Fire in the Streets

by Eric Hammel

  Clearly the NVA were exerting their major effort against the VNMC battle group. The Huu Gate was the 6th NVA Regiment's last escape route through the Citadel wall, and there were still many soldiers, sympathizers, and members of the proposed gov­ernment to evacuate. Moreover, the terrain lent itself to the type of defense at which the NVA were most skilled. The ground facing the 4th VNMC Battalion, for example, was parkland dotted with homes and temples—ideal for the defender, particu­larly since the high Citadel wall prevented the 4th VNMC Battal­ion from maneuvering around the 1,000-meter-deep NVA de­fended area.

  On their side, however, the VNMC battalions had almost more artillery support than they could use. Though Bob Thomp­son's 1/5 could not call much more than mortars to hit the restricted zone to its front, the Vietnamese Marines had access to their own 105mm howitzer battery, all manner of U.S. heavy artillery, and even U.S. naval gunfire. So, though the VNMC battalions could not advance, they controlled the Huu Gate and were positioned to kill any NVA or Communist refugees who attempted to escape. Moreover, by day's end, it was obvious that the four U.S. Army battalions northwest of Hue, around T-T Woods, could seal off the Communist evacuation and reinforce­ment routes from outside the Citadel.

  Major Bill Eshelman placed part of the blame for the day's failure on the battle-group commander, Major Huong Thong. For some reason, Thong refused to resupply the 4th VNMC Battalion with 81mm mortar ammunition. Since the 4th VNMC Battalion was down to just twenty-one 81mm rounds, the battal­ion commander, Captain Do Dinh Vuong, refused to deplete his remaining supply. When Eshelman queried the ammunition-supply figures through advisor channels, he learned that the battle group supply people had more than they were letting on. So, while the American 8-inch and VNMC 105mm artillery were pummeling the NVA sector, the VNMC Marines on the front line were unable to fire their 81mm mortars at the pinpoint targets that blocked their advance. When two ARVN M-41 tanks joined the 4th VNMC Battalion late in the day, Captain Vuong and Major Eshelman were elated. But their high hopes were short-lived. The tanks' 76mm main guns lacked the punch needed to penetrate Hue's masonry buildings.

  The resulting stalemate was so frustrating that Captain Vuong finally asked Major Eshelman, "What do we do next?" Eshelman could not believe his ears. Throughout their relation­ship, the proud, stoic Vuong had steadfastly refused Eshelman's advice; he considered his U.S. Marine counterpart to be, not an advisor, but an expediter of fire-support coordination. Now Vuong was asking Eshelman what he thought. Eshelman did indeed unburden himself of whatever advice he had to offer, and Captain Vuong listened intently. But the only real solace Eshel­man could offer was a promise from the 1st Marines to make one or two Ontos available to the VNMC battle group as soon as 1/5 had secured its objective—in a day or two, it was hoped. How­ever, Major Eshelman knew that the key to breaking through the Communist line was air support, and that depended on improve­ment in the weather.

  *

  In addition to the pressure the U.S. Army battalions were bound to provide from the outside, the generally favorable situa­tion throughout I Corps had allowed the ARVN corps com­mander, Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam, to act on Brigad­ier General Ngo Quang Truong's repeated requests for additional reinforcements. On February 21, General Lam agreed to ship the hitherto embattled 21st and 39th ARVN Ranger battalions—part of the I Corps reserve—to Hue. Both battalions moved to Hue via PK 17 that night, and the 1st ARVN Division assigned them the task of clearing VC cadres out of the built-up areas on the east bank of the Perfume River. Cadres in that sector had been conducting a campaign of terror, and VC snipers were still firing on passing patrol boats and landing craft.

  *

  By the evening of February 21, everyone in the know was saying that Hue would be liberated "in a matter of time," or "a few days, at most." It only remained to be seen how many more lives would be lost before the Communists acknowledged the obvious.

  ***

  Chapter 38

  The NVA opened the February 22 fighting in the Citadel with a mortar barrage at 0330 that targeted Bravo/1/5 and Char­lie/1/5. At least twenty 82mm mortar rounds fell on the Marine positions, killing four and wounding four. The Marines re­sponded with their mortars, but no results could be observed.

