A Shau Valor

by Thomas R. Yarborough

  Honeycutt’s reputation preceded him into the battalion. When he took command of the 3rd of the 187th, he did not disappoint. He was disgusted to find that some of his officers were not in the field with their troops but were instead remaining in the rear areas. He quickly changed that and got everyone’s attention by ordering every officer into the field, telling them, “From now on this battalion is gonna fight. This battalion is gonna go out and find the enemy and kill him. This bullshit of running and hiding is over.”23

  The hard-charging Honeycutt pushed his troopers out again on the 12th along the finger-like ridges leading to the summit, convinced now that he might be up against an entire enemy company defending the summit of Dong Ap Bia—a force that he outnumbered and should be able to defeat. Some of the battalion staff members were not so sure. Documents captured the day before indicated that the NVA 29th Regiment had entered the area in April and was operating somewhere in that part of the A Shau. Considered one of the best fighting units in the North Vietnamese Army, the 29th Regiment, according to intelligence estimates, possessed around 1,800 men; its confirmed presence on Hill 937 could represent both a tactical and strategic danger.

  Throughout the day, enemy snipers harassed Alpha and Bravo Companies as they moved slowly up the steep mountain slopes. When the battalion commander sent Charlie and Delta Companies to the east, they ran up against the same old terrible pattern of interlaced bunkers and sniper fire, necessitating a slow, bitter advance punctuated with the inevitable losses. Much of the day was spent trying to establish a second LZ on the mountain just to the rear of Bravo Company, and during that effort a Huey carrying the construction engineers was hit by a single RPG and crashed into the trees. Men from Bravo Company fought their way to the crash site and eventually rescued the six injured engineers and four crewmembers while Bilk FACs directed multiple airstrikes and Cobra gunship attacks against the west face of Dong Ap Bia.24

  Dong Ap Bia was not the only hot spot in the valley. At 3:30 on the morning of May 13 at Fire Support Base Airborne on the east wall only seven kilometers from Hill 937, the NVA 806th Battalion and the K12 Sapper Battalion launched one of the bloodiest and most vicious sapper attacks of the entire Vietnam War. A barrage of 82mm mortars and RPG rounds crashed into the firebase, a complex housing three artillery batteries and a security company from the 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry. After infiltrating through the concertina wire on the north side of the perimeter, the sappers systematically stormed across the northern portion of the firebase, tossing satchel charges and grenades into the bunkers they encountered. Other sappers followed closely behind, firing their AK-47s into the bunkers, literally executing the wounded GIs. The fire directions center of C Battery, 2nd Battalion, 319th Artillery, located in an exposed Conex container, was hit by an RPG round and the men inside began screaming and moaning. One NVA soldier stood on the south side of the container and fired 30 to 40 rounds into the Conex. Both the battery commander and the battery 1st sergeant were killed in this action.

  With the first incoming rounds, Staff Sergeant George W. Parker rallied his mortar crews and commenced firing illumination and high-explosive rounds on the hostile fire that rained around his mortar emplacement. As he sprinted through the intense barrage and made his way to warn his platoon leader of the ground attack on two sides of the compound, he was knocked down three times by incoming explosions. At that point an RPG round struck one of the mortar emplacements and knocked it out. Running to the position, SSgt Parker immediately set up the damaged mortar tube and started firing on the enemy by holding it against his shoulder while another man dropped rounds down the tube. During the intense action a satchel charge thrown at his position exploded, wounding all three men in the mortar pit and knocking George Parker senseless. After coming to, he gave first aid to his men and continued fighting, often exposing himself to the enemy barrage to obtain resupplies of ammunition. On one of his trips to the munitions stockpile, through withering fire, he was attacked by four sappers armed with rifles and satchel charges, and he took them out with a well-thrown grenade at point-blank range. For his extraordinary heroism, SSgt George W. Parker was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross.25

  The one-and-a-half-hour battle ended at first light, revealing a gut-wrenching scene. Amidst the wreckage, debris, and devastation, the exhausted defenders counted 40 enemy bodies scattered around FSB Airborne. They also counted their own losses: 22 of their friends killed and 61 wounded, along with 5 howitzers damaged or destroyed.26 The debacle at FSB Airborne served to confirm the suspicions of some senior Screaming Eagle officers, namely that the NVA had brought in crack units and intended to mount a vigorous defense to hold the northern A Shau Valley.

