by Eric Hammel
On February 3, Bullington's fiancée, Tuy-Cam, heard artillery fire rumbling in the distance. No one in the Than-Trong compound could begin to guess what that might portend, but for the moment the artillery was the least of their problems. Absolutely no water was to be had from the taps, and the supply the clan had saved in containers had run out. It seemed as though the streets in the area were filled with armed men in civilian clothes and that the quiet, courteous young NVA soldiers who had been billeted in the area had gone elsewhere.
The soldiers certainly had gone elsewhere. On February 3, the U.S. Marines around MACV took several giant steps in their bid to get an organized offensive under way south of the Perfume. It took the Marines most of the day to get set, but the two or three battalions of the 4th NVA Regiment southwest of Highway 1 certainly were feeling the pressure—had been feeling it for two whole days—and it was no wonder the NVA regimental commander had begun redeploying his assets.
Throughout the morning of February 3, the fighting northeast of Highway 1 involved nickel-and-dime killings, mostly. At sunup, one NVA soldier who was trying to maneuver a satchel charge toward a building on the northeast side of the MACV Compound was shot dead by a Fox/2/5 platoon sergeant. At 0800, Hotel/2/5 Marines manning an upper-story window in Hue University spotted a squad of NVA in the street below. The Marines fired their weapons and four LAAW rockets, and claimed six NVA killed. An adventurous soul even went out into the street and recovered an AK-47 from one of the dead NVA. At 0900, the commander of one of the M-48 tanks saw three NVA soldiers dart into the open, and he killed all three with thirty rounds from his .50-caliber cupola machine gun. And so it went.
The big news of February 3 was that the 1st Marines forward CP group and the 2/5 CP group had been ordered to Hue from Phu Bai. No one in the world was happier to hear that news than Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gravel.
*
The situation Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham, the 2/5 commander, had found at Phu Bai on his arrival on the afternoon of February 2 had been sheer chaos bordering on panic. There had been no end of hand wringing among senior Marine officers as far up the chain as III MAF headquarters, at Danang. In the space of a very few hours, Cheatham had heard that Danang was under attack—and that it wasn't; that Hue was in the throes of a full-scale Communist offensive—and that only a few Communist snipers were loose in the city; that the only road into Hue had been severed—and that it was open; that the 1st Marine Division CP had been overrun—and that it hadn't even been attacked. When Cheatham was alerted that he was going to Hue the next day, he went over to the 5th Marines CP and asked the regimental operations officer what was really going on there. The major, who had been Cheatham's assistant when Cheatham had occupied the billet, admitted, "Ernie, I don't know what's happening, but it appears that we are fighting in the city and the only communication we have is with the MACV Compound." Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham had not even begun to penetrate the fog of war when, late in the evening of February 2, he was informed that 2/5 was going to be attached to the 1st Marines next day and that the battalion and regimental CPs were to mount out for Hue.
Until the warning order to mount out to Hue had been transmitted to the 1st Marines, the regimental staff had been putting out fires in a large area of operations that was entirely alien to them. The long night of waiting was fortuitous in that it allowed the 1st Marines' harried commander, Colonel Stan Hughes, and his brilliant but equally harried operations officer, Major Ernie Cook, to focus exclusively on Hue. During the night of February 2, in anticipation of 1st Marines' move to Hue, Task Force X-Ray ordered 5th Marines to assume tactical responsibility for all ongoing operations other than Hue. Guided by Task Force X-Ray's unexplained but evident priority on liberating the Thua Thien Provincial Prison, Major Cook wrote a regimental operations plan by which 1/1 and 2/5 would mount a coordinated attack to the southwest from Highway 1 to the prison. As soon as that objective fell, the battalions were to clear NVA. and VC troops out of the entire southern portion of the city.
The long hours of waiting that night at Phu Bai also allowed Ernie Cheatham and his battalion operations officer, Major Luke Youngman, to get as firm a grip as possible on the situation that would be facing 2/5. This was a luxury the exhausted Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gravel and his intensely harried staff had not yet been afforded. Major Youngman spent most of the night fashioning a classic operations order aimed at imposing a clear set of goals and attainable objectives on the battalion. His plan was to take effect just as soon as the command group resumed control of the three companies already in Hue.