  Also before dawn on February 22, the VNMC battle group was struck by a vicious 122mm rocket barrage. Major Bill Eshelman, the 4th VNMC Battalion senior advisor, knew in his heart that the barrage was the consequence of lax radio discipline. He was certain the NVA had monitored radio conversations the previous evening in which the plans for February 22 had been openly discussed. It was all part of the show, however; the ARVN and VNMC units in Hue regularly listened in on NVA broad­casts.

  *

  At 0930,1/5 moved into the attack again, but the NVA were packed solidly into their defensive zone and all three U.S. Marine front-line companies were out of steam. The attack degenerated into a desultory long-range exchange. The American and North Vietnamese troops seemed to have arrived at a modus vivendi.

  At about noon, word arrived at the 1/5 CP that Lima/3/5 was at full strength and ready to join the fight. Major Bob Thompson decided to relieve particularly hard-hit Bravo/1/5 and send its fifty to sixty survivors back to Phu Bai to recuperate.

  *

  At 1300, 1st Lieutenant Pat Polk's Alpha/1/5 patrol crept out of the buildings it had been occupying next to the Thuong Tu Gate. The patrol made its way without opposition to the wall at the Citadel's eastern corner. There, Corporal James Avella pulled a small American flag from his pack. The implication was clear. With Lieutenant Polk's tacit approval, Avella wired the flag to a thin metal pipe, climbed to the roof of a tin shed, and affixed the pipe to a telegraph pole. For the second time, a U.S. Marine had hoisted Old Glory to a position of prominence over Hue.

  *

  At 1330, Lima/3/5 arrived. Supported by several Marine M-48 tanks, it attacked as soon as it reached the 1/5 front line. Fueled by the valor of the uninitiated, the company swept forward into strongpoints the scarred 1/5 Marines would not have dreamed of approaching in broad daylight. As the lead platoon rushed across a bridge in its path to the Citadel wall, hitherto quiescent NVA snipers concealed throughout the area initiated a devastating crossfire. A handful of the Lima/3/5 Marines were cut down, and many of the survivors were pinned in place.

  Observing Lima/3/5's Hue baptism from a nearby observa­tion post were Captain John Niotis and Staff Sergeant Wally Loucks, the company gunny. As soon as the Marines on the far side of the bridge went down, Loucks hurtled across the bridge through a hail of NVA bullets. The gunny checked the wounded men and picked up the Marine he felt was in the worst shape. He hoisted the man over his shoulder and trotted to the rear. The Marine arrived safely at the 1/5 battalion aid station, but he eventually died there. Meantime, Wally Loucks crossed the bridge again and single-handedly pulled the remaining wounded Ma­rines under cover. When the Lima/3/5 attack resumed, Staff Sergeant Loucks helped get all the wounded to the rear.

  *

  At 1400, Major Ray Latall and Major John Van Es were on strip alert, sitting in the cockpits of their Marine Attack Squad­ron 211 A-4 Skyhawk light attack bombers at the Chu Lai Ma­rine Corps Air Base. They had been warned that they might be launched to fly up to Hue to take advantage of clearing weather conditions over the city. Each jet was armed with eight 300-pound Snakeye high-drag high-explosive bombs, two 500-pound napalm bombs, and a full load of 20mm cannon rounds. As the Marine Air Group 12 intelligence officer, Major Latall knew that it had been at least days, probably weeks, since Marine jets had been in action over Hue. The weather at Chu Lai was clear, but in Hue the cloud cover was still low.

  The two-plane flight, whose call sign was Helborne 513, was ordered to launch at 1430. After checking in with the Direct Air Support Control center at Hue-Phu Bai, Helborne 513 was instructed to orbit at 20,000 feet twenty miles east of Hue. When the A-4s arrived on station, the tops of the clouds were only 1,500 feet beneath their orbit altitude.
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  To a Marine rifleman fighting his way toward the Citadel's eastern corner, the preparations by the two A-4 pilots would have seemed inordinately relaxed and unhurried. While orbiting, Ma­jor Latall and Major Van Es checked and set their gunsights and arming switches for a low-level bombing run. Then, as they awaited clearance into the target area, they continued to orbit and listen to the strike channel to monitor a mission that was in progress; an Army O-l spotter plane was directing two other Marine A-4s against a target beside the Citadel. The exchanges between the O-l and the A-4 pilots revealed that the ragged cloud cover began only 1,000 feet above the ground and that the margin was rapidly deteriorating. Latall and Van Es also learned that the other flight—the third strike of the afternoon—had received hostile fire during its run on the target.

