First Battle Part 9

COLUMN 21. THE ACTION CONTINUES.

The VC moved closer to the stalled resupply column. For hours it was a desperate standoff. Staff Sergeant Jack Marino and his crewmen used hand grenades, pistols, rifles, and their one machine gun. The Marines' job was made a little easier by the VC habit of bunching up in groups of ten to fifteen. But the VC kept coming.

Marino could see four or five Marines in the rice paddies, but he couldn't tell how many of them were still alive and able to fight. He had nine effectives with him, of whom most were wounded. Of the other vehicles only one had two surviving Marines aboard who were still firing. The remainder were silent.

The fight raged on. Marino estimated that a force of several hundred Viet Cong had closed in on the column. Next to Marino's tractor was an abandoned amtrac that several VC had boarded via its ramp. One of the VC emerged with a soap dish in his hand. As he turned to show it to another VC, Sergeant Mulloy shot the two of them off the ramp from his position in the paddy. Another tractor, which the VC thought was still occupied by living Marines, was. .h.i.t once more with an ant.i.tank rocket. Its only pa.s.senger was dead. Marino's vehicle took a direct hit from a 57mm round that wounded him and several other Marines. Several of these men had been wounded for the second or third time.

In the tractor whose machine gun had been knocked out early in the fight, one of the survivors was killed trying to fire his rifle from the hatch. The VC also attempted to lob grenades down the open hatch of Marino's vehicle. When Marino moved to close the hatch a burst of gunfire drove him back. The Marines inside eventually managed to get the tractor b.u.t.toned up, but the interior heat soared.

After about three hours the main body of VC left, but a group of around fifty VC in a nearby wooded area was seen at 0100 the next morning.

Staff Sergeant Jack Marino tried to get evacuation choppers in to take out the wounded, but the location of the convoy had yet to be determined. The sergeant asked for air strikes, but, yet again, the airmen were hampered because of Marino's not being able to give his position coordinates. Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Childers, commanding officer of HMM-361, had made several low-alt.i.tude pa.s.ses over the area just before dark on August 18, but he had been unable to spot the convoy.

During most of the night Lt Dave Steel kept up his conversation with the lone Marine who had been crying for help. The man kept saying, "I need help. Please come help me." Steel told him to put as much stuff over himself as possible, including the bodies of his comrades. The man screamed and cried into the radio all night. Steel asked Capt Dave Ramsey, the 3/3 operations officer, if there was any chance of getting to him. Ramsey said no; it was a hard decision, but nothing could be done that night. They weren't sure of his exact location and the VC were sure to be waiting. They had no way of knowing whether there were other survivors in the column or not. The lone Marine felt that he had been deserted. Not going after him that night was one of the toughest decisions Lieutenant Colonel Muir and Captain Ramsey ever made.

CHAPTER 12.

THE SECOND DAY.

At 0730 on August 19, Kilo and Lima companies, 3/3, moved out in line abreast to attack toward the northeast. Lima, 3/7, was in reserve. Simultaneously, Echo and Golf, 2/4, drove eastward toward the sea to link up with 3/3. The battered Hotel, 2/4, and India Company, 3/3, withdrew to the regimental CP, and India and Mike, 3/7, moved out from the CP to extract the supply column and on the way toward the village of An Thoi 2 to establish a blocking position that would prevent the VC from slipping southward. Mike, 3/3, was ordered to hold its original blocking position further north.

Lima, 3/7, completed the sweep to the beach with little incident. Some light sniper fire, which caused no casualties, was all these troops encountered. As they looked toward the village of Van Tuong 1 they observed several VC and called an air strike. When the strike dispersed the VC, the 3d Platoon took the fleeing enemy under fire and killed an estimated nineteen of them.

THE RESCUE.

The exact location of Column 21 was not determined until after sunrise on August 19. One of the 3/3 FACs, Lt Howie Schwend, requested that all aircraft operating in the area look for it, and it was found.

The 3d Battalion, 7th Marines advanced into its zone of action, the scene of August 18's fiercest fighting. There it discovered that the VC had mostly gone. These Marines moved through An Cuong 2, met no resistance, and joined up with the supply convoy.

