A Shau Valor

by Thomas R. Yarborough

  On May 23, the rangers finally linked up with gunship pilot Chief Warrant Officer Donald L. Corkran. An attempt to extract him was unsuccessful due to intense ground fire, so the rangers, with “Corky” Corkran in tow, moved to another LZ. En route they were caught in an ambush by an NVA platoon and during the 15-minute firefight, suffered 3 rangers KIA, 2 WIA, and a translator WIA. After heavy saturation bombing by Air Force and Marine fighters, CH-46s finally extracted Ranger Company 1 and the incredibly lucky downed pilot. The co-pilot of the gunship, CWO Walter F. Wrobleski, was never found.22

  As in the earlier 1967 big unit battles like Operation Junction City, Operation Pirous terminated with mixed results. During the two-month long campaign, Project Delta inserted a total of 48 teams along the length and breadth of the A Shau Valley. Those teams confirmed that Route 922 entering South Vietnam from Laos at the northern end of the A Shau, and Route 548 running southeast through the valley, were indeed connected and had been improved to accommodate heavy truck traffic along their entire length to the southernmost portion of the A Shau. Evidence of truck traffic and road repair work had been reported daily, as well as six instances of actual truck sightings along those routes. Project Delta teams additionally discovered numerous previously undetected trails, all in good shape and recently used. The teams also observed that the enemy only used the roads and trails at night or during inclement weather when detection by strike aircraft was limited. The teams furthermore confirmed that the concentration of enemy forces proved to be much larger than earlier intelligence studies had estimated. Those NVA units moved at will throughout the AO, their counter-recon companies displaying a remarkable ability to track and anticipate the moves of Delta recon teams. The 90 incidents involving exchanges of fire between Delta and hostile units emphatically verified the effectiveness of enemy tactics.23

  In addition to the important intelligence gained between April 17 and June 13, Operation Pirous chalked up a notable score against the opposition. Delta assets accounted for 17 enemy soldiers confirmed killed and 29 killed by air (KBA). During that period, teams called in 44 pre-planned and 117 immediate air strikes which resulted in 14 structures destroyed, 2 vehicles destroyed and 6 damaged, 88 automatic weapon positions destroyed or silenced, and 68 secondary explosions and fires. Unfortunately, those statistics came at a steep price. In the fierce fighting, Delta lost 1 American KIA, 7 WIA, and 1 MIA. The Vietnamese Rangers suffered 4 KIA, 9 WIA, and 1 MIA. NVA gunners shot down four Hueys, two CH-46s, and one F-8, along with numerous aircraft and helicopters damaged by the intense ground fire.24

  Throughout the operation, the valor displayed by all Project Delta components was undeniable; they took the fight to the enemy no matter the risk, and in the A Shau that risk registered as high if not higher than in any other arena in South Vietnam. But the burning question remained: was the price too high?

  chapter

  4

  SOG: WEST OF THE A SHAU

  There are roads which must not be followed, armies

  which must not be attacked, towns which must not be

  besieged, positions which must not be contested.

  —SUN TZU

  Delta recon teams were not the only intrepid souls who ventured into the sinister and always dangerous Valley of Death. While Delta ran missions in the A Shau on the Vietnam side of the border, a top-secret joint service organization performed an almost identical mission across the border in Laos. That unit was known as MACSOG: Military Assistance Command, Studies and Observations Group. Usually referred to as SOG, the unit was formed to carry out covert action against North Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, but in reality the name ‘Studies and Observations Group’ conveyed about as thin a cover as had ever been devised. Instead of the academics and scientists the name suggested, the personnel were actually Green Berets borrowed from the 5th Special Forces Group, while the various SOG commanders read like an Army who’s who of legends in the special operations world: Clyde Russell, Donald “Headhunter” Blackburn, Jack Singlaub, Arthur “Bull” Simons, Steve Cavanaugh, and John “Skip” Sadler. The organization also included several Air Force Air Commando units as well as members of the U.S. Navy’s elite SEAL Team One. Virtually all of these highly trained unconventional warfare troops participated in one of SOG’s four core operational missions: Agent Networks and Deception, Covert Maritime Operations, “Black” Psychological Warfare, and Covert Operations against the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

