In the southern A Shau the Screaming Eagles encountered light, sporadic contact with small elements from the NVA’s 9th Regiment, but they increasingly found large caches of supplies and equipment hastily abandoned by the enemy. The 1st of the 502nd, re-equipped and supplied with numerous replacements, was airlifted from Bloody Ridge to a location along Route 614, a vital enemy-built supply route that connected the southern A Shau with northern Quang Nam Province. The grunts called it the Yellow Brick Road, named after the mythical thoroughfare in The Wizard of Oz, and it was there that they hit the jackpot. They discovered possibly the largest electronic equipment and medical supply cache found in the war—100 tons. The O-Deuce encountered virtually no resistance as they probed and uncovered 14 trucks, over 600 brand new SKS rifles, Chinese Communist radios and field telephones, large stocks of medicine, substantial quantities of assorted supplies and equipment, and documents indicating the location of another cache. Not to be outdone, the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry discovered a fleet of 20 Russian trucks, 2 bulldozers, and a fully equipped maintenance garage. And since most NVA units in the south end of the valley had retreated across the border into Laos, the Screaming Eagles took the opportunity to blow up and destroy large stretches of Route 548 and the Yellow Brick Road.11
In mid April during Operation Massachusetts Striker, the 101st’s 2nd Brigade asked for help from a Project Delta recon team to scout along the valley floor just south of Ta Bat. That six-man team, led by Sergeant Charles F. Prevedel, inserted on April 16. The following day another Delta team leader, airborne on a VR mission, heard a single shout over the radio from Sgt Prevedel, an unusual occurrence since team leaders on the ground almost always talked in whispers. The airborne Delta man immediately realized that his friend was in trouble, so he remained in the area until he ran out of fuel, but there was no more contact with the team. Sgt Prevedel, Specialist 4 Douglas E. Dahill, SSgt Charles V. Newton, and three LLDB troopers were never heard from again. The A Shau had claimed six more warriors.12
As the 2nd Brigade continued to focus on the east wall and the southern end of the A Shau, a different unit from the 101st Airborne Division executed a covert mission against the always dangerous west wall. Employed in much the same way as the 3rd Marine Division used its clandestine Key Hole patrols, the 101st sent out six-man Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols, or LRRPs, from L Company, 75th Infantry (Ranger). In an ominous harbinger of things to come, on April 23 one of those teams inserted on the steep slopes of Hill 937, identified on maps as Dong Ap Bia. An experienced team, this one was accustomed to dealing with outrageously weird occurrences in the A Shau, but the one they were about to face took the cake. Travelling as quietly as possible through the heavy jungle with thick underbrush, layers of vines, and dense stands of bamboo, the six Americans discovered an extensive network of trails. As they watched, hundreds of enemy troops looking like a column of ants moved up the hill. The team leader had just begun to send a coded radio message when the low clouds opened up and a deluge of rain pounded the hidden Americans—A Shau weather had once again joined the battle. At that very moment a bolt of lightning struck, surging through every radio and piece of electrical equipment the men carried. The bolt touched off the electrical blasting caps on their claymore mines and sent each team member flying through the air. All were knocked unconscious, burned, and temporarily paralyzed. Miraculously, as they came to, a helicopter appeared overhead and lifted the disoriented LRRP team members out via jungle penetrator.13 Was this a bad omen, a foreshadowing of what was to come? The Screaming Eagles who assaulted Dong Ap Bia on May 10 might have been inclined to think so.
