A Shau Valor

by Thomas R. Yarborough

  A silent resentment, fanned by rightist defense minister General Lon Nol, spread through the population as the Cambodian people came to realize Prince Sihanouk’s duplicity. In a desperate move, he departed Cambodia on January 6, 1970 for France, ostensibly for treatment of a medical condition, following which he would travel to the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China to discuss economic and military aid. Among political insiders within Cambodia there was general agreement that the two latter visits had no real purpose other than to find some way to resolve the political difficulties caused by the widespread NVA and VC activities ripping the country apart, activities which were becoming more widespread each day. Then, on March 18, with Sihanouk out of the country, the National Assembly deposed Norodom Sihanouk and installed General Lon Nol as the new head of state. Since the coup had essentially followed constitutional provisions rather than smacking of a blatant military takeover, and with anti-communist Lon Nol in firm control, policy wonks in Washington reveled in the spate of prospects opened up by Sihanouk’s ouster.9

  The only offensive campaign in Vietnam planned by MACV for the spring/summer of 1970 called for the 101st Airborne Division to conduct yet another series of operations in the A Shau Valley “to maintain a protective shield beyond the periphery of the populated lowlands of Thua Thien Province.” The mission charged the Screaming Eagles with two specific objectives: to seek out and destroy an enemy who was rapidly reinforcing his sanctuaries around the northeast section of the A Shau, and to buy time to allow ARVN forces to develop their fighting skills in order to shoulder a larger share in the Vietnamization process.10 The latest push, however, varied little from those executed in the valley over the past two years, and considering those operations’ very limited, short term successes, a significant reservation surfaced—how could the 101st expect a different outcome by replicating the same strategy and tactics as before? Dubbed Operation Texas Star, the campaign proved to be America’s last major ground offensive within the borders of South Vietnam.

  Operation Texas Star kicked off on April 1st, six months to the day since units from the 101st had last been in the Valley of Death. During their absence, the NVA’s 324B Division began to funnel all its units into a locale the Americans nicknamed the “Warehouse Area,” the northeast corner of the A Shau. Those units initially included the 29th Infantry Regiment, veterans of the battle for Hamburger Hill, and the 803rd Infantry Regiment. Each regiment deployed with a supporting artillery battalion and a machine gun company. In addition, the powerful 7th Sapper Battalion operated in the area, and over the following three months the NVA moved ten more battalions into the Warehouse Area. Opposing them would be three battalions from the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division.11

  As a prelude to Texas Star and to re-establish a foothold in the Warehouse Area, the Screaming Eagles actually combat assaulted back into the area in March during the final phase of Operation Randolph Glen. Although primarily a joint pacification campaign with the ARVN 1st Division in the lowlands of Thua Thien Province, Randolph Glen also included some limited objective reconnaissance operations into the A Shau. The crux of this strategy hinged on building/occupying a series of remote fire support bases, each an artificial fortress island located on a key terrain feature. Each temporary FSB, called “Howard Johnsons” by the grunts, came complete with artillery batteries necessary for supporting the search and destroy missions of infantry units. Specifically the plan called for 3rd Brigade units to occupy old Fire Support Base Carol, originally built by the 1st Cavalry Division in 1968 during Operation Delaware; located atop Hill 927, the FSB was renamed Ripcord. Once this key firebase was established to support the upcoming offensive, the 3rd Brigade would seek out and destroy enemy units in the area—an enemy who had been infiltrating into the northeast A Shau for months and whose strength intelligence estimates had woefully underestimated. To counter that buildup, the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, under the command of Lt Colonel Andre C. Lucas, got the job of securing Ripcord. The battalion, a mainstay of the 506th Infantry Currahees of World War II fame, was a close-knit outfit destined to be the principal combatant unit in the last major battle fought by American ground forces in Vietnam. As their leader, Lucas, a 1954 West Pointer on his second combat tour in Vietnam, projected an unmistakable air of professionalism and was considered to be a rising star among battalion commanders in the 101st. He developed a close working relationship with his staff and company commanders but remained somewhat aloof from the grunts in the battalion. Lucas’s standoffish demeanor caused some of his troops to view him as a “ticket puncher”—nothing more than another super aggressive commander hoping to use the war to move up the promotion ladder. Rather than spend time with the men of the line companies, Lt Colonel Lucas apparently preferred to lead from overhead in his command and control helicopter. For that reason one grunt wryly observed, “We didn’t know who the hell the guy was.”12