When the young man who had pleaded on the radio all day and all night was finally rescued the next morning, he ran out of his tractor screaming and crying about having been abandoned. "They just left me there! They abandoned me!" Ironically, although the Marine was quite bitter, he became a career Marine.

The VC left a b.o.o.by-trapped C-ration box on the ramp of the vehicle next to Marino's. It was discovered and disarmed by the engineers.

More than sixty enemy bodies were found in the vicinity of the column. Others undoubtedly had been hauled away.

One tractor was deemed irreparable and blown up by engineers on the spot. The wreckage remains there today, and the Vietnamese have built a war memorial around it. Of the remaining vehicles, only one could move under its own power; the remainder had to be towed by a tank retriever.

Sergeant James Mulloy, who had positioned himself in the rice paddy, thwarted the VC effort to overrun the column for hour upon hour. He inflicted an extraordinary number of casualties on the Viet Cong. When aid arrived that morning he insured that all the wounded men were evacuated before seeking relief for himself. James Mulloy was awarded the Navy Cross Medal for his heroic efforts.

Jack Marino, who received the Silver Star Medal for his actions during the fight, counted five recoilless rifle or RPG hits on his vehicle, more than three hundred fifty bullet holes, and damage from an 82mm mortar round that knocked out the engine.

3/7.

Lima, 3/7, was in its blocking position by 1500. In Van Tuong 3 and Van Tuong 4, these troops apprehended eight young males of military age and turned them over to the intelligence officer for questioning.

India and Mike companies, 3/7, patrolled over the ground on which Hotel, 2/4, had fought so hard the day before. They found packs and minor pieces of equipment but nothing of great value.

2/4 AND 3/3.

The main bodies of 2/4 and 3/3 encountered scattered pockets of VC on their sweep to the sea. The terrain was difficult; compartmented rice paddies ringed by dikes and hedgerows hindered observation for control purposes and hampered maneuverability. The few VC left in the area were holed up in scattered tunnels and caves. Marines moving through the area often sustained sniper fire from the rear. Blasting the tunnels and caves was slow, hot work.

Echo Company, 2/4, and the battalion command group swept through Van Tuong 1. Gunny Ed Garr thought it was one of the spookiest places he ever saw. He had both pistols out and at the ready, and he made sure he didn't get near any radio antennas on the way through the village. VC snipers' favorite targets were the radio operators and those around them, who would be correctly presumed to be members of the command group.

The hedgerows and fences channeled the foot traffic through narrow lanes, perfect for b.o.o.by traps or ambushes. The Marines discovered several thousand punji stakes in a schoolyard and surmised that children had made them during school breaks. An old man helped destroy them.

Even though it was full daylight, the village had a double canopy of vegetation over it and seemed awfully dark and foreboding. As were most of the villages in the area it was honeycombed with bunkers.

The Marines picked up so many packs and so much communications wire that they were certain this had been the 1st VC Regiment command post. They were right. The commanders thought a more thorough search was in order and called the RLT-7 headquarters to recommend that an ARVN or other unit conduct a detailed search after they pa.s.sed through. The march to the sea was complete and organized resistance ceased by nightfall.

WRONG WAY.

Corporal Robert O'Malley's men, Buchs and Rimpson, stayed aboard the hospital ship the first night, but they decided that they were not wounded badly enough to prevent them from rejoining the fight. The rumor mill, which always works overtime during and after a big fight, had it that India Company, 3/3, had been wiped out.

The two Marines. .h.i.tched a ride back to the battalion armory in Chulai, where they drew new weapons and managed to get a ride back to the ship. From there they caught an amtrac headed for the beach and rejoined the battalion. They saw no more action on Starlite as, by this time, India Company had been withdrawn to the beach to serve as command post security. Long after the battle, other troops marveled at the fact that these two had a legitimate reason to stay away from a very dangerous battlefield and had chosen to return. Although truly admired for their decision they took a lot of ribbing from the others. Rimpson, in particular, was singled out for the sobriquet "Wrong Way Rimpson."

