by Hugh Mills
Suddenly, Harris's riflemen were deep enough into the trap. With a sharp staccato, AK-47 rounds abruptly tore into the column. Enemy fire came from their front and both flanks. Everybody hit the ground, but nobody knew where to shoot back because of the density of the jungle and total inability to see an enemy target.
It took only a moment to discover that any movement among the ARPs drew fire. Obviously the enemy could see.
Realizing that there was no way to attack an enemy he couldn't see, Harris concerned himself with finding cover and getting his men out of the killing zone. Most of the unit was right next to a bomb crater left by a 750- or 1,000-pound bomb from one of our B-52 raids. It looked like the only cover available. Rolling into the crater with his RTO, Harris contacted the other elements of his unit and told them to do the same.
It was then that he learned that both of his point men, Gratton and Mitchell, were down. They had been caught by the first eruption of enemy fire. It was impossible to tell if they were OK, wounded, or dead. Suddenly, in a lull in the withering fire, Harris could hear Mitchell cry out, then moan.
Harris immediately ordered his left flanking element to crawl forward and try to get to Gratton and Mitchell. But as soon as the effort began, enemy fire opened up on the men, pinning them to the jungle floor.
Lieutenant Harris then radioed his flanking element on the right side, “Left flank is pinned. We think Mitchell on the point is wounded. See if you can crawl up there slowly; try to either recover Mitchell or lay down a base of fire that will allow Gratton to recover him.”
With Pfc. August Hamilton on the point, the right flanking element started to advance. They had crawled forward only a couple of feet when VC fire opened up on them. One of the enemy rounds went cleanly through the front of Hamilton's helmet and struck him squarely in the forehead.
Seeing Hamilton hit, the man crawling right behind him grabbed his legs and pulled him back out of the line of fire. Harris then learned that his right flank couldn't move forward either. They couldn't see who was shooting at them, so they couldn't effectively return the fire.
Now knowing that Hamilton was badly hit, Four Six ordered his right flank element to get the wounded man back to the cover of the bomb crater, where the medic could take a look at him.
Private First Class Hamilton was pulled, pushed, lifted, and finally lowered into the cover of the crater. Doc told Four Six that the man was losing blood fast. The supply of blood expander wouldn't last long, and more blood would be needed very soon or Hamilton would die.
During these initial tactical problems on the ground, Bob Calloway in the scout ship above was completely dumbfounded by the situation. There wasn't a thing he could do to help.
He couldn't call in his Cobra to shoot up the bunkers because the ARPs were caught right in the middle of the base camp complex. He couldn't call in an artillery strike to blast the place with heavy high-explosive rounds for the same reason.
All Calloway could do was fly circles over the contact point and provide information to his Cobra, who, in turn, relayed it back to troop ops. It wasn't long before Calloway had to give up even that because of intense fire from the bunkers below. He either had to vacate the area or risk getting himself shot out of the sky.
By this time, I was in my hootch talking aeroscout tactics with Jim Bruton. I had stopped monitoring the radios when I left the ship on the ramp, and I had no idea how the ARP mission was going in the western Trap.
As Bruton and I talked, the hootch door burst open and a runner from operations came in. “Lieutenant Mills, sir, it's coming over the radio that Four Six is in heavy contact with the enemy south of the Michelin. You'd better get over to the operations bunker right away.”
Rushing into the bunker, I was just in time to hear Bob Calloway's Cobra pilot come up on VHF to ops saying, “The ARPs are pinned down. They're separated into at least two or three groups and the vegetation on the ground is so dense that Four Six is unable to tell where all his people are. They're all trapped in a bomb crater and every time anybody sticks his head out, he gets shot at.”
The ops officer questioned back, “What about casualties?”
Cobra answered, “Four Six doesn't know about his point men, since he can't see them and he can't get anybody up to them. They were caught in the first blast of gook fire. He does have one man, however, who has been hit in the head with an AK round. He's in the crater and bleeding badly.”