  By far the largest effort within SOG, and one of the most dangerous, was OP 35, tasked with the insertion of American-led covert reconnaissance teams against the Ho Chi Minh Trail, first in Laos and later in Cambodia. The teams, routinely commanded by Special Forces personnel, performed a variety of missions deep within enemy territory, to include identifying NVA base camps and supply caches, bomb damage assessment of B-52 strikes, wire tapping, sabotaging logistics supply lines, directing air strikes against lucrative targets of opportunity, counting trucks moving down the Trail, and on occasion, snatching NVA prisoners. SOG was even tasked with rescuing U.S. crewmembers evading capture, or rescuing American or allied personnel being held as prisoners. The political sensitivity surrounding these hairy missions stemmed from the 1962 Geneva Accords which declared Laos to be “neutral.” As a result, all foreign forces were required to leave. They all did—except the North Vietnamese. In total disregard of the international agreement, NVA strength along the Trail rose to 60,000 support troops, 40,000 security troops, and over 10,000 antiaircraft gunners. Clearly the major network for infiltration, the Trail would eventually transport 20,000 NVA soldiers a month from the North into South Vietnam.1

  A steadfast concern among senior American policy makers included the distinct possibility that a Green Beret on one of SOG’s covert recon teams would be captured and put on public display, thus exposing American duplicity, not to mention our overt, albeit comparatively modest, violations of the Geneva Accords. Faced with a delicate balancing act of measuring the legal, political, and ethical ramifications attached to honoring the Geneva Accords, against the critical requirement to find out what Hanoi was up to in Laos, President Johnson reluctantly approved SOG covert missions across international borders. Originally code named “Shining Brass,” SOG’s cross border missions became “Operation Prairie Fire” in early 1967. That same year covert operations were extended into Cambodia; they were code named “Daniel Boone,” later changed to “Salem House.” Through it all the United States government staunchly denied that any American military combat personnel were on the ground in neutral Laos or Cambodia.

  The covert nature of the Prairie Fire mission, coupled with heavy losses among SOG reconnaissance teams, created sticky political problems requiring elaborate secrecy. Consequently, SOG missions were among the most highly classified of the war and therefore came under intense high-level scrutiny. The approval process also evolved into a bureaucratic nightmare. At a minimum of 30 days in advance, SOG submitted a planned mission up the chain of command. First stop was MACV, followed by Pacific Command Headquarters in Hawaii. Next came the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Office of the Secretary of Defense for review and approval. From there, SOG’s planned mission went to the National Security Council’s 303 Committee for coordination with State Department, the CIA, and finally to the White House for authorization. Much to the disgruntlement of SOG, at any point in the process a mission could be altered or rejected.2

  NVA BASE AREAS

  To fend off and partially mollify concerns and criticisms from State Department officials who definitely balked at the notion of permitting the American military to set up camp in neutral Laos, SOG teams went to extraordinary lengths to conceal their identities on missions. When crossing the border into Laos or Cambodia, team members completely sanitized themselves: no dog tags, no military ID cards, no personal items of any sort that might identify them as American. Their weapons, often foreign, had untraceable serial numbers; their uniforms, devoid of any patches or insignia, were non-regulation and locally
produced; if they smoked, even their American cigarettes were replaced by Asian brands. All this deception served one purpose: plausible deniability. If team members were killed or captured in Laos, the U.S. government would deny any association. The cover story included a flimsy explanation that the individuals had inadvertently strayed across the ill-defined border. In the event of a fatality, families back home were simply told that their loved ones had been killed “in Southeast Asia.” The subterfuge even went so far as to hide missions from Ambassador William H. Sullivan in Laos. When Sullivan initially imposed a ban on helicopter insertions of teams deeper than five kilometers into Laos, SOG legend Colonel Arthur “Bull” Simons solved the problem by simply drawing in a new border 20 kilometers farther west and issuing the new maps to his recon teams. As far as can be determined, the State Department never found out about the switch.3

  In I Corps, SOG ran its cross-border operations from Command and Control North, or CCN, its regional headquarters located at Da Nang. CCN reconnaissance teams, called RTs, worked all cross-border operations from Chu Lai north to the DMZ. Within CCN several FOBs operated, including those at Phu Bai, Khe Sanh, Quang Tri, and one at Nakhon Phanom, Thailand. At the tactical level, CCN assigned Operation Prairie Fire targets to a specific recon team, then shipped the team off to the FOB for the actual mission. Depending on the assignment, an RT could range in size from four to twelve men, usually with two or three Green Berets. The teams also included mostly Nung and Montagnard tribesmen, members of Vietnam’s largest ethnic minority. And like Project Delta, SOG “borrowed” Slicks and gunships from U.S. divisions in I Corps, along with helicopter assets from the Vietnamese Air Force (VNAF). RTs also operated under the protective cover of their own dedicated FACs, call sign Covey.