LOOSE ENDS.

General Walt continued Starlite for five more days in the hope that his troops would find more of the enemy in caves and tunnels. Fisher's and Muir's battalions were withdrawn on August 20, and LtCol James Kelly's 1/7 entered the area to work with 3/7. Troops of the 2d ARVN Division came into Starlite on the third day of the operation and policed up VC who were still operating on the fringes of the peninsula. They brought up three or four battalions along the coastline from south of Chulai to keep VC from escaping in that direction. Their efforts yielded few results. The 2d ARVN Division commander, BriGen Hoang Xuan Lam, met with Colonel Peatross on several occasions. Peatross trusted Lam completely and thought that there would be no leaks from him. Lam and some of his staff visited Peatross and the 7th Marines during Starlite, and after that they worked very closely together.

The VC who had wanted to leave were gone. They departed the first night, exiting near where Hotel Company, 2/4, was dug in for the night and then on past an ARVN outpost to the south, where the right people were bribed to ignore their pa.s.sage.

The Bo Doi claim that they broke off the battle at the end of the first day because, "we were tired, and the Americans were tired." They left one company behind under the command of Phan Tan Huan to help the villagers deal with the casualties and hara.s.s the Marines. Clashes between the two sides were generally light, and there were few casualties on the Marine side. The effort cost the VC another sixty or so killed in action. No more Marines were killed by the VC activity.

The Bo Doi said that they considered bringing in their other two battalions from the south when the battle began but rejected that idea out of fear of the effect American fire power would have on the units moving in the open during daylight.

Operation Starlite was over, but it would remain in the collective memory of the Marines for a long, long time.

CHAPTER 13.

THE REACTION.

By the time the rescued Marines were returned to the RLT-7 CP about twenty-five correspondents showed up to be briefed about the operation. New Zealander Peter Arnett cornered the young man who had been crying on the radio and asked him questions about events of the previous day. Then, without a word to anyone else, Arnett went off and filed a story that alleged that the Marine Corps had lost, that it had failed to rescue its people, and that the Marine leaders did not have a true grasp on the combat situation at hand on August 18.

Captain Richard Johnson, a member of the 3d Marine Division operations staff, filed a second story that differed substantially from Arnett's. He did so at the request of Col Don Wyckoff, the III Marine Amphibious Force operations officer, because so many queries came in as a result of Arnette's piece.

Captain Johnson and some other officers arrived in Saigon to brief General Westmoreland and his staff on the morning of August 21. Afterwards they were asked to brief the correspondents at the Saigon press center. In addition to Johnson the Marines were represented by Major Williamson, the 3d Marine Division intelligence officer; a squad leader from Hotel Company, 2/4; an F4 pilot; and an aerial observer, all of whom had partic.i.p.ated in the operation. The briefing went well until Arnett, at the very end, shot his hand up and asked Johnson why he disputed his (Arnett's) version of the story. Johnson related what actually happened and pointed out that he (Johnson) had been within a few hundred meters of the incident, whereas Arnett had been nowhere near the battlefield.

Arnett shot back that Johnson was a liar and challenged him to meet him (Arnett) at the a.s.sociated Press office, where he would produce doc.u.mentary evidence of what happened. Because of the exchange of words the head of the Saigon press center terminated the briefing. Johnson and the others were caught in the crush of other correspondents who approached them to ask questions, including at least one who apologized for Arnette's actions.

It took Johnson about fifteen minutes to break away and get to the a.s.sociated Press office, which they found locked. There was no sign of Arnett. They found this curious, because most press offices were open twenty-four hours a day.

Johnson never encountered Arnett again, but the reporter won the Pulitzer Prize and established his reputation with this article, whose authenticity the Marines still question.

"Marines Trap 2,000 VC" was one headline of many that hit front pages across the nation. It was, indeed, a promising time for America's effort in Vietnam. President Lyndon Johnson was so ecstatic he sent a message to Generals Westmoreland and Walt that said in part, "I extend my heartfelt thanks and congratulations to the units under your command which have achieved a clear cut victory against the 1st Viet Cong Regiment at Chulai. This nation is deeply proud of its fighting sons. They will have the continued, united, and determined support of their people at home."