  Hue-Phu Bai contacted Latall and Van Es and discussed the need to divert Helborne 513 to another target. The minimum ceiling and visibility standards for an "emergency" mission—a 1,000-foot ceiling with a three-mile visibility—had been breached. Major Latall and Major Van Es decided, however, that they would hit Hue if they could get someone to guide them onto a target right away, before the weather deteriorated further. Latall radioed Hue-Phu Bai with the offer and suggested they make the mission "mandatory" to skirt the weather minimums. At 1500, Hue-Phu Bai warned him that Helborne 513 was about to be assigned a close-support mission that was mandatory in prece­dence—an unheard-of level.

  With weather restrictions effectively lifted, the A-4 pilots joined up, extended their speed brakes, throttled back, and, on instruments, began their descent over the South China Sea. The pilots had no clear idea where they were going to belly through the clouds. While the jets were descending, they were turned over to Benchmark 15, an 0-1 flown by an Army pilot and manned by a Marine aerial observer, Captain Bob Laramy.

  The A-4s completed their letdown over the water and found the bottom of the overcast at a mere 400 feet. They commenced a turn to port and slowed down as much as they could, as they turned back toward Hue. They were over the city before either jet pilot actually saw Benchmark 15 for the first time. The dark-green O-l was barely visible, and, to A-4 pilots flying along at 350 knots, it appeared to be standing still one mile ahead and to the right. Just an instant after Major Latall first saw the O-l, Captain Laramy radioed that he could see the A-4s.

  As Laramy was describing the target, Latall pulled back off Van Es's wing, but not as far back as he would have liked. The A-4s were painted light gray, just about the same color as the clouds they were skipping through. If Latall had let Van Es get too far ahead, he would have lost sight of him.

  Latall was impressed with Laramy's target description. Benchmark 15 sounded like a good, sharp controller, an impor­tant bonus in the dark, closed-in sky over Hue. Bob Laramy was a sharp controller. In addition, he had been over Hue every day since January 31, mostly to no avail because of the weather.

  Captain Laramy said he would mark the target with green smoke, an imperative in that weather. The Army O-l, the only one available to guide Helborne 513, was fitted out as a medevac bird; it had none of the smoke rockets the spotter planes usually carried. To deliver a green-smoke grenade, Captain Laramy had to ask the pilot to fly low and slow over the target, an extremely hazardous enterprise. It was then that Laramy learned that the pilot was making his combat debut; this was his very first mission over Vietnam. The pilot was game for the effort, but his inexpe­rience severely complicated a really tricky situation.

  The jets' final approach to the target was scary. Flying too low and too slowly with very heavy ordnance loads, both pilots were acutely aware of the many high radio towers that dotted Hue. They could see none of them clearly and had no real sense of the positions of the towers relative to their flight paths. A broad column of oily smoke from an LCU burning in the river, tower­ing dust clouds from heavy-artillery detonations, and rain im­peded visibility and competed for attention. There were even reports that helicopters were in the air nearby.

  Benchmark 15 commenced his marking run over the target—the section of the Citadel's southeast wall directly in front of Major Bob Thompson's 1/5. As the green smoke bil­lowed up, both pilots reported from their loose orbit that they could see it—and another green-smoke source. Neither of the jet pilots had any idea which was the one marking their target. Clearly, the NVA were monitoring the tactical-air frequency, for only they could have set off the second green-smoke grenade. No problem. Captain Laramy knew which was the right marker, and he talked the A-4s into their target.

  Major Van Es made a dummy run to confirm that he knew where the target was, and Major Latall followed. It was worth the extra risk. Neither pilot knew precisely how close to fellow Ma­rines they would be dropping their bombs, but they knew it would be close. There was no margin for error.

  Captain Laramy confirmed that the A-4s were on target. The NVA on the ground also confirmed—by firing several machine guns at the Marine jets.

  The jet pilots had the option of dropping everything they were carrying on one run, but Van Es and Latall knew they were going to be the last flight of the day; the weather ensured that. Latall and Van Es decided to drop two bombs per run, to be sure the Marines on the ground would get the full benefit of the mission.