  Except for the shocking news about Fire Support Base Airborne, the situation for the 3rd of the 187th remained unchanged on the 13th, as the companies conducted operations in their immediate areas, still attempting to slug their way up the rugged terrain. Lt Colonel Honeycutt, however, had again revised his estimate of the enemy force upward. Considering the intensity of the resistance, he now concluded that he was facing an entire NVA battalion. The brigade commander, Colonel Joseph Conmy, thought otherwise. In light of the tragedy at FSB Airborne and more analysis by his intelligence staff, Conmy estimated that the Rakkasans were out-manned on Hill 937 and facing at least three battalions of the NVA 29th Regiment. A long-held military axiom counseled that an attacking force required a three-to-one favorable force ratio against defenders. For Tiger Honeycutt the ratio was reversed; his single battalion attacked three NVA battalions dug in on high ground. Shortly after noon, Conmy ordered Lt Colonel John W. Bowers and his 1st Battalion of the 506th to force-march their way four kilometers north to reinforce the struggling 3rd of the 187th.

  Throughout the day the enemy contested Rakkasan movements with small arms, automatic weapons, RPGs, and mortars from well-entrenched positions. The battalion returned fire and saturated the western mountain slope with artillery and tactical airstrikes, but even that concentrated dose of firepower had little apparent effect. In mid-afternoon, an enemy RPG brought down a medevac helicopter attempting to extract Delta Company’s wounded. The men of Delta Company stood by helplessly as Medevac 927 burst into flames, burning to death the six men trapped inside. There were other casualties that day as well. During firefights on the 13th, the battalion lost 4 more killed and 33 men wounded.27

  The first concerted attempt by the Rakkasans to take Hill 937 occurred on May 14. The plan called for Delta Company to attack from the north, Bravo Company would attack from the west, and Charlie Company would advance along a ridge just to the south of Bravo. All companies were supported by artillery prep. Yet by 9 a.m. each company was engaged in heavy contact and sustaining casualties, as it was rapidly becoming one of those days when nothing went right. Bravo Company’s lead platoon did manage to reach the top of Dong Ap Bia but was driven back by murderously heavy fire when enemy infantry swarmed down the mountain and attacked from three different directions. With 2 dead and 13 wounded, the 3rd Platoon was forced to pull back. Charlie Company fared no better. As four troopers from the 2nd Platoon carried a wounded buddy down the steep slope, an enemy soldier fired an RPG into their midst. The rocket impacted directly against the man being carried and blew him to pieces; it also killed three of the four stretcher-bearers and severely wounded the fourth. Adding insult to injury, two Cobra gunships, orbiting above a platoon from Alpha Company carrying wounded men down the mountain, mistook them for the enemy and raked the column with mini-gun fire, seriously wounding four troopers. And on the northern face Delta Company was ambushed by an NVA infantry platoon. After the 20-minute firefight, where the crackle and yammer of fire was a continuous, pulsing roar, Delta suffered 10 men wounded. By the end of the 14th, the “battling bastards of Dong Ap Bia” ended up digging into night defensive positions at approximately where they had started that morning. For their efforts they counted 9 of their friends killed and another 74 wounded.28

  Just before dark
, Colonel Joe Conmy’s command and control chopper slipped into the LZ near Lt Colonel Honeycutt’s CP. After describing the day’s actions and explaining that the NVA were moving fresh troops in from Laos each night, Blackjack told his boss, “We’re in a goddamn fight here, Joe—and I mean a fight!”

