The Cottonbalers continued to trade sniper fire with the enemy as a flareship provided illumination. One grunt recalled, “On command we were ordered to fire at will every 30 minutes throughout the night to prevent the NVA from moving back into our perimeter defense.”
When dawn broke, the Cottonbalers assaulted the enemy base camp and found it deserted. The stench of battle permeated the area. The enemy had withdrawn during the hours of darkness, but left behind 59 of their fallen comrades. The grunts also recovered fourteen individual and crew-served weapons, along with an assortment of ammunition. Searching further, the Cottonbalers found a cache of over 400 lbs. of C-4 explosive. Based on the number of bunkers, the camp was large enough to have accommodated a full battalion. The fortifications were in a good state of repair and the various positions were prepared to provide all around observation and support. Extensive use had been made of command-detonated mines and booby traps. From documents left behind, it was later determined that the enemy unit that defended the base camp was the 4th NVA Sapper Battalion, with 318 men assigned, including three lieutenant colonels. The presence of a newly arrived NVA sapper battalion in AO Columbus was an ominous sign.
AO Columbus, Fire Support Base New Orleans—23 April
The 3/7th and 4/12th Infantry received orders from Brigadier General Forbes on 23 April to close out their fire support bases the following day and move to FSB Tri-Corners. Tri-Corners was located in the southern portion of AO Columbus, about two kilometers north of the village of Trang Bom on Highway 1. The firebase was midway between Bien Hoa and Xuan Loc. Forbes had become fully aware of the latest intelligence.
After reviewing numerous agent reports, aerial observer and LRP sightings, and signal intelligence reports, intelligence analysts were certain that the Communists were about to launch another major offensive. General Forbes wanted the 3/7th and 4/12th positioned near Highway 1 to facilitate their movement by ground transport or helicopter to any threatened area in a minimum amount of time. From positions near Highway 1, the infantry battalions would also be capable of interdicting enemy forces moving west to attack targets in the Long Binh–Bien Hoa areas. The 199th LIB commander also wanted Hall’s Cottonbalers to search the southern portion of AO Columbus north of FSB Tri-Corners.
The movement plan called for the 3/7th CP and B Battery 2/40th Artillery to displace from FSB New Orleans to FSB Tri-Corners by air, while the rifle companies leapfrogged toward the south in a series of airmobile assaults. Major MacGill was charged with the responsibility of closing out the fire support base, while Lieutenant Colonel Hall displaced with his CP to FSB Tri-Corners on 23 April.
Major Jim MacGill recalled a conversation he had with Captain John Hershell South, the Bravo Company commander on the evening of 23 April. The two were discussing the Alpha Company commander, Captain Tony Smaldone, who had once again cheated death on 18 April. Smaldone was still in the hospital recovering from his wound. They spoke of the Captain’s habit of moving forward without concern for his own safety during firefights, and rarely bothering to take cover from incoming fire. Smaldone seemed to have a sixth sense about that. MacGill thought that the Alpha Company CO was particularly adept at listening to the rounds as they whizzed by and timing his moves accordingly. He had been wounded on several occasions, but never received a mortal wound. MacGill told South to be a bit more cautious than his fellow company CO. The Cottonbaler S3 did not want to lose another good commander.
On the morning of 24 February, Companies A, B, and D of the 3/7th conducted airmobile assaults into LZs in an area roughly seven kilometers north of FSB Tri-Corners. Charlie Company was designated the battalion reserve. The airmobile insertions came off without a hitch, and by 1100 hours all three companies were on the ground. LTC Hall controlled the airmobile assaults from his C&C ship, while Major MacGill supervised the closing of FSB New Orleans. The firebase was a hub of activity as sortie after sortie of CH-47 helicopters lifted artillery tubes, ammunition, food, and other materials to the new location. MacGill had requested a CH-54 to bring out a D7 bulldozer that was too heavy for a CH-47 to lift. There were no CH-54s available, so MacGill ordered the engineers to remove the dozer’s tracks to be airlifted out. The rest of the dozer was destroyed in place with C4 explosives.