As soon as Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham was able to leave the planning in Major Youngman's able hands, he had time to focus on the challenge that was awaiting him in Hue. In perhaps the only period of reflection circumstances would allow him in the next few weeks, Cheatham realized that he had received no training in city fighting since he had been a newly minted second lieutenant preparing to depart for the Korean War. Cheatham had never fought in a built-up area, and he had never sent any other Marine to fight in one. Cheatham's battalion would certainly be called upon to clear terrain measured in square meters and in three dimensions. Hard work on his memory produced a vague recollection of a British Army training film he had seen before being shipped to Korea. All he could recall was that the Brits had done a lot of yelling as they lobbed grenades into rooms, and when they stepped into the rooms they had just grenaded, they fired their weapons for all they were worth.
Somewhere in the 5th Marines' regimental CP, Cheatham knew, were several footlockers filled with field manuals on tactics. He managed to find the 5th Marines' cache and quickly reviewed the slim haul of materials devoted to combat in a built-up area—manuals entitled Combat in Built-Up Areas and Attack on a Fortified Position. What it all boiled down to was that the best way to fight through a city was to gas the enemy, blow things up, and then clear out the ruins.
Armed with the information gleaned from the field manuals, Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham ordered his battalion's 106mm Platoon to ready the remaining six of its eight recoilless rifles— two had been flown to Hue with Fox/2/5—and as much ammunition as the gunners could beg, borrow, or steal. Next Cheatham sent his armorers out to scrounge every loose CS tear-gas grenade and gas mask they could find in Phu Bai. He ordered them to stock up on C4 plastique explosive compound and every M-79 grenade and hand grenade they could locate—even obsolescent rifle grenades. Speaking of obsolescent weapons, Cheatham decided to unearth the battalion's flamethrowers and, more important, its 3.5-inch rocket launchers—World War II-vintage bazookas—which had recently been turned in for M-72 LAAW rockets. Cheatham knew that his troops would have to punch man-size holes in thick masonry walls and that there was a lot more bang for the buck in the big rocket warheads than in the lighter, more convenient, but less destructive LAAWs.
As soon as 2/5's commander had listed his needs, he turned the task of gathering all the weapons and munitions over to his can-do executive officer, Major John Salvati. Then Cheatham holed up in a quiet place to spend the hours he had left in Phu Bai poring over the field manuals so he could glean every shred of priceless information.
In his zeal, Major Salvati unearthed a number of 3.5-inch rocket launchers other Marine battalions had stored at Phu Bai, and he scrounged plenty of munitions. However, he quickly learned that there was a temporary countrywide shortage of hand grenades, and that no amount of fast talking, begging, or threats could set it right in the allotted time. Though Major Salvati had persuaded the battalion commander to allow him to accompany the convoy into Hue—Salvati was nearing the end of his field tour and had seen no direct combat as yet—he agreed to remain in Phu Bai an extra day, so he could scrounge more hand grenades and whatever else he thought the battalion would need.
While Major Cook and Major Youngman were piecing together their operations orders, the regimental and battalion personnel officers, the first sergeant of Alpha/1/1, and the four compan
y first sergeants of 2/5 were hard at work scrounging up the first contingent of replacements for the scores of infantrymen who had been killed or wounded in Hue since January 31. As it had in numerous emergencies in the past, the adage that "every Marine is a rifleman" held true at Phu Bai. So, in addition to Marines who were reaching the end of the normal manpower pipeline from the States, the replacement contingent bound for Hue on February 3 would include many motor-transport mechanics, drivers, cooks, bakers, clerks, and rear-area technicians of every variety, and—not to be forgotten—volunteers of every stripe. The levy of rear-echelon technicians was particularly brutal in 1/1, whose CP group was scheduled to turn the three attached companies of 2/5 back to the 2/5 command group that afternoon. Once that was accomplished, 1/1 would be down to just one company—Alpha/1/1—in Hue. Since none of Mark Gravel's other three infantry companies could be spared from their duties elsewhere, a thinly manned new company called Bravo/1/1 was almost wholly constituted from part of the real Bravo/1/1 command group, casual replacements, small levies from 1/1's other three infantry companies, and mainly from Headquarters-and-Service Company, 1/1.
*
Numerous delays mounted up through the morning. It was not until 1220 that 1st Marines officially assumed operational control of 2/5. Also at 1220 the 1st Marines and 2/5 command groups left Phu Bai in the company of Bravo/1/1, the last dozen Alpha/1/1 stragglers, Lieutenant Bill Rogers's platoon of Golf/ 2/5, several 6X6 trucks filled with replacements, a huge lowboy cargo truck carrying 2/5's six mule-mounted 106mm recoilless rifles, and two Army M-42 Dusters.