  Because of the secrecy involved, Prairie Fire missions into Laos were totally non-attribution affairs—nobody admitted the U.S. had teams operating there. The primary objective was to scout the Ho Chi Minh Trail, a sprawling, twisting network of paths, trails, and secondary dirt roads snaking through Laos and Cambodia. Running approximately 600 miles north to south and stretching 20 to 30 miles east to west, the Trail belonged exclusively to the North Vietnamese following the 1962 Geneva Accords. For that reason the U.S. had to find out what was going on along the Trail network, called by the North Vietnamese the Truong Son Strategic Supply Route.

  Laos, best described by Bernard Fall as a “political convenience,” had become a quagmire of intrigue as various factions within Premier Souvanna Phouma’s Royal Lao neutralist government vied for power. In that vacuum the North Vietnamese and the Laotian Communist Pathet Lao virtually owned the Trail from North Vietnam’s Mu Gia Pass south through Laos and into Cambodia. Their logistics infrastructure included a staggering 100,000 troops. Consequently, American military activities in Laos constituted a top-secret war in one of the most remote areas of the world—and it was brimming with enemy soldiers and weapons. The ground fire in South Vietnam, where pilots flew through a hail of small arms and automatic weapons fire, was highly dangerous as loss rates among Delta helicopter units showed, but in Laos and Cambodia, low-flying, slow-moving FACs and helicopters also flew against the same big guns that defended Hanoi, murderously accurate 23mm, 37mm, and 57mm antiaircraft artillery—AAA or “triple A” for short. Things got even worse with the 1968 termination of America’s sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam, called Operation Rolling Thunder, when there were virtually no U.S. air strikes north of the DMZ. Safe from that threat, Hanoi upped the ante by increasing its antiaircraft inventory along the Trail by 600 percent; they simply moved 2,000 of their triple A weapons from the North to locations in Laos, making the Ho Chi Minh Trail the most dangerous and heavily defended stretch of road in the world. A single round from any one of those guns could blow an aircraft to bits; from what SOG and its aircrews experienced, the gunners on the Trail also had plenty of ammunition. There were even rumors that North Vietnamese gunners were chained to their weapons: kill or be killed!4

  To counter the success of the American ground reconnaissance efforts, Hanoi had fielded a huge security force of dedicated troops to neutralize and destroy SOG teams, many stationed along trail segments near the A Shau’s west wall. As a result, most sites contiguous to the Trail and capable of receiving helicopters were under permanent observation by LZ watchers. When a SOG helicopter approached on a Prairie Fire mission, the LZ watcher signaled the alarm and set the deadly stalking game in motion. A local NVA reaction force of 100 men or more immediately moved toward the team’s insertion point, while professionally trained tracking teams, often with dogs, began the hunt. Not only did the counter-recon companies spread out and search carefully selected areas for the RTs, they also staked out nearby LZs to thwart the extraction of the team. Often, that meant concealed .51 caliber antiaircraft machine guns designed to ambush the rescuing helicopters and FACs. Although SOG teams used their radios sparingly, enemy troops also employed sophisticated radio detection-finding devices to track team positions to within yards of their actual location.

  The small SOG teams, statistically outnumbered several hundred to one, still jumped at the chance to embark on their decidedly dangerous missions. Their success was primarily a direct result of two important attributes: quality over quantity and unmitigated audacity. Anxiety and uncertainty are among war’s most contagious diseases, and the men of SOG suffered from neither affliction. SOG RTs epitomized stealth in the jungle, and they prided themselves on being able to move unseen and unheard right under the enemy’s nose. They called it “being good in the woods.” If a firefight did erupt, however, the team instantly transformed itself into one of the most highly trained, lethal light infantry units in the world. Rather than cower, the team leader, known as the One-Zero, almost always struck the critical first blow, then led his team toward a pre-determined defensive position or LZ. If the RT had to stay and fight it out, hopefully the supporting Covey FAC orbiting overhead could bring in air strikes to help even the incredibly long odds.5