Companies A, B, and D moved south from their LZs for several hours on parallel routes. The point elements of the three companies tried to stay on line, but they had to maneuver across difficult terrain and kept losing sight of each other. Scout dog handler Bob Himrod followed the point element of Bravo Company with his dog, Cracker.
Himrod wrote, “It was approximately 1400 hours when Cracker gave me a faint alert to the front. I stopped, and the Company commander, Captain John South, and his radio operator, Specialist Fourth Class Glenn Pagano, came to my position at point.” South conferred with Himrod and instructed him to move forward cautiously. The dog continued to alert as they followed the trail. Himrod continued, “Just up this trail I found a dripping wet NVA shirt hanging over a bent tree branch…it was still bobbing up and down from someone having just thrown it over the branch.” Beside the tree a small campfire smouldered. A ball of rice was dumped on the ground beside the fire, indicating someone’s hasty departure. Eyeballing the surrounding area, Himrod suddenly spotted a camouflaged bunker. He recalled, “We were cautiously checking out the area when all hell broke loose! Automatic weapons and rifle fire raked our position and pieces of tree bark flew from the trees as the bullets tore into them…. We jumped into a small bunker for cover and started returning fire.”
When the enemy fire momentarily slackened, Captain South brought his platoons on line and the grunts began cautiously moving up the rising ground. Robert Himrod wrote, “We started up this small knoll when a huge explosion went off to the front and above me. The NVA set off a command-detonated explosive in this large tree…. It peppered the two soldiers in front of me with shrapnel, but because I was on the backside of the tree, I didn’t get hit with any fragments.”
Within minutes, Alpha Company, moving on Bravo Company’s left flank, ran head-on into the bunker complex. Alpha’s point man and another grunt were shot at nearly pointblank range. Doug McCabe, who was moving behind the point element, heard the wounded pair calling for help. McCabe crawled forward, taking advantage of the ground cover, and pulled the men back to safety.
Specialist Walter Baker was near the front of Alpha Company when the firing began. Spotting one of the enemy bunkers, Baker silenced it with a burst of M16 fire into the aperture. He then advanced toward a second bunker, but was hit before he reached it. As he lay on the ground, he saw a group of NVA repositioning a machine gun to fire down a trail toward his company. Ignoring painful wounds to his back and leg, Specialist Baker assaulted the machine gun position, killing the NVA soldiers, but he was hit again several times during his assault. Nonetheless, he was able to turn the captured machine gun around and begin firing on the enemy emplacements. Only after pointing out additional enemy positions to his comrades did he consent to evacuation and treatment of his seven wounds. Specialist Walter Baker was awarded the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross for his extraordinary heroism.
The fighting continued as Captain Zimmerman’s Delta Company pushed forward to close with the enemy. Two Delta Company grunts were hit immediately when a group of enemy soldiers tried to flank the company, but the Delta grunts drove them off with good marksmanship and raw courage. Delta Company continued to press the assault, taking some of the pressure off Alpha and Bravo Companies.
In the midst of the heaviest fighting, LTC Hall decided to commit his reserve company to the battle. Hall wanted Charlie Company airlifted in, so he sent an urgent request to the brigade commander for an airmobile assault company. He also requested additional gunship and medevac support. There were scores of wounded in need of medical evacuation.
The 128th Assault Helicopter Company, the “Tomahawks,” were scrambled to insert Captain Brian Sneed’s Charlie Company. An LZ some 900 meters to the
east of the contact was selected for Charlie Company’s insertion. Its first lift was in the air just after 1600 hours. As the Tomahawk lift ships headed for the LZ, the Gunslinger gunships pounded the jungle that surrounded the LZ. When the pair of gunships took small arms fire from the eastern side, they each unleashed a salvo of rockets into the area. The gunship and artillery prep continued as the lift ships made their final approach. When the helicopters neared the ground, the grunts leapt into the elephant grass and moved out to secure the landing zone. All three Charlie Company lifts were on the ground by 1645 hours. Wasting no time, Sneed ordered his company to move out.
The worst of the fighting was yet to come. A few minutes after 1700 hours, Lieutenant Colonel Hall learned that his Bravo Company commander, Captain John Hershell South, had been killed in action. The 25-year-old Captain had been hit as he moved forward to direct his men’s fire.
