Days of Valor

by Robert L. Tonsetic

  Shortly after 0300 hours, Charlie Company, 5/60th Mech, was attacked in a night lager position. The company was hit with mortar and B40 rocket fire. One M113A1 was destroyed and another was damaged by the enemy fire. The Banditos returned the fire with machine guns and small arms, and the CO requested artillery and gunship support. When a gunship team reached the area, the mech infantrymen marked the enemy targets with .50 caliber tracer rounds. On each strafing run, the gunships fired salvos of 2.75mm rockets, finishing up with machine-gun fire. Artillery flares illuminated the dry rice paddies, silhouetting the fleeing VC. The attack ended as suddenly as it began as the remnants of the enemy force faded away into the night shadows. When a dust-off landed, six wounded and two dead from Charlie Company were loaded aboard. Shortly thereafter, LTC Gibler was notified that the two 5/60th mech infantry companies were to return to control of their parent unit the following morning.

  When MacGill received approval for the airmobile assault, he alerted the Bravo Company CO. Captain Kent Pietsch, a 1964 West Point graduate, who was an experienced commander with four months of combat behind him. First Sergeant Bobby Dalrymple was the company’s Top Sergeant. He wore the CIB with star, a veteran of both the Vietnam and Korean Wars. During the latter, he had been a member of an elite airborne ranger company. Captain Pietsch picked his two most experienced platoon leaders, Lieutenants Joe (Scotty) Burgett and Bill Trotter, to lead the airmobile assault. The two lieutenants had gone through officer candidate school together, and trusted each other implicitly. Both were highly regarded by grunts in the Cottonbaler battalion.

  By 1000 hours, the weary Bravo Company grunts were lined up by chalk load on the rice paddy PZ. Captain Pietsch and First Sergeant Dalrymple were going in with the first lift along with Burgett’s 1st Platoon and Trotter’s 2nd. Bill Trotter later recalled that his platoon had very little advance notice of the airmobile operation, and he was unsure of the exact location of the LZ. It was on a different map sheet than the one he carried.

  A flight of nine UH-1Ds flying in tight trail formation appeared on the horizon and began their descent toward Bravo Company’s PZ. The10th lift ship had mechanical problems, and its pilot was forced to abort the mission. The two Bravo platoons and Pietsch’s command group were lined up in ten chalk loads, one for each lift ship. When only nine ships landed on the PZ, the loading became confused and several personnel were left on the ground to await the second lift. Among those left behind on the PZ was Glen Pagano, one of Captain Pietsch’s radio operators. The lack of one of the company’s radios added to the command and control problems experienced during the airmobile assault.

  The grunts jostled each other for space on the lift ships’ studded metal floors as they climbed aboard. Most had made numerous airmobile assaults, but the grunts still experienced the same adrenalin rush. The crew chiefs and door gunners wore deadpan expressions as they pointed their M60 guns toward the ground. When the loading was complete, the flight leader ordered his pilots to lift off. Each Huey’s turbine whined as it picked up torque, and the ships began to rise in a trail formation. The time was 1025 hours.

  The grunts welcomed the cool rush of air that flowed through the open bay as the ships lifted off and picked up speed. Glancing downward, they saw a broad expanse of rice paddies, crisscrossed by canals and tree-lined streams. The flight took a northwest heading toward an LZ near Tan Nhut village on the Kinh Sang canal.

  As the flight neared the LZ, the men could see bright orange flashes of artillery rounds exploding in the nipa palm growth along the canal. Gunships circled like hungry sharks around the LZ, staying clear of the artillery gun-to-target line. When the lift ships made their final approach into the LZ, the gunships flew along the flanks of the formation ready to open fire on any enemy near the LZ.

  As the aircraft began their slow descent, all bantering and wisecracking among the grunts abruptly stopped as they made a final check of their weapons and equipment. Some fidgeted with the selector switches on their M16s, moving them from semi-automatic to automatic fire. The door gunners aimed their M60s at the LZ and moved their safety switches to the fire position. As the choppers approached the LZ, the grunts slid their bottoms across the floor until their legs dangled outside the open doors.