  The Air Force FAC for each mission always teamed up with one of a small number of experienced Special Forces NCOs known as “Covey riders.” Together they flew every sortie, the Covey pilot controlling the airborne assets while the Covey rider coordinated the map reading and radios; they talked to the team on the ground, and interpreted the tactical situation for his pilot and for the FOB listening on the same radio frequency. These SOG veterans had survived numerous recon missions, so they had firsthand knowledge of exactly what a team was experiencing on the ground. When a team got in trouble, the Covey rider’s soothing voice on the radio not only provided a distinct psychological lift, tactically it also said, “We’re here for you, and we’re gonna get you out.”6

  Against such odds the teams also had some tricks of their own, all of which came in handy in the remote A Shau. To discourage and throw off the trackers, teams often left small M-14 “toe popper” mines along the egress route. And to confuse the tracker dogs, SOG teams effectively employed CS tear gas powder shaken on the ground as they moved. To further confuse the enemy, some RTs wore NVA uniforms. Thus disguised, a Vietnamese-speaking member of the team might actually pass for an NVA soldier. Even if the disguise caused an enemy sentry to hesitate for only a few moments, those critical seconds were probably his last on earth.

  In early 1967, MACV initiated a new concept for SOG operations in Laos known as SLAM: Seeking, Locating, Annihilating, and Monitoring enemy infiltration to and through the Laos Panhandle. Prairie Fire reconnaissance teams were tasked to locate enemy units and installations, direct tactical air attacks against them, and assess damage if possible. When appropriate, SOG exploitation resources—Hatchet forces—were then deployed via helicopter to execute attack, destruction, and mine-laying missions in key target areas. Specifically, SOG focused on two major infiltration areas immediately west of the A Shau Valley. The first, designated Base Area 611, stretched west from the northern end of the A Shau along Route 922. The second, Base Area 607, but
ted up against the southwest corner of the A Shau. Both areas were hotbeds of NVA logistic and counter-recon activity, and the danger for SOG teams working those targets was vividly illustrated on two costly missions.7

  As Project Delta’s Operation Pirous wrapped up, on June 2, 1967, CCN launched a Hatchet Force company into an ominous place called Target Oscar Eight, roughly 15 kilometers inside Laos due west of the A Shau. Alleged to be the largest depot outside of Hanoi, the complex located within Oscar Eight served as the forward headquarters for the 559th Transportation Group, responsible for maintenance and security of the entire Ho Chi Minh Trail. In addition to the headquarters, this was also a binh tram, or logistical support base and trans-shipment point for arms, food, ammunition, medical supplies, and reinforcements destined for NVA units throughout South Vietnam. National Security Agency (NSA) listening posts had suspected for some time that a major headquarters operated in that area because they intercepted an incredibly high volume of radio transmissions from Oscar Eight—over 1,500 each day.8

  The mission against Oscar Eight began at dawn on June 2 when an Arc Light formation of nine B-52s dumped over 200 tons of bombs on the target. Before the smoke had even cleared, nine VNAF H-34s, call sign Kingbee, and five Marine CH-46 Sea Knights inserted a SOG Hatchet Force company of 100 men with the mission to conduct BDA of the strike, capture any wounded NVA, and to destroy enemy equipment in the area.

  By early the following morning the NVA forces had fully recovered from the Arc Light pounding. Hundreds of them swarmed around the vastly outnumbered, predominately Nung Hatchet Force which had taken cover in several bomb craters. The SOG leaders on the ground immediately began calling in gunships and airstrikes—danger close. To complicate matters further, Oscar Eight amounted to an NVA defensive marvel with the only LZs located in a shallow basin with jungle-covered hills all around them, and those hills were thick with triple-A of every caliber from 12.7mm, to 37mm, and 57mm radar controlled guns; they constituted one of the most sophisticated complexes of interlocking antiaircraft defenses in Southeast Asia. The bitter truth registered for the Hatchet Force when the first two Marine UH-1 gunships were immediately shot down. Next, two A-1E Skyraiders from Pleiku pressed in on the deck to attack the surging NVA forces. As Lieutenant Colonel Lewis M. Robinson came around on his second napalm run against the horseshoe shaped ridge, multiple .51 cal machine guns blasted his Skyraider with a stream of green tracers. On the ground, Sergeant First Class Charles F. Wilklow in the Hatchet Force watched in horror as the stricken A-1 pitched up violently, crashing into his wingman whose big propeller sliced the tail off Robinson’s plane. The A-1 entered an inverted spin, exploding when it hit the ground approximately five miles east of the battle area. There was no parachute.9