A Shau Valor

by Thomas R. Yarborough

  Nevertheless, as one Marine noted, “In the A Shau we kicked ass and took names.” Indeed they had, but unfortunately U.S. policy did not allow them to hold the territory to consolidate the victory. The battle for the A Shau Valley would rage on another three years, and the only certainties to come out of Operation Dewey Canyon were the reinforced ideals of valor and sacrifice among the Americans who fought and died there. Paradoxically, one other certainty emerged—a grudging respect for a tough enemy. A tribute put forward by U.S. Marine advisors best captured the admiration of one warrior for another:

  A toast to the world’s finest infantryman. Aggressive in the offense. Tenacious and dogged in the defense. A master of field fortifications, cover, and concealment. Ingenious in his use of supporting arms. Without peer in the application of surprise. Brilliant in his use of terrain. Always courageous and without fear. Defeated only in death. To that miserable little bastard, the NVA and Vietcong grunt.46

  chapter

  7

  ELEVEN TIMES UP HAMBURGER HILL

  War is a crime. Ask the infantry and ask the dead.

  —ERNEST HEMINGWAY

  In all wars, American soldiers have earned nicknames. In the Revolutionary War they were ‘Minutemen’ or ‘Continentals’; in the Civil War they were ‘Johnny Rebs’ or ‘Billy Yanks’; in World War I, ‘Doughboys’; in World War II and Korea, ‘GIs,’ or in some cases ‘Dogfaces.’ But in Vietnam, American soldiers—especially the foot soldiers—were known affectionately as “Grunts.” Where the term ‘grunt’ originated is a subject still debated, but the expression always evokes a sense of brotherhood among the American soldiers and marines who fought in Vietnam. Grunt does not so much call to mind a definition as an experience, best captured in a poignant reflection fashioned by veterans themselves:

  To the dirt-eating grunt, Vietnam was an endless succession of bummers. Besides the never-ending fear of death, we had to endure a host of miseries: merciless humps through a sun-scorched landscape packing eighty pregnant pounds, brain-boiling heat, hot house humidity, dehydration, heat exhaustion, sunburn, red dust, torrential rains, boot-sucking mud, bloodsucking leeches, steaming jungles, malaria, dysentery, razor-sharp elephant grass, bush sores, jungle rot, moaning and groaning, meals in green cans, armies of insects, fire ants, poisonous centipedes, mosquitoes, flies, bush snakes, vipers, scorpions, rats, boredom, incoming fire, body bags, and a thousand more discomforts. Despite all this the grunt did his job well.1

  If any single location in Vietnam best personified that “endless succession of bummers,” arguably the A Shau Valley won hands down.

  Grunts in the A Shau debated incessantly an abstract idiomatic metaphor which seemingly had little to do with the mission at hand, but in their conscious thoughts it surfaced repeatedly. They called it “old heads and FNGs.” In the world of the “Eleven Bush”—military occupational specialty for the Army infantryman, sometimes referred to by cynical Marines as “Bulletstoppers”—life ebbed and flowed with the constant departure of experienced old friends and the arrival of green replacements, known to all as FNGs—fucking new guys. Although ARVN troops were in the war for extended periods, even for the duration, an American infantry squad’s experience level always bounced up or down in a perpetual state of flux as men finished their one year tours, went on R&R, became ill, were wounded, or regrettably died in combat. Tours for infantry officers were even more chaotic since they normally rotated every six months. To the grunts, whether old head or FNG, a new sergeant or lieutenant meant on-the-job training in combat, a learning curve that could prove deadly. With good reason, the grunts saw it as an endless cycle of reinventing the wheel. Many of the old heads felt the same way about the revolving door ventures into the A Shau, a process that had been going on for six bloody years.