Although ground combat in the sector during this period remained light, consisting primarily of actions against trail watchers and snipers, such was not the case for the airmen supporting the 2nd Brigade. Unlike the NVA ground forces, which had generally slipped across the Laotian border or moved north along the valley floor, the always dangerous enemy antiaircraft positions, many of them mobile, remained in action. On May 2, a Navy A-7 Corsair II from the USS Kitty Hawk fell victim to ground fire during a late afternoon strike against a storage site at the south end of the A Shau. Fortunately, Air Force SAR helicopters rescued the pilot. A short time later, a Nail FAC flying a Cessna O-2 disappeared while performing reconnaissance over Base Area 607 along the southwest corner of the A Shau. It is believed that Lieutenant Phillip L. Mascari was shot down over this heavily defended NVA sanctuary; no trace of him or his aircraft has ever been found.14
When Operation Massachusetts Striker wrapped up on May 8, the 101st’s 2nd Brigade box score was indeed impressive. They bagged 34 enemy trucks, 2 bulldozers, 2 armoured personnel carriers, 1 ambulance, 3 antiaircraft guns, 11,697 pounds of rice, thousands of rounds of ammunition, and tons of assorted medical supplies and electronic equipment. For the human box score the body count confirmed 259 NVA killed. The Americans lost 59 killed and 275 wounded. Between Operation Dewey Canyon in the north and Massachusetts Striker in the south, for the first time in the Vietnam War the historically significant supply and infiltration route of the North Vietnamese into the A Shau Valley was denied to them—at least temporarily.15 While a significant number of enemy troops escaped up the valley to the north, two weeks after the 101st Airborne Division had moved on to another operation, NVA engineers re-entered the southern A Shau and repaired Routes 548 and 614. In spite of the well-planned, aggressively executed efforts of the 101st’s 2nd Brigade, the Yellow Brick Road was back in business. The enemy’s determination to continue using the A Shau Valley after the pounding they took was militarily baffling, but an even more mystifying development involved the NVA’s sudden willingness to stand and fight as they had at Bloody Ridge. That change in tactics set the stage for what many military historians ultimately labelled the toughest single battle of the entire Vietnam War.
On May 10, Lt General Richard Stillwell, commander of the XXIV Corps, kept the pressure on by initiating phase II of Kentucky Jumper, Operation Apache Snow, intended to destroy NVA bases in the northern end of the A Shau Valley. Apache Snow was the latest in a long series of attempts to neutralize the treacherous valley, which had proved a persistent thorn in the sides of both Generals Westmoreland and Abrams. So far, each effort met with results ranging in degree from temporarily successful to ineffectual. General Stilwell, however, resolved to succeed with his operation and amassed a potent force of three maneuver battalions from the 101st, two from the 1st ARVN Division, and backed up by the 1st and 2d Battalions, 9th Marines assigned the task of occupying the lower Da Krong Valley to prevent any NVA from slipping away from the northern A Shau via Route 922. His plan called for each of the five Army/ARVN battalions, under the operational control of Colonel Joseph B. Conmy, Jr., 3rd Brigade commander, to combat assault onto the valley’s west wall by helicopter on May 10 and search its assigned sector for enemy troops and supplies. If a battalion made heavy contact with the NVA, the 3rd Brigade would reinforce it with one of the other units. In theory, the Americans could reposition their forces quickly enough via helicopter to keep the enemy from massing against any one unit. On the other hand, an American force encountering a large NVA unit would engage it in place while the reinforcing battalion flew in to cut off any retreat and assist as necessary. Unfortunately, the 101st Airborne Division and South Vietnamese units participating in Apache Snow only knew that in the Valley of Death they were in for a tough fight, but beyond that they had no firsthand knowledge about the terrain and little knowledge of the enemy’s actual strength, units, or dispositions.16
Shortly after 7 a.m. on May 10, an armada of 65 Hueys from the 101st Aviation Group airlifted three battalions of the 3rd Brigade to LZs along the west wall of the A Shau. Operation Apache Snow had begun. The 2nd Battalion, 501st, landed on the southwest slope of Hill 1041, just two kilometers east of the Laotian border. Approximately four miles to the southeast, the 1st of the 506th, known by their regiment’s World War II nickname, the Currahees, combat assaulted into another LZ. Ha
lfway between those locations, UH-1s carrying three companies of the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, known as the Rakkasans, landed along the northwest slope of Hill 937, annotated on topographical maps as Dong Ap Bia. The Rakkasans—Japanese for parachutists—served in the Pacific during World War II, distinguishing themselves in the Philippines and later in Korea. The 187th Regiment, along with the 3rd battalion, joined the 101st Airborne Division in 1964.
Dong Ap Bia, a stand-alone geological peak, dominated the north central valley and looked down on the old A Luoi airstrip, six kilometers to the east. Winding down from its highest peak were a series of ridges and fingers, the largest extending southwest to a height of 916 meters, another reaching south to a 900-meter peak. The entire mountain complex projected the unassailable image of a rugged, uninviting wilderness covered in double and triple canopy jungle, impassable thickets of bamboo, and dense, tangled underbrush. For the next ten days Hill 937 was to become the main battleground and focus of Apache Snow and was slated to earn the descriptively malevolent name, “Hamburger Hill.” Prophetically, the Montagnard tribesmen in the area called it “the mountain of the crouching beast.”