Ron Whelan, who carried one of Captain South’s radios, wrote, “Captain South and I were moving through a column of soldiers towards the bunkers. An RPG exploded when it hit a tree 20–30 yards ahead of us, and two GI s were wounded in the face and body. When we got to the edge of the ravine, two camouflaged bunkers buried in that hillside opened up on us with automatic fire. Capt. South was grabbing hand grenades from the back strap of my radio and lobbing them at the bunkers…. We had some of our soldiers already across that ravine and moving up the hillside above those enemy bunkers.” Captain South and Whelan then crossed the ravine and started moving up the hill.
Bill Plains was one of the grunts who was across the ravine, trying to take out the bunkers. He wrote, “Started up the hill and there were two bunkers about 25 yards in front of me. I was carrying a ‘thumper’ [M79 grenade launcher] and put two rounds in each bunker. That’s when I caught shrap metal in my right leg. South asked me how bad it was. I told him I don’t know, I was scared to look…the Captain said put another round in each bunker then set them on fire. So I crawled up and lit some C4 at the edge of the first bunker then crawled up and did the same to the other one.” After blowing up the bunkers, Plains’ leg began to “throb and stiffen up,” and a medic told him he was out of the fight and directed him back to an area where an LZ was being set up.
After the bunkers were destroyed, Captain South and his RTO continued to move forward until a sniper hidden in the foliage of a tall tree opened up with automatic weapons fire. According to Whelan, Captain South was killed instantly, and a medic moving behind him was wounded in the left arm and shoulder. Whelan was amazed that he was spared. After propping his Captain’s lifeless body against a tree, Whelan assisted the wounded medic to move back down the hillside. Leaving the medic in the care of another soldier, Whelan returned back up the hillside to where he had left Captain South’s body. As he approached the area, he scanned the trees for the sniper. He was soon joined by a group of riflemen. After they saw the lifeless body of their fallen Captain, the vengeful grunts moved forward and disappeared into the jungle foliage. Moments later, Whelan heard a heavy exchange of gunfire and M79 explosions. The grunts had avenged the death of their CO. Captain South was the fourth Bravo Company KIA that day, and the company also had 12 men wounded as the savage fighting continued.
Four separate dust-offs were called to evacuate the wounded. Bomb craters were used as LZs. C4 explosives were used to blow down trees around the perimeter of the craters to give enough clearance for the dust-off ships’ rotor blades. Thirty-three badly wounded men from Cottonbaler rifle companies were evacuated to the 24th and 93d Evacuation Hospitals at Long Binh.
As dusk approached, LTC Hall flew over the scene of the contact and ordered his companies to pull back and form a night defensive position. From the air, he could see nothing of his men below, but he wanted to resupply them with ammunition before dark, and evacuate as many casualties as possible.
As night fell, an Air Force FAC orbited over the area of the contact and marked the enemy base camp with rocket fire for his attack aircraft. Two F-100s swept down from the darkening sky, dropping napalm and cluster bombs on the enemy fortifications. Once they had expended all of their ordnance, a second pair of fighter bombers followed up with a second air strike. The burning napalm illuminated the night sky.
While the jets pounded the enemy fortifications, the dust-offs continued at the makeshift LZs. Sergeant Robert Himrod described the scene: “The pilots had to hover and come straight down through the trees…. The battalion had called in TAC air support and the ground was shaking as each bomb slammed into the jungle. The helicopter gunships were making rocket and machine-gun passes at targets marked by our smoke. Their brass shell casings were raining down on us after each pass…. The dead were placed in an area covered with ponchos…. Also with the dead were body parts, a leg from the knee down, a hand and forearm, and a foot still in the boot. The medics were feverishly working on the wounded.”
When all of the critically wounded were evacuated, the dust-offs returned to pick up the dead, but not all the KIAs were lifted out. One of the dust-off ships was hit by small-arms fire as it lifted off with several KIAs, and the night landings became too risky to continue. The remaining KIAs were moved by stretcher to an area near the CP. Sergeant Himrod, who was located near the CP, wrote, “Illumination rounds were casting strange shadows about the jungle through the trees…. I set up, watered, and fed my dog out of my overturned helmet. I ate a C-ration and thought about the two soldiers (KIAs) under the ponchos next to me. I laid out my poncho, tied my dog’s leash to my foot, and settled back clutching my CAR15. I heard someone calling in the paragraph and line numbers of those killed and wounded on the radio as I fell exhausted off to sleep.”