Standing there listening to those radio reports, I thought immediately of the many times I had been on ground missions with Bob Harris and his ARPs. I had gone with them as often as I could to sharpen my scouting skills. Those experiences had helped tremendously my understanding of the ARP's world. I had found out right away that an aeroscout on the ground is totally out of his element.
In the air, the wind roared through the cockpit, making lots of noise and blowing the heat away. Also, you could see what was happening for several hundred yards in every direction.
On the ground, there was silence. The ARPs gave and received their instructions by hand and arm signals. Nobody talked unless the situation demanded it, and then only in quick, terse, all-business words. The heat was searing. Bodies were soaked with sweat and the beads ran down in their eyes—burning, blurring, and drawing swirling insects. Everybody carried at least two canteens of water on a mission, and guarded every drop.
But the most frustrating disadvantage of being on the ground was that you couldn't see anything and had no idea what was going on around you. The grass, the jungle closed in on you like opaque walls. The infantryman was lucky if he could see three feet in any direction. It was the unseen enemy that posed the greatest threat to the ground soldiers' good health and peace of mind.
So, standing there listening in the ops room, I had more than a minimal understanding of the mess Harris's platoon was in. I leaned in close to the radio speakers and hung on each word coming through.
The ops officer continued talking with the Cobra. “What help do you need up there? What help can we give you?”
The frustration in the Cobra pilot's voice showed. “I can't roll in with rocks because the ARPs are pinned right in the middle of the base camp. The scout door gunner has shot selectively but fears hitting friendlies. I got a Dustoff up here in the area to evac the head wound, but Four Six doesn't want to risk the Huey hovering in, knowing that it would make an irresistible target for the unfriendlies. You better get another hunter-killer team up here though. One Zero needs gas. Better roll Scramble 1.”
The Scramble 1 scout that day was Bob Davis (One Three). He and his Cobra were launched immediately and were quickly at the contact scene to join up with VR-1 for briefing.
Davis was known in the troop for his happy-go-lucky, charismatic radio chatter, but when I heard him call his Cobra, I knew the situation was bad. When he dropped down in the contact area Davis lost his cool. “Holy shit… h-o-oly s-h-e-e-it! I'm taking lots of ground fire. But look at the dinks! I got dinks everywhere down here. I got bunkers everywhere. Everywhere I look there's bunkers and everywhere I look there's people! There must be a hundred unfriendly sons a bitches in here!”
While he was talking, I could hear the M-60 chatter in the background as Davis's crew chief, John Studer, fired out the rear cabin door. Then Davis came back up on the intercom to his crew chief. “Quit firing! Quit firing! We don't know where the ARPs are; we can't shoot!”
Then Davis's Cobra broke in. “One Three, you don't have to stay down there if it's too hot. It's your call.” Davis responded that he would stay down, keep circling, and see if he could get a handle on how big the enemy base camp was.
Faced with the facts that his ARP platoon was pinned down, that Cobra gunships on the scene couldn't shoot, and that artillery could not be called in, the troop commander decided to go airborne in his C and C and size up the tactical situation at the crater for himself. Once over the contact area, Major Moore elected to call in the infantry reaction force. This was an infantry unit of
about company size that the troop could activate when ARPs on the ground needed backup. They were on combat standby and available within a fifteen- to twenty-minute time frame. With Major Moore's decision, they were immediately loaded and transported directly to the contact area.
Jumping out of their slicks at the LZ and rushing across low scrub and underbrush to relieve Lieutenant Harris, the backup company was stopped cold in its tracks. The enemy opened up on them from the base camp and cut Harris's relief to pieces! The infantry company, now stung by the hail of accurate enemy fire, began shooting back into the base camp area.
I could hear Bob Harris yelling into his radio. “Cease firing! Cease firing! Goddamnit, you're shooting into my people! You're shooting into our guys!”
