it was inbound, Gunny Garr got on the radio and told the pilot that they were still receiving incoming mortars, then he popped a green smoke grenade in the area where the mortar rounds were landing in order to mark the zone. The pilot brought in his aircraft without hesitation. As the ground troops were loading the casualties Garr noted empty sh.e.l.l casings rolling around on the chopper's deck. It was clear that this bird had already seen some action this day.

ECHO COMPANY, 2/4.

Echo Company, 2/4, was getting too far ahead of the command group, which was burdened with a section of two 81mm mortars and several .50-caliber machine guns. Despite the load, they picked up the pace. They also had along a number of Vietnamese Popular Forces troops from the Binh Son District who had been attached to the operation at the last minute.

Echo continued its move to the northeast. At one juncture the Marines spotted about a hundred of the enemy in the open and asked for an artillery fire mission. The Viet Cong were running at a fast trot in the opposite direction, but parallel to the Marines, at a distance of a few hundred yards. They were dressed in dark blue uniforms; carrying weapons, including mortars; and making a strange noise. It sounded to Gunny Garr as if they were grunting.

The Echo Company Marines quickly looked for a way to bring fire to bear on them. They were too distant for effective fire from small arms, and there was a deep ravine between the two forces, which prevented a direct attack. The radio traffic was so thick on the nets that they could not get through using ordinary procedures. Finally they used flash precedence, the designation reserved for extremely important messages, to get through. In this manner they called an artillery fire mission.

The 107mm howtars from 3/12, helilifted into the position occupied by Mike Company, 3/3, poured overwhelming fire into the enemy ranks. Lieutenant Colonel Fisher, who later flew over the impact area in a helicopter, estimated that the howtar mission accounted for ninety enemy dead.

The artillery took the starch out of the enemy resistance and Echo Company was able to continue its push against only minimal opposition.

O'MALLEY'S SQUAD.

A section of M48 tanks that had landed in the second wave caught up with India Company, 3/3, just as it was approaching An Cuong 2. Captain Webb a.s.signed Cpl Robert O'Malley's 1st Squad of the 1st Platoon to the tanks.

As the company pushed on and neared the outskirts of the village, enemy fire stiffened and the Marines quickly deployed in a.s.sault formation, with the 1st Platoon on the left, the 2d Platoon on the right, and the 3d Platoon was in reserve.

South of the village was a trench about ten feet across and six or seven feet deep. It appeared to be very old, not built especially to be a tank trap, but it was too wide for the tanks to cross, so they were sent along the edge of the trench to the west. The lieutenant in charge of the tanks was aggressive; he led his vehicles, with O'Malley's men on board, away from the main body of India Company. While India Company a.s.saulted into the village to the north, the tanks continued along the trenchline to the west.

Corporal O'Malley had split his squad into three groups. O'Malley, LCpl Chris Buchs, and Pfc Robert Rimpson, rode the first tank; Cpl Forrest Hayden, LCpl James Aaron, and LCpl Merlin Marquardt were in the middle; and the remainder of the squad brought up the rear.

Casualties began to mount elsewhere in the company, but at this point O'Malley's men were not getting enough fire to worry about. They heard a large volume of shooting flare up in the India Company sector and could hear Hotel, 2/4's fire fight in the distance.

The two lead tanks moved out a little faster while the third tank hung back a little as rear security. As they drove around a large hedgerow that gave them some minimal concealment to their right, three BAR rounds suddenly came out of the foliage and st.i.tched Marquardt. O'Malley quickly stopped the tanks and yelled for Hayden and Aaron to get Marquardt off the tank and administer first aid. Then he sent Chris Buchs off to find a corpsman as he and the rest of his squad poured suppressing fire into the hedgerow and worked on Marquardt.

Buchs raced back across the paddies and found a corpsman who was tending another casualty. When the doc promised to finish and move up within a few minutes, Buchs returned to his squad. Marquardt was dead by the time help arrived.

