Days of Valor

by Robert L. Tonsetic

  THE OLD GUARD HOLDS ON

  AO Winchester-South—12 May 1968

  The 2/3d Infantry, nicknamed the “Old Guard,” is part of the oldest regiment in the US Army. Organized in 1784, the Old Guard participated in the Indian expedition under Anthony Wayne and fought at the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1794. During the War of 1812, the regiment participated in the Canada, Chippewa, and Lundy’s Lane campaigns, and during the Mexican War the regiment fought from Palo Alto to Monterrey and all the way to the climatic battle at Chapultepec, where it was given the honor of leading the Army into Mexico City. The Old Guard also distinguished itself during the Civil War, plains Indian Wars, and the Spanish American War, when it saw action both in Cuba and the Philippines. World War II saw the regiment earning a campaign streamer for Northern France after its deployment from the American Theater in 1945. Assigned to the 106th Division, the regiment fought its way through France into Germany by the war’s end. The 2nd Battalion of the 3rd Infantry was again activated at Fort Benning, Georgia on 1 June 1966 and assigned to the 199th Infantry Brigade that was about to deploy to Vietnam.

  After deploying with the Redcatcher brigade to Vietnam, the 2/3d Infantry gained extensive experience fighting in the area around the southern and southwest approaches to Saigon. By May 1968, the Old Guard battalion had more experience conducting operations in rice paddies, mangrove swamps, and nipa palm groves that covered southern approaches to Saigon than any of the Redcatcher battalions. During Operation FAIRFAX (12 January–14 December 1967), the 2/3d Infantry operated continuously in this type of terrain south of Saigon, and then returned to the area in February 1968. From 18 February 1968 until 7 May, the Old Guard battalion was under the operational control of the 9th US Division, gaining even more familiarity with the terrain of the northern Mekong Delta.

  When the 199th Light Brigade’s 3/7th, 4/12th, and 5/12th Infantry Battalions deployed south from AO Colombus on 5 May 1968, the 2/3d was already deployed in the southern portion of AO Winchester. The Old Guard battalion sector straddled Highways 4,233, and the Kinh Sang canal. Highways 4 and 233 connected Saigon and Cholon to the Mekong Delta, and the Kinh Sang canal led directly to the large pineapple plantation west of Saigon. Thus, the 2/3d was deployed astride major infiltration and withdrawal routes used by enemy units during the May Offensive. It was during the withdrawal phase of the enemy’s offensive that the 2/3d fought its toughest battles.

  The 2/3d Headquarters was located at FSB Zindernuef northwest of Binh Chanh, along with Bravo Battery 2/40th Artillery (105mm). Two 81mm mortar firebases, Hun and Attilla, were also established in the area to support the battalion’s operations. Two rifle companies operated from each of these bases. During daylight hours, Hun and Attilla were secured by a minimum number of personnel, usually just the members of the mortar platoons. At night, the bases were defended by those platoons not deployed on night ambushes.

  On Sunday, 12 May, LTC Carper’s 2/3d Infantry, reinforced by Alpha Company 5/12th Infantry, conducted daylight reconnaissance-in-force operations east and west of Highway 4 in the vicinity of the Binh Dinh bridge. The 5/12th rifle company was attached to Carper’s battalion to give it an added punch. The 5/12th Infantry battalion had joined the 199th Brigade a month earlier when it arrived from Ft Lewis, Washington. What it lacked in experience, the battalion made up for in aggressiveness, and Alpha Company was no exception.

  The Old Guard reconnaissance-in-force operations on 12 May were intended to locate and destroy a number of enemy units that had been spotted moving east to west through the area during the previous night. Those units were fired upon by artillery, helicopter gunships, and a C-47 gunship before dispersing into the surrounding countryside. During the daylight operations on 12 May, several enemy bodies, ammunition, and documents were found, but no contact was made with enemy forces. That same evening, Alpha and Charlie Companies returned to FSB Hun, and Bravo, Delta, and Alpha 5/12 moved back to FSB Atilla. Local ambushes were established in the vicinity of the two bases. The battalion’s Echo Company reconnaissance platoon was forward deployed to an ambush position along a stream some three kilometers northwest of the Binh Dinh bridge.