  “I agree,” the brigade commander said to his friend. “This is the toughest fight I’ve seen in three years over here. If there’s been a tougher one, I don’t know what it is.” While he concurred with Conmy’s assessment, oddly enough Tiger Honeycutt’s frustration and anger about the raging battle were not directed toward the enemy but rather toward the 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry. As far as he was concerned, they were not moving fast enough to join the critical fight. The Currahees had only covered 1,500 meters in 40 hours and still had 2,500 meters to go.29

  During the night, various Rakkasan patrols reported a large group of enemy soldiers moving into a heavily wooded draw halfway down the mountain. Hoping to be unobserved through the persistent morning fog, the NVA force apparently planned to hide in the draw and then attack the rear of the Rakkasans as they assaulted up the mountain. Honeycutt immediately recognized their intention. At first light on May 15 he ordered Alpha and Bravo Companies to begin advancing at a deliberate pace, but when they reached a point roughly halfway up the mountain they were to stop, face to the rear, and take up positions facing the draw. The men of the two under-strength companies peered through the wet murk of the jungle, straining to see until their eyeballs ached, all the while sweating buckets of water and listening to the noisy cries of birds, praying that it wasn’t NVA snipers signaling to each other. Honeycutt had guessed right. The surprised NVA walked into a wall of hot lead, and their only recourse was to retreat back down the mud-slick trail into the draw. An orbiting Bilk FAC took over and expended a two-ship of Marine F-4s from Squadron VMFA-115 at Da Nang, call sign Blade. Dropping 500-pound high-drag bombs and multiple canisters of BLU-32 napalm, the F-4s were followed by a pair of Cobras who beat up the target area for 20 minutes. When it was over, an entire NVA company lay sprawled on the ground.30

  In the brutal fighting that afternoon, Bravo managed to move to within 150 meters of the crest of Hill 937, but the momentum of the assault totally collapsed when another Cobra mistakenly attacked the unfortunate company, yet again killing 2 men and wounding 19 others, including the company commander. When a replacement commander arrived, the battered and dejected men of Bravo were infuriated when Lt Colonel Honeycutt ordered the company to renew the attack. The troopers hated him for it, but Tiger Honeycutt was faced with the draconian law of desperate choices, harsh alternatives that were really no alternatives at all. When the replacement company commander looked into the faces of the men of Bravo, he immediately recognized the signs that they were coming apart: demoralizing fatigue, dulled, vacant gazes, and flashes of unfocused anger—directed against officers and NCOs rather than the enemy. They only managed to advance a few meters before the enemy launched a large counterattack and drove them back down the hill.

  The members of Alpha Company, only 75 meters from the crest, also ran into a hornet’s nest. Within a matter of a few minutes, half of the 4th Platoon was wounded and out of action. As the men crawled away from the terrible place they found themselves in—a place resembling a moon-scape—they observed only smashed terrain full of splintered trees and the mangled remains of a ridge full of shell holes and bomb craters filled with water. For one of the exhausted and demoralized platoon leaders, the sheer decibel level of the noise associated with the sounds of small arms fire and explosions was so loud he could not even hear Blackjack’s frantic voice over the company radio urging him to move forward. It was not to be. The epiphany for the gung ho battalion commander occurred when an RPG exploded in his own CP, wounding him yet again in the back, and yet again he refused medical evacuation. That night the 3rd of the 187th took stock of the day’s surreal events: 1 soldier KIA and 45 WIA. Additionally, friendly fire from the Cobra attack had killed 2 more and wounded 20.31

  The Rakkasans held fast on the 16th and 17th, waiting for the 1st of the 506th to arrive at the south base of Dong Ap Bia. During that period the men of both battalions were issued flak jackets since so many of the troopers had suffered shrapnel wounds to the midsection and upper body. Additionally, nearby artillery batteries began firing CS tear gas rounds into enemy bunker complexes hoping to force the defenders into the open. The effort only had marginal effect since soldiers from the NVA 29th Regiment already had gas masks. Oddly enough, most of the Americans did not; they were hastily issued along with the flak jackets.

  During the temporary lull, reporters began hitching rides on the choppers that made frequent flights into the LZ near Lt Colonel Honeycutt’s CP. Most of them were intelligent and respectful, but in his definitive book, Hamburger Hill, Samuel Zaffiri tells the story of one reporter who apparently irritated Tiger Honeycutt to distraction. When he arrived at the CP, one longhaired, bearded man shouted, “Where’s the war? I thought there was a fucking war going on out here.”