Confusion reigned, and I couldn't stand it any longer. I turned to Darkhorse Three. “I'm going up there. I'm taking my remaining scouts to Dau Tieng so we can react to the fight.” I burst out of the ops bunker and headed back to the hootch to get Jim Bruton and crew chief Jim Downing. It seemed like just seconds before we were on the pad, in the bird, and off with Chuck Koranda (Three Nine) piloting my Cobra.
Just as soon as we got to the contact point, I dropped down low and got on One Three's tail so he could brief me. We had to maintain sixty to seventy knots because VC rounds were coming from all over the place. Ground fire out of that enemy base camp was as bad or worse than any I had ever seen. Davis was beside himself as he filled me in on the critical situation below. His voice was up about three octaves.
“Holy shit, One Six, there's nothing we can do down here except get our asses shot off! There's dinks everywhere! It's all screwed up. Four Six is pinned down in the crater with a badly wounded guy who's been shot in the head and needs more blood. They're going to lose him if he doesn't get more blood. And now we've got the reaction company of infantry pinned down with them, shooting back into our own people in the base camp. Man, we just plain got a shit pot full of trouble right here in Dodge!”
The words were no sooner out of One Three's mouth when over the net came the troop commander's voice. He had been flying around in his C and C Huey somewhere near the contact point. “I'm going on the ground to take command of the operation,” said Major Moore very succinctly. “One Six, find me a lima zulu!”
My first reaction was that Major Moore was a cavalry officer. What in the hell was he going to do down on the ground in a strictly infantry situation. He ought to stay in his C and C and call his shots from there. But as that old saying goes, he's the boss.
I left Davis and scouted out a place big enough to get Six's Huey in and out, and that would provide some cover from the base camp's line of fire.
The C and C ship hovered into the LZ, landed, and out went Six and his artillery observer, Lieutenant Allen. Allen had his PRC-25 radio with him, and they hadn't moved fifteen feet from their helicopter when Major Moore's now more concerned voice came back up on the radio.
“This is Darkhorse Six. They're all around us! We're taking fire. We're pinned down!”
“Well, shit!” I muttered.
So now, besides the ARP platoon and the backup infantry company, we had the troop commander and his artillery observer down and ineffective. Here I was on station over all of this mess, and there didn't seem to be one damned thing I could do to help the situation.
Not knowing where else to start, I radioed Bob Harris. “Four Six, this is One Six. I'm just coming on station. Seems to me that you guys in the ARPs get all the no-sweat details. How's it looking down there?”
He came right back. “This is Four Six, One Six. Good to hear your voice. We're in a world of hurt! One man's hit—shot in the head. We've used all our blood expander. Doc says he's still alive but we need a blood expander kit fast or he's not going to make it.”
“How's everybody else?” I asked.
“I've got point and his element out there somewhere in front of me,” Harris continued. “I can't see them … I don't know where they are. I don't know if they're dead or alive, but we can hear a man moaning, and every time he moans, Charlie shoots.”
“How can I help you?”
“You can start by seeing if you can find Gratton and his point backup. Also see if you can get Dustoff in here to pick up my head wound. That Huey will make a hell of a target, but he needs help fast. We've got to try to get Dustoff in here.”
Before I could respond to Harris, Koranda in the Cobra broke in, “Four Six, this is Three Niner. That's a roger on Dustoff. I'll work on getting a medevac up here.” Then Koranda went off frequency to get that process started again.
I began looking for Sergeant Gratton. I dropped down to about forty feet, making tight little circles over the area to the front of the crater. Maintaining my airspeed at about sixty knots, I jinked to the left and right, trying to make the little OH-6 a more elusive target.
There was plenty of ground fire coming up, but I was jinking and moving fast enough that rounds aimed right at the ship were actually passing in back of my tail. Thank God, I thought, Charlie hasn't quite got the hang of leading a target!