  Beginning around 2200 hours, the recon platoon began to report enemy movement near their position. The VC were carrying heavy packs, with individual and crew-served weapons. Not wanting to disclose their position, the recon platoon called in artillery fire on the enemy troops. The fire mission was devastatingly accurate. Five105mm howitzer rounds exploded in the middle of the VC formation. An estimated 30 VC were killed in the barrage. The remaining VC dispersed in small groups and kept moving. As the night wore on, more groups of VC moved past the recon platoon, and more artillery was fired. It was apparent that the recon platoon’s position was directly in the path of an enemy withdrawal route. Concerned that the platoon would be spotted by the VC once daylight broke, the Old Guard commander alerted Alpha Company 5/12th to move to reinforce the recon platoon at first light. Arrangements were made for two South Vietnamese RAG boats to transport the relief force from Alpha 5/12. An airmobile lift company was also requested, but none was available before mid-day. The recon team’s best chance of reinforcement was Alpha 5/12.

  At 0715 hours, two platoons from Captain Robert Ward’s Alpha Company 5/12 departed FSB Atilla, mounted on five ACAVs from Delta Troop 17th Cav. The Cav vehicles transported the infantrymen as far as the Binh Dinh Bridge where they boarded the RAG boats that would ferry them to an area close to the recon platoon’s position.

  While the slow-moving WWII-era RAG boats moved downstream toward the drop-off point, the recon team spotted an enemy force moving 50 meters northeast of their position. The VC spotted the recon team and opened up with machine-gun fire. Thirty-one-year-old SFC Charles Sandberg was mortally wounded, and two other members of the patrol suffered serious wounds. The recon team knew they were in a bad situation. They returned fire, and called for gunship support and an urgent dust-off. At 0905, a helicopter gunship team arrived and began a series of gun runs that suppressed the enemy fire, but did not silence it. The recon team’s situation became more serious by the minute.

  After turning north on a tributary of the Rach Lam, the RAG boats slowed their speed as they negotiated the twisting waterway. Dense foliage covered both banks of the muddy stream. The noisy grind of their vintage diesel engines could be heard for hundreds of meters upstream. Concealed in positions along the west bank, the VC waited patiently for the slow-moving craft. When the RAG boats entered the kill zone, RPGs slammed into their hulls, and the soldiers in the boats received a hail of machine-gun bullets. Two Alpha Company troopers were KIA and one man was WIA as the boats returned fire. The Vietnamese Navy coxswain of the lead boat was also wounded, but he stayed at the helm and steered his boat through the kill zone. Thirty minutes later, the Alpha 5/12 relief force disembarked from the RAG boats. They were still about 1500 meters south of the recon team’s location, but fearing another ambush, the Captain wisely opted to move overland. After calling in a dust-off to evacuate his casualties, the resolute Alpha 5/12 Commander ordered his platoons to move out. Moving rapidly through muddy paddies, the exhausted Alpha Company grunts reached the beleaguered recon team’s location at 1130 hours.

  Under heavy incoming fire, Alpha Company grunts took cover behind a large rice paddy dike, while helicopter gunships pounded the VC position with rockets and machine guns. Undaunted, the insurgents kept up a steady fire from their sturdy concealed bunkers in a nipa palm grove 200 meters away. Three heavy machine guns were slamming rounds into the rice paddy dike that shielded the 5/12 grunts and the recon team. Behind the dike, Alpha Company’s grenadiers attempted to suppress the machine-gun fire by firing well-aimed 40mm grenades into the bunker complex. It was a standoff, but the Old Guard commander had more reinforcements on the way.

  A few minutes before noon, Captain Jerry Romine’s Bravo Company 2/3d air-assaulted into an area about one kilometer north of the contact area to establish blocking positions, while Delta 2/3
d, led by Captain Bill Danforth, were slogging through the muddy paddies to reach the scene. Taking up positions on the right flank of Alpha 5/12, Delta Company reported spotting 35 to 40 newly constructed bunkers occupied by an estimated reinforced company. The Old Guard commander requested air strikes to soften up the bunker complexes before launching ground assaults. The Alpha 5/12 platoons and Delta 2/3 were ordered to pull back in preparation for the air strikes.

  During the air strikes, Alpha 5/12 captured a prisoner who had fled the bunker complex. The prisoner identified himself as a member of the 3d Battalion, 1st Regiment, 9th VC Division. Under interrogation, the enemy soldier said that there were still 60–70 VC holding the complex, and that the battalion’s four companies were spread throughout the area. He further estimated that his battalion had lost some 31 killed and 50 wounded by artillery fire during the previous night.