Corporal O'Malley, still aboard the lead tank, poured rounds into the hedgerow on the left side, and Buchs opened fire at the hedgerow on the right, to suppress enemy fire. They tried tossing grenades into the thick growth, but these had little effect. The VC were in trenches on the other side of the hedgerows, and the grenades either bounced back or stuck in the bamboo growth before they reached their targets.

Buchs spotted a small opening in the hedgerow on the right and pa.s.sed the word to O'Malley. "I'll cover you while you move through," Buchs shouted.

"Well, let's go, Buchs," came the reply. O'Malley, and then Buchs, went through the shrubbery, jumped into the trench, and carried the fight to the VC. Buchs took the left side while his squad leader took the right, and they overwhelmed a dozen of the enemy. O'Malley shot eight of them dead, and Buchs downed the other four.

The pair ran out of ammunition as other VC started down the trench toward them, so they jumped out of the trench and reloaded. Then they rolled back into the trench and resumed their a.s.sault. O'Malley called on Lance Corporal Hayden to check the bodies of the downed VC and ordered Rimpson, their M79 grenadier, to position himself at the opening of the trenchline.

As O'Malley went down the left side of the trench and Buchs gave him cover, a VC who was playing possum jumped up and threw a grenade at Hayden. Hayden leaped back and fell as Buchs killed the VC. Hayden was. .h.i.t with a grenade fragment in the hip, and O'Malley took one in the foot. Buchs collected the VC weapons, then helped O'Malley get Hayden out of the trench.

Rimpson joined them in the trench and killed another advancing VC with his grenade launcher from about fifteen yards. The Marines were lucky that they were not hit, too, because they were well within the bursting radius of the round from Rimpson's M79.

They finished collecting the enemy weapons and loaded them on a tank to be taken to an LZ and evacuated by helicopter. Although wounded, O'Malley decided to stay with his men and refused to be evacuated.

CHAPTER 8.

THE TAKING OF AN CUONG 2.

An Cuong 2 was heavily wooded and fortified. Among its twenty-five to thirty huts were bunkers, trenchlines, and pillboxes. Most were covered over with logs and then with banana leaves to camouflage them.

As the India Company, 3/3, Marines moved toward the village the firing picked up again. A machine-gun team moved across a paddy and ran into a buzz saw of automatic weapons fire, probably a machine gun. Private First Cla.s.s Howard Miller was the only survivor of his four-man team, from which Pfc Gilbert Nickerson, Pfc Walter Smith, and Pfc James White were all killed. As the junior man in the team, Miller carried his rifle and two hundred rounds of M60 machine-gun ammunition in a metal box. After his team members were lost, he slung his rifle over his back, carried the ammo box in one hand and the machine-gun in the other.

Miller looked for cover and spotted what seemed to be an artillery crater. When he leaped into the hole he accidentally smacked another Marine hard in the helmet with the ammunition box. The Marine interrupted Miller's apology with a command to stop worrying and keep digging. "We got to get deeper!"

Many Marines moved forward alongside rice paddies and an overgrown drainage ditch just outside of An Cuong 2. Several 60mm mortar rounds dropped among the attackers, but amid all the noise and confusion some of the Marines didn't believe they were really mortars.

Mortars are fearsome because they don't make much noise in flight. If you do not know they have been fired, they suddenly intrude on your world with explosions that hurtle dozens of hot, razor-sharp, life- and limb-taking fragments. Under the right conditions of range and relative noise level it might be possible to hear them leaving the tube. From that point it is usually a matter of wait and see. They are an indirect-fire weapon; the projectile travels in a high arc and, inasmuch they make little noise in flight, those on the ground have no indication where the rounds are going to impact. If they are heard leaving the tube, someone will usually yell, "Incoming!" and everyone will hit the deck, hopefully in a hole or behind something, and try to make themselves as small as possible. There is no real way to hide from a mortar. Their high angle of fire may bring them on your side of an obstacle rather than the enemy's side. Even being in a hole is no guarantee for survival as the rounds can, and have, found their way to the inside of deep holes and trenches. Knowing that mortar rounds are in the air in your general vicinity inspires a wide variety of fears, hopes, and "let's make a deal" with your G.o.d. For those untouched by an incoming barrage there is a great sense of "anybody but me" relief to hear the rounds impact and then know that you have bought another tenuous hold on life.