The opening day of Apache Snow, May 10, went surprisingly well for the 3rd of the 187th. Alpha, Charlie, and Delta Companies landed without opposition and began a reconnaissance-in-force up the lower slopes of Hill 937. When the battalion commander, Lt Colonel Weldon F. Honeycutt, arrived at 1044 a.m. he immediately requested that his reserve unit, Bravo Company, be brought in. With all his Rakkasans on the ground by early afternoon, he initiated a search in all directions around his command post (CP). The various patrols found evidence of enemy activity: large huts, carefully tended gardens, and well constructed bunkers, but no NVA. The scene reminded the men of their battle two weeks earlier on a remote mountain peak on the east wall of the A Shau: Dong Ngai Mountain. The troopers had found the same sort of NVA evidence there as they charged up the mountain unopposed before stumbling into prepared NVA bunkers and trenches bristling with machine guns. In taking the hill, the Rakkasans suffered 5 killed and 54 men wounded; the enemy lost over 100 killed. To the grunts, the comparison between Dong Ngai and Dong Ap Bia was undeniable.
The first actual contact on Hill 937 did not occur until late afternoon when the point element of Bravo Company came under fire. As the grunts were climbing the side of a small saddleback ridge, an RPG from the trail just ahead roared out of the trees and exploded with a deafening boom beside the point man, lifting him off the ground and sending him sprawling down the ridge. When he came to, lying in a pulpy-wet matting that stank of rot and cordite, Specialist 4 Ronald Storm heard the flat, metallic, pang-pang-pang, the distinctive sound of AK-47 fire. Then he heard that decidedly mournful cry of pain; three men were down, one of them screaming over and over again, “I’m hit!” Ron Storm flattened against the ground as small geysers of earth kicked up around him from the AK-47 fire. Just as his fire team moved up to his position he spotted four or five enemy soldiers only a few meters away taking cover behind several large trees. Storm and his point element pulled the pins on their grenades and tossed them all at once toward the NVA. Following the huge explosion, all that remained was a gaping hole in the jungle where the enemy soldiers had been. With sporadic volleys of fire still coming their way, 2nd Platoon moved back across the saddleback and down the mountain, while the Bilk FAC orbiting overhead silenced the enemy positions with 20mm strafe and MK-82 500-pound bombs from a pair of A-1 Skyraiders.17
As Lt Colonel Honeycutt’s battalion settled into their night defensive positions, the keyed-up troopers tried to eat their C-rations, one hand eating while the other tried to fan away the swarms of flies that always appeared at meal times. And just prior to the 6:30 p.m. nightly harassment and interdiction (H&I) artillery fire that cut loose against suspected enemy positions on Hill 937, the Rakkasans listened to the strange jungle noises around them. Among those sounds came nightly calls from a bird identified as the Blue Eared Barbet. Croaking more like a frog, the unseen bird serenaded the grunts with a deep baritone noise that seemed to echo “reeee-up.” Naturally the soldiers called it the Re-Up Bird, a sarcastic swipe at grunts who re-enlisted, or re-upped. The real entertainment occurred when the ever-present geckos, unique among lizards in their vocalizations, chimed in with what the grunts swore sounded like someone shouting “faaa-cuee,” so of course they labeled the gecko as the “fuck-you” lizard. Whatever the reason, the weird symphony took their minds off the danger that lurked just outside their perimeter, and in the best traditions of gallows humor the infantrymen allowed themselves to be amused by the jungle refrain: REEE-UP … FAAAA-CUEE!
On the morning of the 11th, the battalion commander sent Alpha Company north toward the border and Bravo Company southeast up the northern face of Dong Ap Bia. The mountain loomed above Bravo, its spines and ravines intimidating, even in the soft morning light. Based on the brief fights from the day before, Lt Colonel Honeycutt expected light contact since he still believed that he was up against no more than an assortment of trail watchers and snipers. Surprisingly, there is no evidence that he was ever briefed on the hundreds of enemy sighted by the LRRP team back on April 23.