  With the detailed information provided by the POW on the VC position, the Alpha 5/12 platoons and Delta Company launched assaults on the bunker complex. The Alpha 5/12 troops quickly overran the first line of bunkers. Unsure if the enemy had pulled out, 22-year-old Specialist Four Kenneth Olson from Paynesville, Minnesota cautiously moved forward with a fellow grunt to investigate a second line of bunkers. The pair were ten meters from one of the bunkers when the VC opened up. Reacting immediately, Specialist Olson grabbed a frag grenade from his web gear, pulled the pin, and tossed it toward the bunker. The grenade exploded but did not silence the hostile fire. Olson armed a second grenade as he prepared to assault the position. As he rose to hurl the grenade, he was wounded by enemy fire, causing him to drop the armed grenade. According to the award citation, “Realizing that it would explode immediately, Sp4c. Olson threw himself upon the grenade and pulled it into his body to take the full force of the explosion. By his unselfish action Sp4c. Olson sacrificed his own life to save the lives of his fellow comrades-in-arms.” For his courageous actions, Specialist Kenneth Olson became the second member of the 199th Infantry Brigade to earn the Medal of Honor.

  Inspired by Specialist Olson’s actions, the Alpha and Delta Company grunts continued their attack, overrunning the bunker complex, killing or capturing the remaining VC and capturing intact an enemy heavy machine gun. Casualties in the two Alpha 5/12 platoons were one KIA and 10 WIA, eight of whom required medical evacuation, while Delta Company had one man wounded. Having completed their mission, the Echo recon team survivors were flown back to the battalion fire support base.

  As darkness approached, the 2/3d and 5/12th companies began to dig in for the night. Dark rain clouds began to build up on the horizon, and flashes of lightning danced in the dark purple sky. A steady rain began to fall as the grunts wrapped themselves in their ponchos and hunkered down in their fighting positions, staring across the slowly flooding paddies. No one looked forward to the long night ahead.

  Lieutenant Colonel Carper’s 2/3d Infantry was spread thin during the night of 13–14 May. This situation did not go unnoticed by VC, who though badly mauled during the fighting in Saigon and Cholon, remained combat effective and dangerous. While most of the main force enemy battalions were withdrawing to the west intent on reaching their sanctuaries in Cambodia, the 6th Local VC battalion continued to contest US and ARVN forces for control of the area on the southwest outskirts of Saigon. This local force enemy battalion was based in the area, and had an extensive intelligence and support network to facilitate its operations. When an opportunity presented itself, units of the 6th Local Force Battalion remained prepared to strike. Opportunities in the 2/3d AO were not hard to come by on the night of 13–14 May.

  Construction of the two small 2/3d fire support bases, Hun and Attilla, was still in progress on 13 May. The troops of the Old Guard battalion had had little time to improve their positions at the firebases due to the continued high tempo of operations. Between daylight sweeps and reconnaissance-in-force operations and night ambush patrols, the grunts had been kept too busy to work on the fortifications of the small firebases. Generally, the bunker line was thinly manned at the bases when most rifle platoons were out on night ambush patrols. The night of 13–14 May was no exception.

  Captain Fred Wallenborn’s Alpha Company and Captain Vesa Alakulppi’s Charlie Company of the Old Guard operated from Fire Base Hun. The companies’ 81mm mortars were set up within the perimeter, and the outer perimeter bunkers were manned by soldiers not deployed outside the base on operations. Fire Base Attilla was similarly home to Captain Jerry Romine’s Bravo Company, Captain Bill Danforth’s Delta Company, and Captain John Hume’s Echo Company. As a result of the heavy contacts on 13 May, both Hun and Attilla were both undermanned as the darkness of night descended.

  Captain Vesa Alakulppi’s Charlie Company CP group, along with the mortar platoon and a few soldiers from Alpha Company were the only forces defending firebase Hun that night. Captain Wallenborn’s Alpha Company was on operation northeast of Hun, and Alakulppi’s three rifle platoons were also deployed outside the base. Two of the Charlie Company rifle platoons were deployed on night ambushes, and the third rifle platoon was securing the Binh Dinh bridge with an ACAV platoon from Delta 17th Cav. In all, this left only around 40 men to defend Firebase Hun.