  Peevishly, Honeycutt answered, “Come on, I’ll show you where the fuckin’ war is. Follow me.” With the reporter and his photographer in tow, the irritated Blackjack had only walked about 75 yards when an enemy soldier opened up on them with a machine gun. When an RPG round exploded in the trees overhead, the two newsmen jumped to their feet and scrambled back to the CP. Honeycutt called after them, “Hey, don’t you want to see the war?”

  Running back down the trail, the reporter’s pithy reply was, “Fuck the war!”32

  The morning of May 18 found the Currahees positioned on the south face of Dong Ap Bia with the 3rd of 187th ready to move against the north face. By noon both battalions were in heavy contact. The Rakkasans’ Delta Company bore the brunt of the fighting, with every officer in the company killed or wounded. To make matters worse, in the confusion another Cobra mistakenly opened fire on Bravo Company, killing one and wounding four. Angry beyond belief, Lt Colonel Honeycutt ordered all Cobras out of the area.

  So far in the brutal fighting, Alpha and Bravo Companies had lost 50 percent of their original strength, while Charlie and Delta Companies had lost a staggering 80 percent. Then, at mid-afternoon a torrent of rain turned Hill 937 into a veritable quagmire, and with no footing due to the mud, both battalions pulled back to avoid taking more casualties. As it was, the Rakkasans suffered 13 KIA and 60 wounded; the ARA attack accounted for another trooper lost and four wounded. The Currahees lost 4 killed and 27 wounded. In view of the casualties and the slow going, that same night the 101st Airborne Division’s commander, Major General Melvin Zais, decided to reinforce the effort by air assaulting a company of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, and a battalion from the 1st ARVN Division to assist the depleted but still scrappy 3rd of the 187.33

  Although reinforcements might have been necessary, throughout the grueling battle there was no denying the extraordinary valor exhibited by the Rakkasans. The story of Specialist 4 Nicholas W. Schoch nobly illustrates the point and underscores the devotion and love the embattled troopers had for each other, a love that caused them to react to combat in unexpected ways.

  A Napa Valley native, Nikko Schoch was an avowed conscientious objector and only averted jail when he agreed to enter the Army as a medic. That decision led to an assignment with Bravo Company, 3rd of the 187th on Hill 937, and his actions on that deadly hill saved numerous lives. Early in the battle his company engaged an entrenched North Vietnamese force, and Specialist Schoch rushed to the area of fiercest fighting and began to administer medical aid to the wounded. Once there, he moved to aid three seriously wounded men lying in an area completely devoid of cover. While treating one of the men, he became the target of a sniper in a nearby tree. He saw the bullets impact the ground next to him, then heard the shots—a muffled pop that sounded like a crushed paper bag. Taking the weapon of the man he was treating, conscientious objector Nikko Schoch realized that the only way to save his buddy would be to kill the snipe
r. He did. On May 13 his unit assaulted the enemy stronghold and again came under a heavy concentration of hostile fire. Enemy machine guns opened up with short, well aimed bursts, while bits of branches and leaves kept falling around the medic. As Specialist Schoch was applying first aid to the wounded of the lead element, the medic in another platoon sustained serious wounds and could not breathe. In the open, and braving heavy fire from all directions, Schoch coolly and skillfully performed a tracheotomy on his wounded comrade who resumed breathing and was evacuated. Later as he was treating a casualty, an enemy fragmentation grenade fell near him and the wounded man. Nikko instantly grabbed the grenade and threw it into a nearby bomb crater and then shot the enemy soldier who had thrown the grenade. After completing treatment, he carried the American through a furious firefight to an LZ for evacuation. On the following day Specialist Schoch treated and evacuated four more wounded men from his company who had fallen near the summit of Dong Ap Bia. Then, on May 15 as the battle for the hill still raged, hostile fire downed a Huey carrying ammunition. Despite the fact that the burning helicopter might explode at any moment, 21-year-old Nikko Schoch ran to the wreckage and retrieved an unconscious survivor and carried him through a barrage of sniper fire to safety where he administered first aid, saving the man’s life. For the remainder of the day and until May 18, constantly under fire and with no sleep, he took charge of medical treatment and evacuation on the company’s emergency landing zone. Specialist 4 Nicholas W. Schoch’s extraordinary heroism earned him the admiration of everyone in Bravo Company as well as a much deserved Distinguished Service Cross.34