  On March 12, Lucas deployed Alpha Company on the initial assault against Ripcord. As the men landed, they came under heavy mortar fire from enemy troops on Hill 1000, just under a kilometer to the west. During the barrage, one of the supporting Hueys took multiple hits from enemy soldiers located at the base of Ripcord and crash-landed on top of the old FSB. Confusion reigned and casualties mounted. Some of the troopers were badly demoralized when an RPG explosion killed their brand new but popular 4th Platoon leader, 2nd Lieutenant Dudley Davis. The lieutenant’s radioman, Specialist 4 Daniel N. Heater, wounded behind the left ear by a small piece of shrapnel from the same explosion, initially refused medical evacuation “for just a scratch,” only to die on the chopper en route to the hospital. Under constant mortar fire, Alpha dug in and managed to hold out for three days before the company was lifted out so the enemy mortar positions could be bombarded without endangering the friendly troops. Right after the grunts were extracted from Hill 927, a new replacement observed them and noted that the troopers “looked like men gone two steps back toward ape. They Stank. They were bearded. Their fatigues were dirty and ragged. They ate with their hands, hunched over, wolfing down the food. They were quiet, speaking little … They had fear written on their faces.”13

  At that point the perennial struggle with A Shau’s foul weather brought operations around Ripcord to a screeching halt. Low cloud ceilings and torrential rain grounded virtually all aviation assets and caused one delay after another. When the weather moderated slightly on April 1 and the 3rd Brigade initiated Operation Texas Star, Lt Colonel Lucas called on Bravo Company for the second assault on Ripcord, yet those experienced troopers fared no better than their brothers from Alpha Company two weeks earlier. When Bravo attempted to move across the top of Hill 927, a barrage of intense mortar fire drove them back down the bare, muddy slopes. It was obvious that NVA batteries on nearby hills had pre-registered every position on Ripcord and could land mortar rounds at will with devastating accuracy. When counter battery fire knocked out one enemy position, the NVA simply moved to another and continued the barrage unabated; it proved to be impossible to suppress the deadly mortars. In one instance, when a UH-1 landed to evacuate the most seriously wounded, mortar shrapnel shredded the bird as it lifted off, causing it to crash back on to the LZ. Thus stymied and pinned down by murderous enemy fire and unsupportable by tactical air because of the miserable weather, Bravo Company trudged off Ripcord on April 3rd.14

  With NVA mortar units occupying all the high ground within a 2,000-meter radius of Ripcord, the question of ordering a third assault against the hill set off animated discussions among 3rd Brigade and Division staff members. To clear the surrounding hills and to secure such a key piece of real estate for the upcoming offensive, the brigade commander, Colonel William J. Bradley, felt strongly that company-size assaults against Ripcord could not accomplish the mission. He maintained that the 101st should attack Ripcord in strength or not go at all. The brigade operations officer, Major Robert A. Turner, who sided with his boss and minced no words with his outspoken views to the
assistant division commander, Brigadier General John J. Hennessey, candidly stated that “we’d gotten our ass kicked out of there twice … if we went back in, the enemy was going to respond in force, and then it would take a couple of brigades to hold the damn place,” the obvious implication being that a much larger force—with attendant higher casualties—would be required to sustain a third attack. In a briefing to Hennessey, Turner even offered several alternatives including a plan to skip Hill 927 altogether and to launch the offensive from existing firebases. The assistant division commander simply responded, “Well, you’re going back to Ripcord.”15

  In spite of Turner’s pessimistic prediction, he realized that a large assaulting force against Ripcord amounted to a pipe dream—for two compelling reasons. First, Vietnamization had the Screaming Eagles overextended across the two hottest provinces in the country, forced to defend northern I Corps with a single division, whereas just a year earlier the 3rd Marine Division had been a key element on the team. Inside the 101st Airborne Division, the 1st and 2nd Brigades were fully committed around the DMZ and in the populated lowlands, while the 3rd Brigade in the western part of Thua Thien Province manned the barricades in an AO normally allotted to an entire division; figuratively speaking, they plugged the holes in the dike with their fingers—and as events would prove, NVA soldiers still poured through.