  The door gunners and a few of the seasoned Cottonbalers picked up the bright green tracer rounds that reached skyward toward them, as the pilots flared the noses of their ships upward in preparation for a touch down. The door gunners returned fire with their M60s. Shell casings flew out the ejection ports of the machine guns as the door gunners sprayed the rice paddies, hedgerows, and tree line just off the LZ. With lips pursed, the stern-faced grunts waited until their lift ships were close enough to the ground to jump. Then, they lunged out the doors toward the rice paddy below. Their worst nightmares were playing out in real time. It was a hot LZ.

  The UH-1D carrying Captain Pietsch and 1st Sergeant Dalrymple was hit with automatic weapons fire as it flew into the LZ. An AK-47 round tore through the Captain’s lower left leg severing a nerve. Another slug wounded the captain’s RTO. As the pilot flared the nose of the ship upward, preparing to land, 1st Sergeant Dalrymple slid to the door and began firing downward toward the enemy with his .45 caliber pistol. Before the ship touched down, Dalrymple took an AK-47 round through his foot. Dalrymple spotted his assailant from the air and dropped him with a pistol shot. When the ship touched down, the Captain, his 1st Sergeant, and the RTO took cover on the LZ. Then 1st Sergeant Dalrymple crawled over to the VC he had just shot and grabbed the man’s AK-47, figuring it would be more useful than a .45 caliber pistol in the fight on the LZ.

  Twenty-year-old Sergeant Ron Whelan’s platoon was first to arrive at the PZ. Whelan carried an extra radio on the airmobile assault. He recalled that the men were very tired and the movement to the PZ had been very rushed, so much so that Captain Pietsch’s radio operator missed getting on the command group’s lift ship. Whelan himself was ordered to get on any ship he could find room on. He ended up on a Huey in the middle of the flight formation. As the flight began to land, he saw that the first “two or three” lift ships were disabled and “smoking” on the LZ, unable to take off. When his lift ship was 15–20 feet off the ground, the pilot decided to abort the landing, and according to Whelan, “We were ordered to jump, since many of our fellow soldiers were already on the ground…. I jumped with full gear and a 25-pound radio on my back.” Fortunately, the muddy rice paddy cushioned Whelan’s fall. The grunts from Whelan’s ship took cover behind a dike. Whelan recalled that the machine-gun fire from the village was so intense that the bullets and RPGs “kept us pinned down behind the dikes for what seemed an eternity…nobody could move or even raise his head without becoming an easy target.”

  Lieutenant Bill Trotter, the 2nd Platoon leader, was aboard the eighth UH1D in the formation. He later wrote, “On our approach to the LZ, we saw a lot of smoke and the gunships were going in on strafing and rocket missions…. The LZ was a rice paddy. We had automatic gun fire and B-40 rockets coming at us. The incoming fire was so hot that a lot of the choppers didn’t go all the way to the ground.”

  Lieutenant Trotter’s good friend and OCS classmate, Lieutenant Scotty Burgett, was aboard the third chopper in the flight. Burgett was 1st Platoon leader. His platoon sergeant was riding in another Huey that had to turn back due to mechanical problems. Burgett’s helicopter hovered over the hot LZ unable to touch down because of the intense fire. The lieutenant, his RTO, an M60 machine gunner, and three riflemen leapt from the helicopter when it was about 20 feet above the rice paddy. They landed hard in the paddy mud as did many others. Some were injured in the fall.

  Bill Trotter wrote that Burgett’s M60 machine gunner injured his back when he hit the ground and was stuck in the paddy mud. “Scotty was on the ground. He saw what the situation was, and knew that he had to get his men to cover and return the fire. Scotty ran over to help his M60 gunner who was stuck in the mud. He was going to get the M60 to lay down effective fir
e to cover his platoon. The whole LZ was hell.”

  Trotter further recalled that “While Scotty [Lieutenant Burgett] was doing this, he caught a round in the chest close to the heart from an NVA who was about 30 yards away with an AK-47.” Trotter spotted the NVA who shot his friend, and ran forward to get a shot at him from a rice paddy dike. Meanwhile, Lieutenant Burgett’s men carried him to cover. The lieutenant was unconscious and died moments later. Burgett’s RTO took over for his lieutenant and began directing his platoon’s fire on the enemy positions.