  That revolving door opened once again on March 1, 1969. Even before the Marines fighting at the northern end of the valley had terminated Operation Dewey Canyon, the XXIV Corps commander, Lt General Richard Stillwell, decided to send the Screaming Eagles of the 101st Airborne Division into the southern A Shau. Famous for its exploits at Normandy and Bastogne during World War II, the division was considered to be one of the best in the U.S. Army, and this was to be its first raid back into the valley since Operation Somerset Plain in August, 1968. Only this time the concept took on a slightly different flavor. Dubbed Kentucky Jumper, the plan envisioned not just a raid, but the subjugation of the entire valley, emulating Civil War General Phillip Sheridan’s Shenandoah Valley campaign in 1864—only in this operation the troopers would invade via helicopters instead of on horseback. The 101st vowed not leave the valley until the enemy’s supply lines had been cut, his caches uncovered, and his base camps leveled. The intent was to make the A Shau “Screaming Eagle country.” MACV, on the other hand, viewed the operation as crucial but temporary.

  Specifically, the 2nd Brigade, in coordination with the 3rd Regiment, 1st ARVN Division, “was to conduct a combined airmobile operation in the southern A Shau Valley to interdict Route 548 at the Laotian border, locate, fix, and destroy enemy forces, equipment and caches, with emphasis on a rapid thrust to the border to block enemy withdrawal into Laos followed by a detailed systematic search in assigned battalion AOs to destroy caches and disrupt the enemy logistical system.” In addition, the 2nd Brigade was ordered to “expand operations into northwest Quang Nam Province out to Route 614; locate, fix, and destroy enemy forces, equipment, and caches, and disrupt LOC of enemy forces operating in vicinity of Da Nang.”2

  The first segment of the plan, Operation Massachusetts Striker, kicked off on Saturday, March 1, when Air Force C-130 cargo planes from the 463rd Tactical Airlift Wing at Clark Air Base dropped devices off their back ramps called the M121, massive 10,000 pound bombs used to knock down large sections of jungle to create instant landing zones or firebases located along the valley’s eastern wall. The 2nd Brigade then inserted a company from the 326th Engineer Battalion onto Hill 831 overlooking the valley. Under the protection of troopers of the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry, they began construction of Fire Base Whip, the proposed forward base camp of the brigade. Unfortunately, the engineers encountered the same stretch of miserable weather that interfered with the 9th Marines’ retrograde movement out of their FSBs near Route 922. With rain, fog, and low cloud ceilings blocking aerial resupply, the engineers and their security troops quickly ran out of food and supplies. For days they subsisted on rainwater they could catch in their ponchos. The weather delay not only disrupted the timing of the operation, but the extended pause, in conjunction with the 10,000-pound LZ-busting bombs, gave the cagy NVA units plenty of forewarning about what was to come and time to withdraw across the border.

  On March 12 the cloud ceilings lifted just enough for the 2nd Brigade to execute a diversionary combat assault on Fire Support Base Veghel in the high foothills along Route 547. The mission was to re-open the FSB, abandoned the previous year, as a staging area for an unplanned move into the central A Shau to be led by the 1st Battalion, 502nd Infantry. Using three helicopter lifts, Charlie Company landed in late afternoon on Veghel, more than likely anticipating a “cold LZ”—no hostile fire. Instead, they came up against a reinforced rifle company from the NVA’s 816th Battalion, 9th Regiment, dug in and well camouflaged on the old firebase. In an unusually sinister ambush, the enemy soldiers had set up rows of U.S. claymore mines around the LZ, all pointed upward. As the helicopters hovered to land, the claymores detonated simultaneously, peppering the choppers with hundreds of 1/8-inch diameter steel balls. All six helicopters were damaged and several of the pilots wounded, but they managed to land and discharge the Charlie Company troopers safely. Almost immediately the NVA assaulted in waves that only ended when the besieged Americans called in a napalm airstrike just 75 meters from their perimeter. Two of the canisters landed so close that many of the grunts had their hair singed by the heat, but the napalm stopped the assault. From there the ground battle raged throughout the rest of the day and night with ene
my infantry and sappers crawling through the mud, throwing grenades and satchel charges into American positions; over half the men of 2nd Platoon were wounded. By the next morning the weather cooperated enough to permit another deadly airstrike against the NVA forces, allowing the rest of the battalion to land. After assessing the situation, the battalion commander, Lt Colonel Donald Davis, radioed back that “it seems that we’ve accidently jumped into a battalion base area.” Fortunately, the NVA broke contact and scrambled west out of the immediate vicinity, leaving behind 20 of their dead. A day later the 1st of the 502nd took up the chase and pursued the NVA 816th on foot for over a week into the steep, heavily forested mountains along the east wall of the valley.3