In this case, the action around them prevented the India Company, 3/3, Marines from hearing the mortars being fired. When Sgt Pat Finton pointed out a dud that landed nearby with the fins sticking up out of a rice paddy, everyone became a believer, said one version or another of "Oh, s.h.i.t!" and jumped into the overgrown drainage ditch.

Engineers Pfc Glenn Johnson and Staff Sergeant Wilson, decided to take their chances in the open because of their experiences with finding b.o.o.by traps in ditches. "FO up!" came a call from the front of the unit, where an artillery forward observer was needed. Wilson fell back to guide the FO forward. Mortars burst among them again with renewed intensity and this time the engineers thought that maybe getting into the trench wasn't such a bad idea after all. All around them Marines were digging in and hugging the ground.

After the Marines had dug for about twenty minutes and put some fire out to their front, enemy activity trailed off. The India Company Marines got up to resume the attack.

The intensity of the fighting rose and fell for no discernible reasons. Sometimes it seemed to be going on all sides at once. At other moments, there was very little gunfire at all.

The Marines quickly learned a practical lesson that all warriors have known since ancient times. Theoretically, one is supposed to line up in an a.s.sault or other planned formation and fight that way. But once battle is joined the formation rapidly degenerates into a series of isolated small actions. In Starlite, as in most battles, it seemed that the fights generally meant that four or five men on one side would be heavily engaged with a similar number on the opposite side. Each combatant became so preoccupied with taking care of his situation that he often had little knowledge of and didn't really care what was going on a few yards away. Throw in the sounds, the smells, and the fear and you have the notorious "fog of war" that explains why such widely differing accounts describe the same battle.

Amidst this chaos and mayhem, Capt Bruce Webb seemed to be everywhere. The popular skipper repeatedly exposed himself to urge his men forward, give orders, and call for supporting arms.

While preparing for the attack on the village itself, Captain Webb had radioed for close air support. The Marines could not get radio contact with the direct air support center (DASC) in Chulai, so the two forward air controllers (FACs), Captain Dalby and Lieutenant Schwend, spoke to the pilots directly, calling them in by their plane numbers. They could tell what ordnance loads the aircraft were carrying by looking at them. The F4 Phantoms and A4 Skyhawks circling the area were loaded with fragmentation bombs and napalm, and they were directed against targets as needed by the men on the ground. Although the by-the-book members of the DASC were horrified at the procedure, the result was an impressive bit of innovative close air support coordination between the pilots and the ground troops. The forward air controllers also managed to coordinate with the artillery people and notify pilots when the ordinate of artillery was going to exceed 2,000 feet in the area through which Marine aircraft were going to fly.

Marine FACs are Marine aviators. The Corps had learned in World War II that the best air support coordination was between a pilot on the ground and a pilot in the air.

The turn-around time for A4s and F4s was very short. Danang, where the F4s were based, was only about fifty miles away; and the A4s were based right there, at Chulai. Their target area during Starlite was practically in the traffic pattern for the airstrip. The limiting factor for the A4s was how fast they could land, rearm, and take off again. Seventy-eight fixed-wing sorties were flown in support of the operation, most of them on the first day. The Phantoms and Skyhawks expended 65 tons of bombs, 4 tons of napalm, 533 2.75-inch rockets, and 6,000 rounds of 20mm ammo. In excess of 500 helicopter sorties were flown, and 3 KC-130 transport aircraft from Marine Transport Squadron 152 were engaged in evacuating the dead and wounded from Chulai to Danang.