  Captain Pietsch fought to bring the situation under control. Despite a painful leg wound, he began to direct his men’s fire toward a tree line just off the LZ where the enemy were dug in. He was assisted by 1st Sergeant Dalrymple, who crawled through the incoming fire to organize his company’s defense of the LZ. Like his Captain, Dalrymple refused medical treatment until the other wounded were treated. First Sergeant Bobby Dalrymple was awarded the Silver Star for his courageous actions that day.

  Overhead in the battalion C&C ship, Major MacGill radioed the TOC to report that there were three choppers still on the LZ. All three were heavily damaged and unable to take off. According to MacGill, the only lift ship that was not hit by enemy fire was the trail ship in the formation. Its pilot, WO William Moline, managed to land, offload the grunts, and lift off unscathed. Only after he was airborne did Moline realize that the aircrews from three downed UH1Ds were stranded on the hot LZ. When he became aware of the downed crewmen, he flew back into the LZ to pick them up. From his C&C ship, Major MacGill saw a VC charging toward Moline’s ship with his AK-47 on full automatic as the helicopter touched down. Moline’s door gunner fired a burst from his M60 machine gun, killing the VC at pointblank range. After picking up the crewmembers from one of the downed ships, Moline flew to the other two ships and picked up the survivors before leaving the LZ. William Moline was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross for his heroism and flying expertise, and later received an appointment to West Point.

  Another Thunderbird pilot was shot in the leg during the landing and his ship was badly damaged. Ignoring his painful wound, the pilot lifted off and flew to FSB Zinderneuf where he safely landed his aircraft. After landing, he was rushed to the battalion aid station where the battalion surgeon worked to save his leg.

  Back at the LZ, Major MacGill radioed for additional gunship support, and another airmobile assault company to insert Alpha Company into the area to reinforce Bravo. However, the Thunderbird company was too shot up to conduct another airmobile assault that day. Only one of the lift ships that left the LZ under its own power made it back to Bien Hoa without incident.

  MacGill was also concerned about Bravo Company’s casualties. After he radioed the brigade TOC for a dust-off, he also called upon the battalion’s resupply bird to assist in the evacuation. There were more than a dozen Bravo Company wounded on the LZ, along with a number of others with back and leg injuries sustained from jumping from the lift ships.

  On the ground, the fight for the LZ continued. First and second platoons were pinned down by a heavy volume of small-arms and rocket fire. Coordination between the two platoons was minimal since both platoons’ radios were hit with incoming fire and rendered inoperable. Radio communications between the C&C ship and the ground commander was also a problem. According to Bill Trotter, the artillery FO had the only working radio, and he insisted that it be kept on the artillery frequency.

  A few minutes before noon, a dust-off pilot radioed the LZ on the artillery frequency, saying that he was in-bound to medevac casualties. Braving the insurgent fire, the dust-off touched down on the LZ and a number of the most seriously wounded were loaded aboard. Moments later a second dust-off landed and evacuated the remainder of the wounded, including Captain Pietsch.

  After Pietsch was evacuated, there was confusion about who was in command on the LZ. There were only two surviving officers, Lieutenant Trotter, the 2nd Platoon leader, and the artillery forward observer, who was also a lieutenant. Trotter recalled that the FO was senior to him based on date of rank. When the FO refused to take command, Trotter grabbed the FO’s radio, switched to the battalion frequency, and took command of the remaining 45 men struggling to hold the LZ.

  While the fight on the LZ continued to rage, Alpha and Charlie Companies were ordered to reinforce the embattled Bravo Company. Major MacGill directed the companies to move to nearby PZ s and await the arrival an airmobile lift company. MacGill selected an LZ to the west of Bravo Company for Charlie Company’s insertion. Alpha Company’s LZ was to the north. Both Alpha and Charlie Company landed on “cold LZs,” and the Cottonbalers moved out quickly toward the embattled Bravo Company.

  Shortly after 1500 hours, Captain Tony Smaldone’s Alpha Company arrived at Bravo Company’s location. Bravo’s two depleted platoons had fought the VC for more than five hours before the reinforcements arrived. With a resupply of ammunition and reinforcements, the momentum of the battle shifted in the grunts’ favor.