  On March 20 the 2nd Battalion, 501st Airborne Infantry combat assaulted into the southeast corner of the A Shau and began a sweep to the Laotian border. For the most part they encountered light resistance along the way from small NVA delaying elements of squad or platoon size. During the sweep Delta Company came upon a way-station hospital complex and drove off what apparently was a caretaker platoon. On the night of March 23, however, after the company established its night defensive position in the complex, the enemy platoon returned. About three hours after sunset the night defensive perimeter came under close-in automatic weapons and heavy RPG fire. During the initial volley, a rocket propelled grenade landed only a meter from the company command post. Even though the round had ignited and could have exploded at any moment, Specialist 4 Robert L. Wright, the company radio-telephone operator, ran through the incoming fusillade and threw his body on the round, smothering the fuse and rendering it harmless. Then, in constant exposure to direct hostile fire, he began carrying 81mm rounds to the mortar crews until the perimeter was threatened with penetration. He then immediately commenced firing into the enemy ranks with his weapon until the enemy withdrew. Thanks to Specialist 4 Wright’s valor, the attack was repelled, leaving three sappers dead inside the perimeter and many more outside the wire. For his extraordinary heroism, Robert L. Wright was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.4

  While three American battalions patrolled and searched the southern A Shau, the 1st of the 502nd continued its dogged pursuit of the elusive NVA 816th Battalion. Over a period of a week they had only covered a straight-line distance of about eight kilometers, yet the chase took them up and down steep mountains and through thick jungle and dense stands of bamboo. The slow going was made even more so by frequent halts to engage snipers during the day or sappers who harassed the American positions each night. Finally, on March 14 the enemy stopped running and decided to make a stand on an obscure mountain with a large razorback finger running to the north. It was on that mountaintop and along the ridge that the 500 men of the 816th Battalion built a series of fortified bunkers connected by tunnels and trenches overlooking expertly cut fields of fire. On tactical maps the stronghold was identified as Hill 801, but the Vietnamese called it Dong A Tay—destined to become the largest single battle of Operation Massachusetts Striker.5

  On March 19 Lt Colonel Donald Davis sent Alpha Company up the steep slopes of Dong A Tay’s ridge for the first time, the assumption being that some kind of small enemy force occupied the high ground. As they climbed, Alpha Company anticipated contact with snipers or perhaps a squad, but in truth they had no idea how many NVA they faced. They ran into an impenetrable wall of machine gun and small arms fire; in the initial fight, Alpha’s point platoon had two troopers killed and a number wounded. Dragging their dead and injured, the company had no choice but to retreat back to the foot of Hill 801. Following an hour’s worth of airstrikes, Alpha tried again, only to be driven back down the ridge by a formidable NVA counterattack. Next, Bravo Company attempted a charge up the opposite side of the slope only to be repulsed with one man killed and nine wounded.

  As the 1st of 502nd continued their assault against Dong A Tay, they encountered a series of deadly ambushes and bunkers. On March 21, while conducting a reconnaissance patrol near the northern tip of the ridge, Bravo Company’s point element walked headlong into a hornet’s nest of hostile sniper fire. The platoon leader, 1st Lieutenant William L. Dent, at once set up a defensive formation, ordering two machine guns to be brought forward. Suddenly the enemy opened fire with everything they had. Lt Dent moved out under the intense fusillade to retrieve several casualties. When a machine gunner fell wounded, Dent manned the weapon, providing suppressive fire as he directed his men to move back. The 22-year-old Hillsboro, North Carolina soldier operated the machine gun until it malfunctioned. Then he grabbed his M-16 rifle and continued to deliver lethal volleys on the enemy until he was wounded in the head. Having supervised the withdrawal of his men to safety, he followed but was wounded again while providing covering fire. Only after all of his men had reached a secure position did he relinquish command and later succumb to his wounds. During the vicious firefight, three other Bravo Company men died and four were wounded. By the end of the day, the Screaming Eagles began referring to the scene as “Bloody Ridge.” For his extraordinary heroism at Bloody Ridge, Lt William L. Dent was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.6

