by Eric Hammel
Soon the NVA soldiers came in to beg for tea, but they lingered for breakfast. It was fascinating for Tuy-Cam to watch them use their chopsticks. One of the two ends was used to shovel food inside their mouths, but the other end was used to pick up food from serving dishes. "It is more sanitary this way," they explained. "You will not get your saliva into the food you share with others."
Suddenly, as the NVA soldiers ate, a large group of VC barged into the house. It was making the rounds of all the local households. The same questions the family had endured the day before were asked again, and the same answers were given. One of the VC checked all the rooms on the first floor, and then the group left.
Soon the NVA squad finished eating, thanked the family, and also departed up the street. Tuy-Cam's mother waited a long moment and then looked up at the attic, where her two sons were hiding. "Do you need anything?" she asked loudly. The brothers replied that they were hungry and thirsty. She sent several bottles of water up to them—quickly, in case some NVA soldiers came back. She told the brothers, who had not eaten for two days, that she hoped to send up some food by dinnertime. The NVA soldiers returned to their gun position a few minutes later.
Around noon, a small group of NVA soldiers came in and started propagandizing the family. They asked if everyone knew who "Uncle Ho" was. The family members said they did. The NVA said the family "must not side with the government of the lackeys," but instead "must fight against the American aggressors." They should "stand up and join the National Liberation Front to fight for the liberty of the country [and] join the movement to fight for 'independence, freedom, and happiness' "—the motto of the Communist Party. Then the political cadre gave the family a small NLF flag and asked that it be displayed. "When the country is independent again," one of them promised, "we will be back to teach you Communism and what it did to bring prosperity to the people." Finally, the VC asked for some tea, drank it, and departed with the promise that they would be back later. "We want to see some improvement in your attitude," one of them cautioned.
There was no electricity for the lights, and the days were short at that time of year, so the women decided to prepare dinner before dark. As they worked, a heavy rain started falling. Chuong, the houseboy, had reported earlier that the water pressure from the tap was very low. The idea of collecting rainwater struck everyone at once, so they gathered all the containers they could find and set them outside.
After the rainwater had been brought in, Tuy-Cam's mother posted the sisters at the doors to make sure no one was in sight. Then she sent some food up to An and Long. The container came down with a message for Tuy-Cam: "We could be wrong, but we think Big Sister is safe with her friend," they wrote. Their message calmed Tuy-Cam's fears. She looked up and said, "Thanks."
*
"Big Sister"—Tuy-Cam's fiancé, Jim Bullington—was indeed safe. He spent February 1 in the home of Father Cressonier and Father Poncet, trying to relax and wait out the storm. In the afternoon, through binoculars borrowed from the French priests, Bullington watched two VNAF A-l Skyraiders as they bombed and strafed targets within the Citadel. That was his first indication that the Communists had occupied the imperial seat. Next, he spotted the giant NLF flag atop the Citadel wall. Mostly, that day, Jim Bullington worried about Tuy-Cam.
During the wee hours of February 1, Task Force X-Ray ordered Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gravel's thinly stretched ad hoc battalion to jump off at first light to relieve the GVN force still holding out in the Thua Thien Provincial Prison. While they were at it, they were to liberate the adjacent Thua Thien Province Administration complex, which Marines had mistakenly identified as the Provincial Headquarters. The order caused considerable consternation among Gravel's harried senior officers, who had weathered a day of trying to crack city defenses.
To Task Force X-Ray, the prison was a mere 1,200 meters from MACV, a distance any competent battalion should be able to fight through in the bush. To Mark Gravel and Captain Chuck Meadows, however, the prison was eight long city blocks from MACV—a distance twice the one Gravel had failed to negotiate on his way to the CORDS building on January 31 and four times the one that had cost Gravel's convoy four casualties in the night medevac. Gravel and Meadows were beginning to realize that they had been lucky to get into Hue at all the previous day, before the Communists had begun setting in their defenses. To both officers—though not to their superiors—it was obvious that the resistance was stiffening. Indeed, by then both Gravel and Meadows realized that getting to the prison—or any fighting inside Hue—involved a kind of experience that neither possessed. Nor had any of their young troops ever been trained in city fighting.