The drive to Hue along Highway 1 was rapid and without delays. Though the convoy was cumbersome and vulnerable, the only measures the enemy took against it were in the form of sporadic sniper fire and several mortar rounds that landed far off target.
Somehow, as the convoy was rounding the traffic circle southeast of the cane field, fire discipline came unglued. From his position near the front of the column, Lieutenant Colonel Cheatham realized that the convoy vanguard, composed of Lieutenant Rogers's Golf/2/5 platoon and the two Dusters, was not firing; virtually all the shooting was coming from the many rear-area troops, unattached individuals, and uncohesive fragments of ad hoc units farther back in the column. The malefactors—who were largely in the hands of officers and noncommissioned officers whom they did not know and would not obey—managed to blow off a huge amount of ammunition in a disproportionate response to the light fire from unseen sources.
Realizing that there was no real enemy threat but that the column was in danger of grinding to a halt, Cheatham ordered the vanguard drivers to increase the speed of their vehicles. When the vanguard started pulling ahead of the rest of the column, drivers to the rear naturally increased their speed to keep up with it. Thanks to Cheatham's quick thinking, the column simply roared across the exposed causeway, into the urban area, and to MACV. The convoy's trail jeep pulled in at 1258.
*
At 1300, February 3, 2/5 officially resumed operational control of Fox, Golf, and Hotel companies, and 1/1 officially resumed operational control of Bravo/1/1. The regimental CP moved into the MACV Compound, the 1/1 CP remained at MACV, and the 2/5 CP set up in Hue University.
At 1330, the battalion commanders received their orders from Regiment. The upshot of the formal operations order was that the 1st Marines regimental assault southwest of Highway 1 was to commence as soon as all five Marine infantry companies and their supports could close on the line of departure—in other words, later that very afternoon. The unofficial word Ernie Cheatham received direct from the regimental commander was a good deal saltier.
Colonel Stan Hughes was a rough-hewn warrior who said little and did much. He had earned a Navy Cross as a young lieutenant at Cape Gloucester in 1943, then a Silver Star at Peleliu in 1944, and he had commanded Marines in Korea. Colonel Hughes left the official language to his erstwhile operations officer, Major Ernie Cook. Speaking for himself, he told Ernie Cheatham, simply, to go dig the enemy out and to call on Regiment for any help he thought was needed. That was typical of Stan Hughes. In a very few words—and the only time throughout the Hue ordeal he even approximated giving an order to Cheatham—the regimental commander told the attached battalion commander to do whatever needed to be done and that Regiment would take care of the rest: sparring with higher headquarters, obtaining supplies and replacements, and arranging for supporting arms.
*
The three basic rules for conducting combat in a built-up area are to isolate the battlefield, seize footholds, and conduct a systematic clearing operation.
The Marine and ARVN units in Hue had no control over the first "must"; isolating the battlefield was in the hands of headquarters at a regional level. By February 3, the senior ARVN and U.S. headquarters and the divisions they controlled in I Corps were not yet sufficiently recovered from the onset of Tet to commit the forces that would be needed to isolate Hue from the outside. However, the NVA's apparent ignorance of step 1 had allowed the 1st ARVN Division and Task Force X-Ray to go directly to step 2 on January 31.
The NVA certainly had not isolated Hue. The combination of the 4th NVA Regiment's failure to seize MACV and interdict Highway 1 south of Hue had allowed a U.S. Marine combat force—initially a very weak one—to enter the heart of the city. Precisely the same type of failures on the part of the 6th NVA Regiment along Highway 1 north of Hue and in the Citadel had left the 1st ARVN Division CP compound intact and had allowed three ARVN airborne battalions and elements of three ARVN infantry battalions to beef up General Truong's position. Also, the NVA had never closed the Perfume River, an important potential supply line into the heart of the city. Thus, even though Hue had not been isolated from the outside, the ARVN and the Marines had been allowed to retain and reinforce their footholds within the NVA defensive zone.