And for a while they did. The anti-war demonstrations and teach-ins had not yet begun, and they wouldn't reach a crescendo until after the Tet Offensive of early 1968. In the aftermath of Starlite optimists on Westmoreland's staff, in the administration, and in the Congress visualized American troops rooting out and killing or dispersing large numbers of enemy soldiers in a short period of time.

The Marines had pa.s.sed their first big test in Vietnam. Moreover, they tested on the battlefield the combined helicopter and amphibious doctrine they had studied for more than a decade. The success of Starlite renewed their faith in their ability to operate effectively in "any clime and place," and against any enemy.

Just a few weeks after Operation Starlite the Marines launched Operation Piranha against what was supposed to be the "remnants" of the 1st Viet Cong Regiment, which were thought to be on the Batangan Peninsula, about eight miles south of the Starlite battlefield.

Once again Col Peat Peatross and Navy Capt William McKinney were the commanders of the landing forces and the amphibious task force. The operation also included LtCol Charles Bodley's 3/7 and LtCol Joseph E. Muir's 3/3. This time our Vietnamese allies were included. The 2d Battalion, 4th ARVN Regiment, and the 3d VNMC Battalion were landed by helicopter in the southern portion of the battlefield. Compared to Starlite, where the planning was done instantly and the execution followed quickly, the conditions of Piranha permitted more extensive preparation. This time there was a thirteen-day interval between the time the warning order went out and the time of the landing, on September 7.

The operation was but a moderate success when compared with its predecessor. Allied forces claimed 178 VC killed and 20 weapons captured. The allies suffered two Marines and five South Vietnamese killed.1 The fairly low level of activity could be attributed to several factors. One difference was the fact that the Marines had a long time to plan Piranha. The extended planning phase meant a smoother operation, but it also increased the likelihood of intelligence leaks by our allies. On Starlite, only two high-ranking Vietnamese generals were notified of the operation before its execution. Because of extensive South Vietnamese partic.i.p.ation in Pirhana, a lot of them had to know about the effort during the planning stages, which increased the likelihood of information falling into enemy hands.

Perhaps the most important reason for the so-so result was that the Viet Cong had gained an enormous appreciation of the Marines' ability to project power from the sea as a result of Starlite. Never again in the course of the war did they permit their units to tarry on the coastal plain. When they had a job to do near the water, they came in and did it, and then they fled inland again. Although they developed good antiaircraft techniques and weaponry during the war they had neither the ordnance nor the expertise to thwart an amphibious landing force.

It took a long time for American forces to gain an appreciation of the resilience of the Viet Cong. At the conclusion of Starlite the allies wrote off the 1st Viet Cong Regiment as a fighting force. A mere four months later, several Marine battalions, including 3/3, once again met the full-strength regiment near Chulai in Operation Harvest Moon. The Americans were mystified by the regiment's ability to reconst.i.tute itself. The Marines did not know that they had encountered only half of the regiment on Operation Starlite. Nor did they have an understanding of how the VC could replenish their losses by reaching down into local guerrilla and regional force units for new men. The Ba Gia Regiment would be written off many times, but it endured throughout the war. Many thousands of Viet Cong who belonged to this unit were killed over the years, but the unit always bounced back. It was a.s.signed as part of the 2d North Vietnamese Army Division in early 1966 and ranged back and forth between its familiar foundation in Quang Ngai Province and the Que Son Valley, to the north. At the end of Operation Swift in September 1967 the 1st VC Regiment was judged to be "unfit for combat" by allied intelligence2. Yet the regiment continued a vigorous program of fighting U.S. Marine and U.S. Army units and, after the withdrawal of American troops, against ARVN units.

The reaction to Operation Starlite among the allies was not altogether unalloyed cheer. There was grumbling to Westmoreland from ARVN officers on the Joint General Staff who resented that ARVN units had not been included. Walt later stated that Generals Lam and Thi knew of the operation and concurred with his decision to operate on a basis of secrecy.