The last time Marines had fought in a built-up area had been in September 1950, in the liberation of Seoul, Korea. At that time Marines had faced a beaten foe fighting a ragged rearguard action of short duration. Gravel had served in the Korean War, but he had not fought in Seoul. Meadows had entered the Marine Corps in the early 1960s; he had been trained to fight in built-up areas, but that was years before he arrived in Hue. He had seen no city combat in his first tour as a company commander nor on his current tour with Golf/2/5. In fact, no one in 1/1 or Golf/2/5 had ever fought in a built-up area; the Marine Corps had virtually cut city-combat tactics from its wartime infantry-training program.
Lieutenant Colonel Gravel protested the order to secure the prison and the administration complex, but he was told to carry on. In response, Lieutenant Mike McNeil's 1st Platoon of Golf/ 2/5, the Golf/2/5 CP group, and an ad hoc squad of MACV volunteers jumped off from MACV at 0700.
The NVA were out in force. Initially, McNeil's platoon was unable even to fight its way across Highway 1—to the other side of the street. Even the pair of Marine M-48 tanks assigned to the effort were unable to breast the enemy fire. If anything, the M-48s were a liability, for they drew an inordinate amount of fire, including volleys of B-40 rockets, from the masonry buildings overlooking the highway. In no time, the tanks' antennas had been clipped, and all the gear stowed outside the hulls was shot away. Clearly, the NVA had drawn a line along the western edge of Highway 1.
After hours of pressing, the inadequate assault force managed to advance one block southeast along Highway 1. From there, it was to turn southwest onto the first cross street, Tran Cao Van. It was only six more blocks to the prison.
*
Specialist 4th Class Jim Mueller was a MACV clerk who felt he owed his life to the Marines of Golf/2/5. When a call for volunteers had gone out that morning, Mueller, an Army brat, had volunteered to help them. Though Mueller was a clerk who had received only rudimentary infantry training, he felt he could handle house-to-house fighting as well as the battle-hardened Marines, who were openly expressing trepidation at the prospect of more city combat.
Specialist 4th Class Mueller followed the Golf/2/5 Marines to the intersection of Highway 1 and Tran Cao Van and joined a long line of men who were standing with their backs against a wall of the corner house. A tank was in front of them, preparing to round the corner onto Tran Cao Van. As everyone waited for the tank to make its move, an NVA soldier fired several rounds from a top-floor window of the house the Americans were using for cover. The bullets struck close to Jim Mueller, but Mueller could not return fire without permission from his sergeant.
"Sarge," Mueller called, "there's someone up there shooting at me."
"Where?"
"There." Mueller pointed at the window.
"Well," the sergeant observed, "there's no one shooting at you now."
"Well, no, but do I have permission to shoot?"
"If he starts shooting again, call me and then shoot."
Mueller could not believe what he had just heard. He had to have permission to defend himself! If someone tried to kill him, he had to have permission to shoot back.
As Mueller was mulling over the absurdity of this directive, the Marine M-48 tank nosed around the corner and started down Tran Cao Van Street. A squad of Marines advanced behin
d the tank, but the MACV soldiers and other Marines stayed behind the wall, back on Highway 1. The tank immediately drew heavy small-arms fire from a steeple atop the chapel of the Jeanne d'Arc Private Girls' High School, hitting one of the Marines following the tank. The tank fired its 90mm main gun right at the steeple, and the whole structure toppled over into the street.
With that, the MACV soldiers were ordered to sweep through the house to the back courtyard. For all Specialist 4th Class Mueller knew, the NVA soldier who had fired at him a few minutes earlier was still inside the house. Nevertheless, the entire MACV squad and several Marines went inside and began checking all the rooms. In the process, one of Mueller's companions almost got killed. The man had gone into a room, and an NVA soldier threw a grenade in through a window. Out of instinct, the Marine turned and started shooting. Luckily, he hit the grenade, and it bounced outside and blew up.
The Marines and MACV soldiers searched the entire house. Jim Mueller was scared the whole time. At one point, several of the Americans stepped into what appeared to be a hospital room. There was a bed with a sheet hanging around it. Someone ordered Mueller to make sure there was no one in the bed. Mueller wondered, "Do I shoot first and ask questions later? Do I wait until one of my partners opens up the sheet and, in that split second, decide to kill the person who is there?" His mind was racing as he approached the bed, ready to shoot. When one of the other soldiers parted the sheet, Mueller saw there was no one behind it. Jim Mueller had to take a deep breath; he knew then that he did not want to kill anybody.