  The second reason why it was unlikely that a large force would be deployed against Ripcord also touched on the realities of Vietnamization, but this time the rationale hid a political motive. Because many of the senior commanders in the 101st were still gun shy about the debacle at Hamburger Hill a year earlier, they were under tremendous pressure—whether real or perceived—to hold casualties down by keeping the operation relatively small. The added benefit of a small operation also included keeping the attack off the radar screens of the hordes of press and photographers prowling around in search of another dramatic Hamburger Hill story. As a result, the Currahees from the 2nd of the 506th were destined to go it alone at Ripcord, and by tradition as well as reputation, the battalion was no stranger to that particular predicament: their legendary Currahee name was a Cherokee Indian word meaning “Stand Alone.”

  On April 8 the Currahees’ Delta Company had initiated the third assault on Ripcord’s southeast face when they discovered a bunker complex. Almost immediately the attack turned sour. After detecting movement, they popped smoke and called in the Cobras. Unfortunately the smoke drifted as it rose through the thick jungle canopy, resulting in a tragic Cobra friendly fire attack that killed one Delta Company trooper and wounded 14 more. Morale among the Currahees plummeted, fostering what some called the “Hamburger Hill Syndrome,” going back after something over and over again. One NCO in Charlie Company bitterly commented, “Hamburger Hill was probably the most shameful thing the 101st ever did. Ripcord was more of the same.”16 Yet over the next few days enemy contact unexpectedly dropped off, and during the early morning hours of April 11, Lt Colonel Andre Lucas moved Charlie and Delta Companies up the south slope of Ripcord. There was no enemy fire as the companies advanced up Hill 927 and onto the old firebase at the top. The conquest may have taken 31 days, but Ripcord now belonged to the Currahees. The question in everyone’s mind was, how long could they hold it?

  Although NVA units continued to lob rounds of harassing mortar fire into Ripcord, the Currahees threw themselves into the task of building up the firebase perimeter, fully expecting that the enemy would at some point attempt to take the position back. Fortunately for the Currahees, they had the right man in the right place. Charlie Company’s indomitable commander, Captain Isabelino Vazquez-Rodriguez, ran a tight ship and brought a wealth of combat experience to the job. A native of Puerto Rico, the diminutive veteran with a heavy accent had fought in Korea as an infantryman and had already served two tours in Vietnam as a Special Forces NCO. He also had very definite views on how to defend a firebase. Instead of fashioning Ripcord’s perimeter after other division firebases, Vazquez insisted on modeling his after the border outposts he had occupied during his tours as a Green Beret. He believed strongly that above ground sandbag bunkers stood out like neon signs and advertised their locations to the enemy RPGs and sappers. Instead of bunkers, Vazquez had the men of Charlie Company dig three-man L-shaped fighting positions around the perimeter. As he commented, “At least they were below ground and couldn’t be spotted from 500 meters away. They were flat.” To further protect the fighting positions, the wily company commander had his platoons string multiple rings of concertina wire embedded with trip flares and claymore mines. When completed, the concertina wire stretching around Ripcord was 50 meters wide, and during every minute of daylight Vazquez had his exhausted men clearing fields of fire. He also employed another Special Forces trick. In front of each fighting position he spotted a 55-gallon drum of thickened fuel known as “phougas.” If ignited, the burning gas splashed into the concertina wire, creating illumination for the good guys and a living hell for the bad guys.17