The following morning, four additional air strikes were called in on the enemy’s base camp. After the air strikes, the Cottonbalers swept through the NVA camp. From captured documents it was determined that the base camp had housed a major enemy headquarters guarded by elements of the 4th NVA Sapper Battalion. The enemy headquarters exercised command and control over 21 different units, including a Flame Thrower Detachment that had conducted an infamous flame attack on a Montagnard village near Dak To. More ominous were sketch maps of rocket and recoilless rifle firing sites within the effective range of the Long Binh Base complex.
Two days later Bravo Company, 4/12th Infantry captured an NVA doctor who had been charged with setting up a forward hospital by 22 April. In his captured diary was an entry indicating the date for a new major offensive. The attacks were set to begin at 0001 hours, 28 April, 1968.
CHAPTER 15
THE MAY OFFENSIVE
Saigon—4 May 1968
Shortly before midnight on Saturday May 4th, a taxi loaded with more than a hundred pounds of TNT exploded outside the Saigon radio and TV station. The attack marked the beginning of the May Offensive in the Saigon metropolitan area. The offensive had been twice postponed by COSVN, pushing the date back from the last week of April to the first week of May 1968.
The ground offensive began on the eastern side of the city with attacks on the Binh Loi and Newport bridges. The K1 and K3 units of the Dong Nai Regiment attacked the Binh Loi bridge at 0500 hours, and the fighting continued until 1700 hours. At nightfall, the bridge remained intact and in friendly hands. Another attack was launched against the Newport bridge. After a 30-minute pre-dawn mortar attack on the bridge, two separate ground attacks were conducted by the units of the 4th Local Force Battalion and 2d Battalion, 274th VC Regiment. Both attacks faltered far short of the bridge itself. Attacks were also launched on the Tan My Tay area on the city’s eastern edge, but in all cases the attackers were driven off by the Vietnamese 1st Marine battalion and National Police forces. There was speculation that the attacks on the eastern periphery of the city were diversions for the main attacks.
In the built-up areas of the city, small infiltration units surfaced, spreading havoc and confusion. Infiltration was accomplished using various means: wearing South Vietnamese army and marine uniforms, traveling at night in small groups
of 4 to 10 men, and hiding in commercial cargo vehicles. Upon arrival in the city, it was not difficult for the infiltrators to obtain weapons and military equipment. Secret caches of weapons and explosives were established throughout the Saigon area. Once again, Cholon was a primary assembly area for enemy infiltration units. That section of the city was rumored to have tunnels running from street to street and house to house. While the infiltrators were troublesome to the Vietnamese and US forces, the major threat was from main force VC and NVA units that were poised to attack the city from the west.
Most of the main attack units used invasion routes that traversed the open rice paddies, swamps, and pineapple plantations that lay to the south and west of Saigon. To the west, it was only thirty miles to the Cambodian border where the NVA base areas were located. Protecting the southern and western approaches to Saigon was difficult. In early April, Operation TOAN THANG was conducted by US and Vietnamese forces around the periphery of Saigon in an effort to prevent a reoccurrence of the Tet attacks. However, most of the main force Communist units were unaffected, since they were ensconced in their sanctuaries across the border.
In May of 1968, the residents of Saigon and surrounding areas were still reeling from the Tet attacks of January and February. Some 597 civilians had been killed and another 882 wounded during those attacks. Additionally, over 10,000 homes had been destroyed and 68,000 persons classified as refugees as a result of the fighting. The latter number swelled even higher as refugees from the surrounding countryside fled into the city’s already crowded slums. To make matters worse, Saigon’s economy had been crippled as a result of damage to the city’s infrastructure and places of business. Commercial life was severely affected. Perhaps the worst impact of the fighting, however, was the people’s loss of confidence in their government and its leaders. Saigon’s residents, who once lived in relative peace and safety in their capital, were now filled with fear and uncertainty about the future. The May attacks would shake their confidence even further.
Days of Valor Page 25