The soldiers and Marines eventually worked their way through the house and out into the courtyard. Word was that the NVA were moving back, giving the Americans some room. For all that, the Marines and soldiers were unable to fight their way over the courtyard wall. Every time someone stuck his head above the top of the wall, the NVA poured heavy fire at him. At length, the stymied Americans called up a second M-48 tank, and, with its main gun, it blew a hole right through the wall. All hands charged through the breach, firing blindly as they went to keep the NVA down and prevent them from firing back.
As the NVA were prodded a short distance up Tran Cao Van, dozens of civilians emerged from the buildings they passed and ran toward Highway 1. After that, Lieutenant Mike McNeil's platoon advanced all of fifteen meters against resistance that grew steadily fiercer. The Marines vainly tried to advance, and the volunteer Army squad escorted the civilians back to MACV.
*
While the attack toward the prison inched forward up Tran Cao Van Street, Lieutenant Steve Hancock's 2nd Platoon of Golf/2/5 headed south on Highway 1 to the edge of the kilometer-wide cane field. Its mission was to try to locate the home of a pair of U.S. State Department officials in the neighborhood west of the highway. Miraculously, the two American civilians emerged alive and unscathed following an hours-long search.
*
Early in the afternoon of February 1, Task Force X-Ray asked that all the transportation trucks that had carried Alpha/1/1 and Golf/2/5 to MACV on January 31 be sent back to Phu Bai, where they were sorely needed to carry more combat troops and supplies to Hue. Mark Gravel concurred with the request; there was no way to maintain or fuel the trucks adequately at MACV. The trucks were loaded with all the killed and all but the most seriously wounded. A day and night of battle around MACV had proven that helicopter medevacs could not keep pace with the toll of casualties. Moreover, the dead were presenting an increasing health risk and a threat to morale.
Mindful that Highway 1 might be cut at any of the many chokepoints between Hue and Phu Bai, Mark Gravel and Chuck Meadows decided between them to send a reinforced platoon back as convoy escort. Meadows selected Golf/2/5's 3rd Platoon, commanded by 2nd Lieutenant Bill Rogers. The 3rd Platoon had not been seriously engaged and had suffered no casualties on January 31, so it was the strongest unit. Also, as the most experienced of Golf/2/5's platoon commanders, Lieutenant Rogers was deemed the most capable of leading this dangerous leap into the unknown.
Not only was Rogers's platoon to guard the trucks, it was, in effect, to escort Lieutenant Rogers himself, who was to act as an officer-messenger to the colonel commanding the 1st Marines in Phu Bai. Assuming he survived the trip, Rogers was to describe the situation at Hue in candid detail so that the off-the-scene commanders would have a better understanding of what the tiny combat force at MACV was facing. So important was it that Rogers's report be believed and understood, that it was deemed worth sending nearly forty precious combat infantrymen along to ensure the lieutenant's safe arrival. Both Army M-55 quad.-50 trucks were to accompany the infantry platoon and act as additional convoy escort. Sending these valuable resources was another reflection of the importance the commanders placed on getting Lieutenant Rogers through to the regimental CP. As soon as the message had been delivered, Rogers's platoon was to head back to Hue with supplies and reinforcements. If Highway 1 was interdicted or if any of the bridges had been blown, everyone was to return to MACV.
Just before the trucks left MACV, the convoy commander, 2nd Lieutenant Jerry Nadolski, was directed to proceed all the way to Phu Bai at the best speed the trucks could make, about forty miles per hour. He was to abandon any vehicles that were disabled along the way and, if possible, to barge through any roadblocks.
The beds of all Marine trucks operating in Vietnam were routinely covered with layers of sandbags, a crude but effective shield against mines. Anticipating steady sniper fire along the way, all the troops were ordered to lie facedown on the sandbagged truck beds. One infantryman was placed in the cab of each truck, alongside the driver, to ride shotgun or man a ring-mounted .50-caliber machine gun—if that truck had one.