  With security under control, the 3rd Brigade began airlifting in the raison d’être for Ripcord: artillery batteries. Ripcord’s perimeter resembled a figure eight in shape, approximately four football fields in size and stretching across the hilltop oriented from northwest to southeast. First to arrive was a battery of six 105mm howitzers to occupy the top of the higher, wider southeast half of the hill. They were followed by a battery of six 155mm guns spotted on a lower, narrower tier at the northwest end of the firebase. Packed in with the security company were a battalion headquarters, aid station, three 81mm mortar platoons, and three helicopter landing pads. Originally no more than a bare hilltop, Ripcord had been transformed into a heavily fortified citadel brimming with firepower—and a festering thorn in the side of an enemy determined to eradicate that thorn.

  Any combat news associated with Operation Texas Star instantly took a backseat when, on May 1st, the war expanded spectacularly as a major cross-border offensive into Cambodia launched. With the recent favorable change of governments in Phnom Penh and with an eye toward the eventual departure of American forces under Vietnamization, President Nixon gave the go-ahead for U.S. forces to invade the eastern border regions of Cambodia in order to destroy NVA/NLF bases, sanctuaries, and supply depots. Additionally, the new campaign, Operation Toan Thang 43 for the South Vietnamese Army and Operation Rockcrusher for MACV, would permit the ARVN to demonstrate its ability to challenge one of Hanoi’s most formidable strongholds.

  Dubbed by the press the “Cambodian incursion,” Operation Rockcrusher included elements of the 1st Cavalry Division, the 4th, 9th, and 25th Infantry Divisions, and the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment, along with numerous ARVN units. While some of the fighting was intense, particularly around traditional hotbed areas like the Fishhook and the Parrot’s Beak, for the most part the NVA forces simply eluded allied forces, avoided combat, and retreated deeper into Cambodia. Nevertheless, American and ARVN troops captured and destroyed huge caches of supplies and weapons: 8,000 tons of rice, 1,800 tons of ammunition, 20,000 individual weapons, and 431 vehicles.18 In critiquing the campaign, however, military historians were mostly unimpressed by what they saw as the ARVN’s overall timid and cautious performance. Shelby Stanton, for instance, wrote that “This crash program to mold the South Vietnamese military into an image of the selfsufficient, highly technical U.S. armed forces was doomed to failure.” Based on its performance, the ARVN could not and did not savor a victory on the grand scale anticipated by the Americans.19

  Naturally, the North Vietnamese reaction to the Cambodian incursion included a heavy dose of propaganda rhetoric, complete with assertions that the forces of good had inevitably been victorious over American imperialism and their puppets. In Hanoi’s official version, the Military History Institute of Vietnam wrote that “because of their great defeat on the battlefield and in the face of strong opposition from the peoples of the world, including the people of the United States … Nixon was forced to announce the withdrawal of t
roops from Cambodia. The American imperialist invasion of Cambodia had failed.”20

  In spite of its exaggerated propaganda claims, Hanoi was right about the response at home: reaction to the incursion ignited anti-war sensibilities on college campuses across America, sparking protests against what was perceived as an expansion of the unpopular war into yet another country. Emotions reached a fever pitch on May 4 when the unrest escalated to deadly violence as nervous young Ohio National Guardsmen opened fire on and killed four unarmed students during protests at Kent State University. Two days later, at the University of Buffalo, police wounded four more demonstrators. Nationwide, protesters torched or bombed 30 ROTC buildings, and National Guard units were called out on 21 campuses in 16 states. A student strike, highlighted by protests and walkouts involving more than four million students at 450 universities, colleges, and high schools, spread across the country. In the face of such massive home front opposition to the Cambodian incursion, President Nixon attempted to appease American public outrage and Congressional pressure when, on May 7, he issued a directive limiting the distance of U.S. operations to a depth of 30 kilometers inside Cambodia and setting a deadline of June 30 for the withdrawal of all U.S. forces back across the border into South Vietnam.21 The gesture fell on domestic deaf ears.