  Firebase Hun was situated between a road on its west side and an unfinished railroad bed on the east. There were twelve sandbagged bunkers in various stages of construction on the outer perimeter. Alpha Company usually manned the bunkers on the western and northern portions of the perimeter, but on the night of 13–14 May only a handful of Alpha Company grunts who were unable to deploy with the company were on the bunker line. Squad leader Jim Clark from Alpha Company was one of those who remained. Clark, who along with his RTO had just returned from R&R that day, recalled that C Company grunts manned about half of Alpha Company’s bunkers, leaving every other bunker unoccupied. Clark and his RTO moved into one of the unoccupied bunkers along with a forward observer. Alpha Company’s mortars were set up behind the bunkers, but the mortar crews had accompanied the rest of the company on operation.

  On Charlie Company’s side of the perimeter, some of the bunkers were also unoccupied that night. Charlie Company’s mortar pit and the FDC were located in the center of the base along with the Charlie Company CP. The CP was set up in an abandoned Vietnamese hooch in the center of the perimeter.

  Captain Vesa Alakulppi, the Charlie Company CO, was a rising star in the Old Guard battalion. Upon his arrival in Vietnam, the Captain had been assigned as the battalion’s S2, and in March he was selected by the battalion commander to take command of Charlie Company. Alakulppi had all of the qualifications for combat command. The son of a career officer, he had graduated from the United States Military Academy in1963. After completing the Armor Officer’s basic course and Airborne School, he was assigned to Germany where he served as a company commander in the 3/35th Armor. In 1967, Captain Alakulppi received orders for Jungle Warfare School in Panama, and a subsequent assignment in Vietnam.

  Fire Base Hun—Early morning hours, 14 May

  The month of May in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam is a transitional month between the dry and summer monsoon seasons. The dry season lasts from December through April when the area receives almost no rainfall. By June the full blast of the summer monsoon arrives. Torrential downpours are not, however, uncommon in mid-to late-May, and such a downpour occurred on the night of the 13th. This act of nature leveled the playing field for the Viet Cong and set the stage for an attack on Charlie Company’s isolated outpost.

  The summer monsoon hit with full force around midnight, and the rains began with devastating force. About an hour later, the 6th VC Local Force Battalion launched its attack in the blinding rainstorm. As torrents of rain blew across the rice paddies, the VC crawled along the unfinished railroad bed that paralleled the eastern side of the base until they were within a few meters of the bunker line. The attack began when a salvo of 15 RPGs blasted the perimeter. The incoming fire was murderous. Several bunkers were hit, along with the Charlie Co
mpany mortar platoon’s FDC. The grunts who occupied the targeted bunkers were immediately killed or wounded, or suffocated beneath the wreckage.

  In the ensuing confusion, the VC who had crept into the abandoned railroad bed assaulted the bunkers on the east side of the perimeter. A corner M60 machine-gun bunker was captured almost immediately and its occupants killed. The VC then turned the machine gun on the inner perimeter and CP. Simultaneously, groups of VC hidden behind the rice paddy dikes close to the perimeter opened up on the other bunkers and CP with automatic weapons, small arms, and rocket fire, pinning down the grunts. As Alakulppi’s men returned the fire, more enemy infiltrators slithered through the muddy paddies toward the bunker line. After cutting their way through the perimeter concertina wire, they crawled forward in the pouring rain to lob hand grenades into the perimeter before rushing forward with satchel charges. Within minutes, four of the base’s twelve bunkers were either knocked out or captured.

  Twenty-five-year-old Specialist James Kline from Philadelphia was an assistant machine-gunner in Charlie Company. Kline’s bunker was hit with an RPG that wounded the occupants, but they managed to continue to hold the bunker. According to his award citation, Specialist Kline “left his position to aid his injured comrades. Moving through withering enemy machine-gun and rocket fire, he carried one casualty after another from the battle area to safety. After having removed six men from the line of fire, he began checking bunkers for other wounded personnel. He discovered that two American casualties were trapped in an enemy-held bunker. Disregarding his safety, Specialist Kline courageously assaulted the position, killing two insurgents and silencing their machine gun. As he continued to advance…he was mortally wounded.” For his extraordinary heroism that night, Specialist James Kline was posthumously awarded the Army’s Distinguished Service Cross.