  They went in at 100 feet, in dead level runs at 350 knots. Latall lost sight of Van Es during the first run, but the leader's first drop was superb. As he pulled off the target, Van Es radioed that the run had been "hot," meaning that he had released ord­nance and that he had taken fire. Benchmark 15 gave Latall a slight correction so a broader area could be covered. Latall saw tracers coming at him, and he heard the thumk-thumk as several rounds struck his airplane. Despite the distractions, Latall made a perfect drop. Major Bob Thompson later reported in a letter of commendation that the first four napalm canisters had detonated only fifty meters in front of the battalion front line. Thompson had felt their heat.

  On the next run, Major Van Es put a pair of 300-pound Snakeyes right on the target. Latall turned in to do the same. By then, the black smoke from the napalm and familiar landmarks made finding the target a snap. The overcast was lower—200 feet—and the NVA machine guns fired again. Latall continued toward the target, taking care that the O-l was not in his way. He glanced down and was shocked to note that, in jet-jock terms, he was eyeball-to-eyeball with thousands of people—fleeing civilians carrying their valuables on their backs. At the release point, Latall again saw and felt rounds impacting his A-4. He pulled up slightly after releasing his bombs so he could check the jet's flight controls. Everything was running fine, but there were holes in the fuselage near his feet and cockpit pressurization had been lost. Latall also determined that his navigation equipment had been shot out.

  On the way back to the target, Latall passed Benchmark 15. The O-l was to his left, flying straight and level, going in the same direction. However, as Latall was returning downwind to position himself for another bombing run, his earphones rang with the warning, "Benchmark One Five! Pull up! Pull up!" Fearing that he was somehow on a collision course with the O-l, Latall pushed his airplane's nose down and dropped to only fifty feet. But the frantic call was repeated. By then Latall knew that he was nowhere near the O-l. It dawned on Latall that Captain Laramy had not described his last hits on the target.

  Latall throttled back as much as he dared, to get a better look around. Over his left shoulder he saw the O-l staggering from left rear to right rear. There was no smoke or flame, but Latall could clearly see orange fluid streaming from the O-l's nose. It was obvious that Benchmark 15 was going to crash or crash-land. Major Van Es broadcast that Helborne 513 was avail­able for a rescue combat air patrol—that is, ready to orbit over the O-l until a rescue helicopter could get there.

  By then, both A-4s had used more than their allotted fuel for the mission. Any further flying over Hue would endanger their return to Chu Lai. Nevertheless, the A-4 pilots decided to stay longer. The O-l broke out of its glide toward the Perfume River. Its
nose pitched up, and the airplane fell to earth.

  As the O-l fell, Latall once again came in over the target. He did not feel he could drop bombs blindly, however, so he turned off his master armament switch and made a dummy run. If noth­ing else, the dummy run would put NVA heads down, thus affording the infantry some small respite.

  Latall was coming off the dummy run when someone called on the radio to report that a ground rescue party was on the way to the crash scene. Helborne 513 was directed to drop the re­maining bombs on the target and head home.

  The A-4 pilots ignored these instructions and radioed that they were remaining over Hue. They made several more dummy runs over the target and passes over the O-l, discouraging both NVA movement against 1/5 and any enemy efforts to get to the downed spotter plane. Before the A-4s could drop any more bombs, Hue-Phu Bai firmly ordered them to fly home because the weather was nearly solid from the ground to 20,000 feet. Latall happened to catch sight of Van Es at the last minute, and he joined on the lead A-4, which was important because of Latall's nonfunctioning navigation equipment. They climbed out on instruments. On the way home, Latall notified Van Es that fuel was leaking from a hole in Van Es's main fuel cell.

  Though both arrived with very little fuel, the A-4s made it back to Chu Lai without further difficulty. Major Van Es's bomber had been hit in the main fuel cell, port wingtip, and port landing-gear door; Latall's had sustained hits from the aft section of the nose on back to the rudder and elevator. Calls from Chu Lai that evening revealed that the Army O-l pilot had been shot and killed as Major Latall was making his second hot pass. Captain Bob Laramy, a Marine infantry officer, had received rudimentary pilot training. He tried to fly the airplane, but the controls had failed and the O-l had crashed. Captain Laramy walked into an ARVN position, but he had been critically burned in the crash and, eventually, was medically retired. The next day, Major John Van Es and Major Ray Latall heard that they had been credited with killing seventy-three NVA within 150 meters of the Citadel wall.