The systematic clearing operation had begun inside the Citadel on February 2, with the seizure of Tay Loc Airfield. Around MACV, 1/1's ongoing company-size battles from the afternoon of January 31 through the forenoon of February 3 were still part of step 2—the consolidation of the foothold. The proposed attack by 1st Marines southwest of Highway 1, set to begin on the afternoon of February 3, was to be the beginning of the systematic clearing operation south of the Perfume. Both north and south of the river, the ARVN and the Marines would be mounting clearing operations before their senior headquarters had had an opportunity to isolate the city from the outside. It remained to be seen if this scenario would be successful, for the NVA retained the option—if they still had the capability—of isolating the city from the outside by cutting the unsecured lifelines: Highway 1 between PK 17 and the Citadel, Highway 1 between Phu Bai and MACV, and the Perfume River from the South China Sea to the heart of the city.
As preparations for the afternoon attack mounted, Task Force X-Ray informed Colonel Hughes that the I ARVN Corps commander, Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam, had done what might have been the next best thing to sending large units of combat troops to isolate Hue from the outside. On the afternoon of February 3, General Lam had lifted all restrictions on fire support south of the Perfume River. Hughes's Marines were at last free to call upon any available supporting-arms agency, no matter how destructive its output. This opened the way for on-call support by all manner of artillery up to 8-inch howitzers; naval gunfire; and, if the weather cleared, tactical aircraft.
***
Chapter 16
At 1345, February 3, Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham received his attack order from Colonel Stan Hughes at MACV. Cheatham proceeded to Hue University to look over 2/5's immediate objectives and map out a tactical plan for seizing them before sunset. The three company commanders reported in, as did the commanders of the battalion's 81mm mortar and 106mm Recoilless Rifle platoons. In sum, Cheatham learned that his cut-down battalion numbered approximately 700 well-armed Marines, most of whom had by then become acclimated to the special rigors of city fighting.
From an upper-st
ory window in the university's short southwestern wall, Cheatham got his first look at the type of terrain his battalion was expected to reduce. It looked like hundreds of solid bunkers had been stacked across the landscape, and he was certain each of the formidable masonry buildings was fully manned by tough, professional NVA infantry. On the plus side, Cheatham noted that the university was only a half block inland from the Perfume River, and all that seemed to occupy that half block were several small, low buildings set into a wooded park. If there were NVA in the woods or in the low buildings, they would be easy pickings. The important point was that his battalion's right flank would rest on the river, so he did not need to expend troops to screen that flank. Cheatham knew also that Lieutenant Colonel Mark Gravel's two-company 1/1 was to come up on 2/5's left flank the next morning, February 4. When it did, Tran Cao Van Street would be the battalion boundary. Gravel and Cheatham were old friends and communicated well, a definite advantage. At any rate, beginning the next morning, screening the left flank would be Gravel's job, which meant that 2/5 had to attack straight ahead only, another definite plus.
Cheatham issued his orders to the company commanders and heavy-weapons platoons at 1345. First, Fox/2/5 was to move up even with the university's southwest wall, right through the buildings occupying the block between Tran Cao Van and Truong Dinh streets. That would create a two-company front, with Fox/2/5 on the left and Hotel/2/5 on the right. To implement the orders, Golf/2/5, which was to be the battalion reserve, moved into the university courtyard. The 81mm mortar platoon also moved its six tubes—two were back with Echo/2/5, at Troi Bridge—into the university courtyard, as did Golf/2/5's and Hotel/2/5's three-gun 60mm mortar sections. The battalion's six 106mm recoilless rifles, each mounted on a Mechanical Mule, were brought up behind Fox/2/5 and Hotel/2/5, but no one had quite figured out how to employ them in the close quarters of the city. The problem with recoilless rifles was the enormous backblast they produced. It was a danger in the open, and presumably an even bigger danger in a built-up area, where maneuver space was at a premium. Two M-48 tanks were moved halfway up Truong Dinh Street, to be used as required. And the two Ontos that had accompanied Hotel/2/5 to Hue the day before were moved forward to positions well out of the line of fire. Each Ontos carried six 106mm recoilless rifles and a .50-caliber machine gun. An Ontos looked like a formidable weapon on paper, but its drawbacks nearly outweighed its advantages. The 106s were mounted externally on an extremely vulnerable, unarmored tracked chassis that was powered by a gasoline engine. Bullets of almost any caliber could penetrate the hull of an Ontos; the gasoline that fueled it was extremely flammable; and the gunner had to stand in the open to reload the six tubes, a time-consuming process under the best of conditions and a tedious, deadly gamble under any form of enemy fire.