  Over the next few days, casualties continued to mount for the 1st Battalion with little progress toward clearing Dong A Tay. Yet these remarkable young grunts, whether enlistee or draftee, assaulted up Bloody Ridge countless times without asking why. As they stared up at the steep ridge, all they saw was a tangled mass of jungle and trees, rocks and logs, all smashed and broken, a world of rubble providing subterranean hiding places for an enemy bent on killing them. But the men of the 1st of 502nd were single-minded in their determination to make it back up the ridge, and nobody, not even the whole NVA 9th Regiment lined up shoulder to shoulder was going to stop them. In a last ditch effort to break the enemy’s back, Lt Colonel Davis called in airstrikes using 1,000-pound bombs with delayed fuses hoping to bust open the intricate network of bunkers and tunnels hiding the enemy soldiers who were killing his troopers. The plan worked—up to a point. The big MK-83 bombs caused the entire top of the ridge to collapse, so Alpha and Bravo Companies assaulted Hill 801 yet again, and yet again they were repulsed by the determined defenders hiding in the debris. One member of Alpha Company remembered the scene “as a truly terrifying experience. Even now when I think about it years later I get goose bumps on my arms, and the hair on the back of my neck stands up.”7

  By late afternoon on the 25th, 1st Battalion finally gained a foothold on the mountain and cleared Bloody Ridge. They had killed at least 90 enemy soldiers and wounded a great many others. In searching the area, the troopers found an enemy hospital on the south side of Hill 801. A document listing names of casualties treated showed that more than half of the 816th Battalion’s 500 men had been either killed or wounded in the running battle with the Americans. The hard-fought victory in the A Shau had not come cheap for the men of the “O-Deuce.” Before being lifted off Bloody Ridge on April 15, the 1st of the 502nd had suffered 30 killed and over 100 men wounded.8 In addition to the casualties, the NVA’s stand-and-fight tactics shocked the 2nd Brigade, causing the staff to re-evaluate the meaning behind the desperate defense of an insignificant piece of real estate like Bloody Ridge—real estate bought and paid for with American lives.9

  By the beginning of April, a stretch of tolerable weather permitted the focus of Massachusetts Striker to shift to the original objectives in the southern A Shau. The 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry boarded a fleet of helicopters and moved into the old airstrip at Camp A Shau, unoccupied since Special Forces Detachment A-102 pulled out in March, 1966. Simultaneously, two other battalions from the 2nd Brigade assaulted into the southeast corner of the valley, establishing Fire Bases Fury, Thor, Pike, and Lash.

  As the battalions swept west and south on a reconnaissance-in-force, Colonel John Hoefling, the 2nd Brigade commander, analyzed enemy contacts and saw a disturbing pattern. He reasoned that the transition from fighting in rice paddies along the coastal plains of Thua Thien Province to the heavy jungles a
nd steep mountains of the A Shau had not progressed smoothly. Since his troops were not accustomed to the terrain or to the miserable weather, the circumstances resulted in more friendly casualties than had been anticipated. Furthermore, enemy tactics in the A Shau were unlike those in the coastal plains, where contacts with the enemy were brief and fleeting in nature. On the coast, the NVA rarely attacked or even probed anything as large as a company perimeter unless by indirect fire from rockets or mortars. Not so in the Valley of Death. NVA units occupied well-built bunkers on critical terrain and probed constantly. The enemy also effectively employed snipers in trees, a trick the Screaming Eagles had not encountered before. Although the tactics employed by NVA units were initially a nasty surprise, 2nd Brigade troopers were able to overcome their early inexperience as mountain fighters and take full advantage of the superior firepower available to them. It amounted to the most dangerous kind of on-the-job training.10