With the idea of trail watchers as opposition firmly fixed in his mind, Honeycutt pushed his company commanders to speed up the pace of the reconnaissance-in-force, but the troops moved slowly and deliberately, discovering telltale enemy signs at every turn. The first contact finally occurred at mid-afternoon when the point man in Alpha Company’s 3rd Platoon spotted a single NVA soldier and opened fire. In return the platoon received several long bursts of deadly RPD machine gun fire. For the men of the 3rd Platoon it was impossible to think with any clarity. The groan and crash of mortars and the popping of rifle and machine gun fire rose to a crashing roar of noise, a stuttering clamor that actually hurt the eardrums. The second trooper in the point element, always called the “slackman,” saw an enemy soldier a few meters away in a bamboo thicket aiming an RPG at the platoon. A deadly burst from his M-16 dropped the assailant. As the enemy soldier fell forward, he inadvertently fired his rocket grenade into the ground at his feet, setting off a blinding explosion. The amazed slackman watched in horror as parts of the enemy soldier rained down all over the area.18
On Hill 937 Bravo Company’s 4nd Platoon also made contact, but with something significantly more hazardous than a few snipers. The point man, Specialist 4 Aaron L. Rosenstreich, called by everyone “Rosey,” took fire from the dense brush just to his front. Unable to pinpoint a specific target, he fired several bursts into likely ambush spots. In the exchange of fire, an NVA soldier popped out of a spider hole only a few feet away, fatally wounding Rosey in the chest. At the same instant another NVA emerged from a second hole and fired an RPG round at almost point blank range. The intended target was Specialist 4 John E. McCarrell, a good soldier, well liked, and teased by all for being the company “flower child” because he always wore peace beads around his neck. The rocket hit McCarrell square in the midsection, the explosion also setting off the claymore mine in his rucksack. The resulting blast literally blew the 20-year-old soldier to pieces. In the commotion Specialist 4 Terry Larson raced forward firing his M-16; he fell face first on the trail, wounded in the head. At that point Specialist 4 Donald Mills ran up the trail firing his M-60 from the hip when the same NVA soldier who had shot Rosey showed himself once again and pumped several AK-47 rounds into Mills’ chest. The wounded trooper went down for a few seconds, but filled with rage, he got back on his feet and charged his assailant with Terry Larson’s M-16 he had picked up on the run. Bleeding profusely, Mills ran to the spider hole and emptied a full 20-round clip into the enemy soldier cowering there.19
Peppered with shrapnel wounds, his ears ringing from the horrendous noises of battle and his eyes streaming from smoke and cordite fumes, Lieutenant Charles Denholm crawled through the hell on the mountain to reach the dying Rosey Rosenstreich. As he moved, the platoon leader took fire from still another spider hole. Lt
Denholm tossed two grenades with no apparent effect, then moved to his right through tall elephant grass. If ever there was reason to doubt the primeval thickness of the underbrush in the A Shau, Denholm’s experience dispelled any such skepticism when an NVA soldier popped out of an unseen spider hole only a foot or so in front of him. There was no time to fire his M-16. Instead, Lt Denholm buried his knife deep in the man’s throat and watched as the soldier collapsed back into the hole that was to be his grave.20
The battalion commander, radio call-sign “Blackjack,” ordered the company to push through the ambush, but with three men dead and nine wounded, Bravo’s commander led his battered men back down the mountain. Once they had moved a safe distance, the company forward observer called in a pair of orbiting AH-1 Cobra gunships to engage the enemy positions. The Cobra, the Army’s first helicopter designed specifically for attack, sported a lethal package of 7.62mm mini guns, 40mm grenade launchers, and two pods of 2.75-inch folding fin rockets with either high explosive, white phosphorous, or flechette warheads. As the two Cobras, referred internally within the 101st as Aerial Rocket Artillery (ARA), set up overhead, they mistook the battalion CP for the enemy position, and before anyone could wave them off they fired six rockets into the friendly location. The deadly explosions killed one American and wounded 35 others, including the battalion commander and most of his staff.21 The incident marked the end of the second of 11 costly days for the 3rd of the 187th on the mountain of the crouching beast.
By early morning on May 12, Lt Colonel Honeycutt had already flown to a nearby firebase where a surgeon removed a piece of shrapnel lodged in his back from the ARA incident the day before, bandaged him, and sent the impatient battalion commander back to duty on Hill 937. Sore and irritable, Blackjack was anxious to get Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie Companies on the move, although nobody knew exactly what size force they were facing. Based on Honeycutt’s assertive personality, most men in the battalion viewed their commander as “Gung Ho,” while some considered him overly aggressive; many of his contemporaries saw him as profane and abrasive. But all who knew him had to concede that Honeycutt was a dynamic combat leader. A mustang, Honeycutt enlisted in the Army at age 16 and in 5 years advanced from private to captain. In the Korean War he commanded a rifle company in the 187th Regimental Combat Team commanded by Brig. General William C. Westmoreland, an association that developed into a lifelong friendship. Earning the nickname “Tiger” for his aggressiveness, he drove his subordinates hard and some claimed ruthlessly.22
A Shau Valor Page 21