  Captain Smaldone quickly organized his platoons to assault the enemy-held positions. The VC were dug in along a tree line about 150 meters off the LZ. With fire support from “Silver Spur” and “Razorback” gunship teams and a pair of Vietnamese gunboats, the Cottonbalers surged across the paddy to assault the enemy positions. Gunships swooped down on the tree line, firing rockets and machine guns at the enemy fortifications. Smaldone’s grunts fired short bursts from the hip, switching to longer bursts as they neared the tree line. The nipa palm and bamboo shook as if blown by a violent windstorm when hit with the barrage of fire. When the skirmish line reached the trees, the Alpha Company grunts fought with a frenzy to destroy the VC bunkers with hand grenades and small-arms fire. The VC who were pinned down in the bunkers returned a ragged, inaccurate fire. The Cottonbalers advanced relentlessly, taking out bunker after bunker.

  Sergeant Ronald Burkhart led one of the Alpha Company squads into the tree line. Exposing himself to intense enemy fire, he moved from position to position, directing his squad’s fire and encouraging his men. After destroying two enemy bunkers and killing ten enemy soldiers, Sergeant Burkhart was seriously wounded while pulling an injured squad member to safety. Despite his wounds, Burkart managed to continue placing fire on the VC, killing two more. For his exceptional courage under fire and intrepid leadership, the19-year-old Sergeant from Albany, Oregon was awarded the Silver Star. Sergeant Burkhart recovered from the wounds he sustained on 5 February and returned to Alpha Company, only to be killed in combat during the following month.

  The savage fighting continued for two hours, ending only when the remaining enemy were killed or fled the area. Forty-nine enemy bodies lay strewn through the wood line, and two prisoners were taken. Alpha Company lost three men in the savage fighting.

  When the battle ended, Lieutenant Trotter located Lieutenant Burgett’s body. Trotter later wrote, “I closed Scotty’s eyes and said a prayer. We were very close.” Before the air assault, Bill Trotter and Scotty Burgett had shared a C-ration breakfast. The OCS classmates had been on twenty air assaults together. Sadly, the twenty-first assault was their last.

  CHAPTER 13

  TO SNARE A GENERAL

  9 February—Cholon

  After the 5 February airmobile assault, Bravo Company, 3/7th returned to FSB Zinderneuf and was assigned the base security mission. LTC Gibler looked around for a replacement for Captain Pietsch, who was too badly wounded to return to duty. He found one in short order. Captain John Hershel South was the Cottonbaler S4 and had demonstrated superb abilities as the logistics staff officer, and a strong potential for command . His was on his second tour in Vietnam, having spent his first tour with the 5th Special Forces Group. The 25-year-old Regular Army Captain was a soft-spoken man, respected by all. Retired Lt. Colonel Bill Trotter, reflecting on the time he spent under South’s command, wrote, “He was the only commander I ever had who took the time to teach me leadership.” Captain South did not have much time to get his feet on the ground with Bra
vo Company before the unit was thrown back into the fray.

  On 9 February the Cottonbalers were ordered by Major General Ware to return to Cholon. The South Vietnamese Joint General Staff requested the redeployment of a US battalion to reinforce two ARVN Ranger battalions that were engaged in heavy fighting in Cholon. The 2/3d Infantry was ordered to move to the Binh Chanh district to replace the Cottonbalers.

  Moving by a combination of CH-47 Chinook helicopters and overland convoy, the 3/7th closed on the Phu Tho Racetrack by 1630 hours, 9 February. Major General Ware and Colonel Davison, the acting 199th LIB commander, flew into the racetrack moments later to give LTC Gibler his mission for the next two days.

  There were intelligence reports indicating a second wave of Communist attacks was imminent, and the TF Ware commander wanted Gibler’s Cottonbalers to provide security at the Phu Tho Racetrack, and to assist the 33d ARVN Ranger Battalion in searching and clearing the area west of it. The Rangers were reinforced with three tanks and twelve M113 Armored Personnel Carriers.

  After conferring with Ware and Davison, LTC Gibler deployed three rifle companies to the west of the racetrack. Charlie Company and an armored cavalry platoon remained at the racetrack to provide security and serve as a ready reaction force. A 40mm Duster platoon and a pair of quad .50 machine-gun tracks were attached to Gibler’s battalion for the mission. These direct fire weapons were capable of delivering deadly accurate fire on targets without inflicting collateral damage on surrounding buildings. General Westmoreland was concerned about the use of artillery in the urban areas, and stringent restrictions were imposed on its use. Unlike artillery, the Dusters and quad .50s were better suited for urban combat.