The convoy's speed and the boldness of the mission apparently caught the NVA by surprise. All the bridges were intact, and the convoy encountered only desultory, disorganized resistance. Only one truck was lost along the way, just south of the Phu Cam Canal, the result of a direct RPG hit. Fortunately, there were no casualties, and the Marines who had been riding in that truck jumped aboard the next few trucks without appreciably slowing the convoy. The convoy raced into the open cultivated area to the south.
Miraculously, without further loss of vehicles and with no casualties whatever, the convoy reached Phu Bai at around dusk. As 2nd Lieutenant Nadolski shepherded the trucks into the Gia Le camp, Lieutenant Rogers reported to the regimental CP. There, though he was nervous in the presence of so many field-grade officers, Lieutenant Rogers told his compelling tale. As soon as he was released from the regimental CP, Lieutenant Rogers was free to begin worrying about a return trip to Hue.
Lieutenant Rogers's message apparently got through to the field-grade officers assembled in the 1st Marines CP, for wheels began turning and important results would follow.
***
Chapter 13
Lieutenant Bill Rogers's advice reached Phu Bai too late to help another infantry company of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines. At noon, February 1—hours before Lieutenant Rogers left MACV— Task Force X-Ray assigned Fox/2/5 to the 1st Marines for duty with 1/1 in Hue.
On the afternoon of January 31, 2/5 had been undertaking a coordinated three-company effort to clear an NVA battalion out of the area around the vital twin-span Troi Bridge complex, eight kilometers south of Phu Bai. Suddenly, with no warning, the 5th Marines CP ordered Fox/2/5 to break contact with the enemy and report to Phu Bai immediately. The order was peremptory and nonnegotiable; Fox/2/5 pulled out of the battalion line and assembled in a field for the drive north to Phu Bai.
At the moment the order arrived, 2/5 was on the brink of defeating the NVA battalion, which had begun threatening the Troi Bridge complex during the previous night. In a twinkling the Marine battalion lost its superior position, its superior firepower, and its ability to win. When Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham, the 2/5 commander, asked 5th Marines how he, with only two remaining companies, was supposed to carry off the destruction of the NVA battalion, the answer was, in effect, "Carry on."
But the NVA cannily divined 2/5's disadvantage and disengaged from what minutes earlier had been a deadly encirclement. As the NVA unit evaporated into the countryside, Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham silently thanked his lucky stars; if the NVA commander had been more alert, he would have realized that the rump of 2/5 remaining on the field could have been defeated in detail by the suddenly superior NVA force.
As soon as the smoke cleared at Troi Bridge that evening, January 31, Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham got on the radio to the regimental CP and started raising holy hell. Cheatham's experience in Vietnam had imbued him with an intense disdain for the propensity of higher headquarters to commit units to multiple events piecemeal and attach out infantry companies willy-nilly to strange battalions. He received no satisfaction. The regimental commander, who might have gone to bat for him or at least calmed him down, was out of the country on R and R. The regimental exec replied that the order detaching Fox/2/5 had come from Task Force X-Ray, and that there was nothing 5th Marines could do.
*
Fox/2/5 was in terrific shape when it left Troi Bridge for Phu Bai. Though the unit had sustained several losses around the bridge on January 31, hardly anyone was on R and R; all the men who had been lightly wounded, injured, or sick had been returned to duty; and the few replacements required had arrived. Thus Fox/2/5 was nearly at full strength, well rested, and well integrated. It had its full complement of lieutenants and staff noncommissioned officers, and all the squads were led by sergeants or seasoned corporals.
When Fox/2/5 reached Phu Bai by truck late in the afternoon, the company commander, Captain Mike Downs, was ordered to report to the Task Force X-Ray CP. There Downs met with the task force operations officer and his assistant, both lieutenant colonels. Though Downs knew nothing of the situation in Hue or even around Phu Bai, he could not imagine why the CP was in a state of confusion bordering on panic. Following a useless briefing, Downs was sent over to the 1st Marines CP, where the regimental operations officer told him that Fox/2/5 would be flying up to Hue the next day to operate with Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gravel's 1/1. Once again, Captain Downs emerged from a sketchy briefing with only the vaguest sense of what was going on in Hue. As far as Downs could figure it, there were enemy troops inside Hue, and Fox/2/5 was needed to push them out. The impression Downs had was that his company would be back in Phu Bai pretty quickly, in a few days at most.