The 1st VC Regiment's "Victory at Van Tuong" "demonstrated what was necessary to defeat the Americans" and the unit received the "1st Cla.s.s Medal of Liberation" and the pennant of "Valor, Steadfastness, Good Combativity and Swift Destruction."3 After the end of the war the government of Vietnam constructed memorial pavilions around the tank and amtrac that were destroyed on Operation Starlite. Plaques in Vietnamese and English inform the visitor that they were just two of the many vehicles destroyed by the freedom fighters.

Starlite was a watershed for both sides. The U.S. continued to pour men and materiel into the war effort in the belief that Starlite was the beginning of a reversal of fortune in Vietnam. Ironically, Starlite, a Marine victory, reinforced General Westmoreland's notion that carrying the fight to main force enemy units was the key to success in Vietnam. This belief helped keep pacification, the Marines' focal point, in a secondary role.

For their part, the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese Army, realized that the days of "special war" and the prospects for a quick victory had evaporated. They settled in for a long struggle. It would take them nearly a decade to achieve their aims. The Bo Doi told the author that before Starlite they feared American mobility and fire power, and were not sure how to handle with it. The operation taught them, however, that they could adapt to deal with the Americans just as they had adapted to deal with the French.

PART III.

CHAPTER 14.

THE BLOOD DEBT.

Operation Starlite was heralded as a success throughout America's military establishment and among America's allies. The death of fifty-four Americans seemed a reasonable price for killing six hundred-some of the enemy. The operation showed that the wily and evil Viet Cong could be beaten with American fire power and mobility. There were Pollyanna predictions of bringing home U.S. troops soon. Few cared that in cities and towns in twenty-six states across the nations, Marine officers donned their dress blues and, accompanied by Navy chaplains, made difficult journeys to see the families of the fifty-four dead to tell them that their sons, their fathers, or their husbands had died heroically for their country. As these fifty-four families grieved their loss, fifty-four names were added to the debit side of the ledger. America's blood debt to her own people had just taken its biggest single jump to that time. Few Americans or Vietnamese realized it, but Operation Starlite was just the first outpouring of what would become a flood of corpses from Vietnam to the United States.

Fewer than than three months later U.S. Army forces entered a terrible place called the Ia Drang Valley, where they inflicted a defeat on the North Vietnamese Army. But America's debt made another quantum leap when it increased by nearly three hundred names, and three hundred more grieving families. The total liability, beginning with Major Buis and Master Sergeant Ovnand, was now 2,057.

By the end of 1965 the number would be 2,385.

Withdrawal from Vietnam, which could have been accomplished without too much furor just a few months earlier, had become an unacceptable option for the Johnson administration. How could the American President defend the expenditure of more than two thousand American lives with nothing to show for it?

Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, the numbers-driven optimist, was besieged by doubt regarding the ability of the United States to win the war militarily by "as early as late 1965 or early 1966."1 Yet he made no real attempt to dissuade General Westmoreland from his b.l.o.o.d.y search-and- destroy strategy in favor of a pacification-driven effort combined with pressure on South Vietnam's regime du jour to genuinely reform.

The Americans would have many more "victories" the likes of Starlite, but these would be measured in terms of the notorious "body count" rather than by any measure of winning over the Vietnamese people to the concept of Western democracy.

General Westmoreland promised that sooner or later the war would reach a "crossover point," that the number of casualties inflicted on the communists would someday exceed the number of men they could replace. At this point, argued the general, the enemy forces would rapidly deteriorate in the face of continuing American and South Vietnamese victories. The crossover point proved to be ethereal; it was never reached because American planners had no real grasp of the determination of the Vietnamese people to expel foreigners from their soil. Long after the war, an American exclaimed to General Giap, "General, this war cost you over a million men." To which the general simply replied, "Yes."

America spent another ten years, and more than 56,000 additional lives, to follow a failed policy. Like gamblers who have already lost their gambling money, and then the rent money, and the car payment, and then the grocery money, and then borrowed or stole in the hope of changing their luck, the Johnson and Nixon administrations kept signing markers to America for a debt in gore that they hoped a reversal of fortune would justify.