I was cussing to myself because I couldn't return any of that ground fire. The friendlies and enemy were too close together for us to shoot. We could see all kinds of Cong in their bunkers and the trenches that connected their firing positions, and it was frustrating not to be able to blow them away.
The enemy had really played it cool. They had allowed Harris's men to walk right into the middle of the base camp before springing the ambush, and they knew that we couldn't shoot at them without hitting our own people.
I couldn't fire in any case because the minigun had been removed from my bird before leaving Phu Loi. We had to reduce weight to make room to carry Jim Bruton, who was flying as an observer in the left front seat. Jim Downing's M-60 in the back cabin was all the firepower we had.
After two passes, I spotted Four Six's point men. They were lying about forty meters northeast of Harris's crater, one on his back looking up at me and the other face down on the ground. I knew Gratton from the times I had been on ground missions with the ARPs. He was the one on his back.
I slowed and nodded my head vigorously to let him know that I had seen him. He tried to wave back without giving away his position, and then rolled back over on his stomach to use his weapon again.
The other man with Gratton must have been Mitchell. He was face down and not moving, so I didn't know whether he was dead or alive.
Located right in back of Gratton and Mitchell was an enemy bunker. Fire from that position was what had the point men pinned down.
I immediately keyed the FM frequency to Harris. “Four Six, this is One Six. I found Gratton. He and his other point man are about forty meters out to your northeast. They're down near a little mound in the earth that's giving them some protection. Gratton looks OK and knows that we've found him. I think the other guy is hit. For right now they're OK where they are. They can't get back to you anyway because there's a hot gook bunker located right behind them. You copy?”
The same bunker that was blocking Gratton's retreat suddenly decided that my little bird was getting entirely too nosy. Every time I made a pass over the area, he'd open up, and his fire was beginning to get pretty accurate! I could hear and feel an occasional hit.
Realizing that I was taking fire, Koranda came up on VHF from the Cobra and told me to get out of there. But I decided to stay down to keep a cover on Harris's gang. I told Koranda I would try to go fast enough to avoid giving the bad guys a good shot.
Jim Bruton was getting a hell of an introduction to flying scouts. Having just gotten to the troop, he probably couldn't follow what was going on, but he could feel me jinking that little bird all over the sky and see the muzzle flashes that were sending up enemy rounds, and feel them tearing through the ship. Bruton was probably scared to death. But so were the pilot and crew chief, perhaps more so.
I was impressed with the way Bruton handled himself while on the receiving end of the first shots ever fired
at him. He never said a word as he sat in the left seat, doing the best he could to help the situation.
Even experience didn't keep Jim Downing from being amazed at the enemy beehive below us. He kept keying the intercom: “Jesus, sir, there's dinks everywhere! Bunkers everywhere. Three o'clock low … bunkers. Man with an AK at twelve o'clock low … bunker with SGM. Shit, Lieutenant!”
All I could say was, “OK, OK, Jim. I got it. I got it!” I kept the airspeed up to about sixty knots and kept jinking the ship to give Charlie a different look every time I came around for another pass.
I rolled back in over Gratton's position to see how he was doing. He was over on his back again and had an M-16 magazine on his chest. Each time I came over, Gratton looked at us and jabbed his finger at the magazine.
Downing was quick to figure out the sign language. “He needs ammo, sir, for the M-16. He's dry!”
“OK,” I answered, “how many bandoliers do you have with you back there, Jim?” Downing carried a backup M-16, which he stowed under his seat, and I knew that he would have some extra ammo.
“About six, Lieutenant.”
“OK,” I said. “Get three of them. We'll come in and hover over Gratton and drop him the ammo.
“Now, Jim,” I continued, “I'll have to come in slow and hover down easy. You're going to have to bull's-eye the first time. If we miss, I don't know what kind of chance we'll have to try it again. OK?”
“I understand, Lieutenant,” he answered. “I'll do my best.”
I went in right on the trees. Downing was hanging out of the cabin door with the bandoliers in his hand waiting for the right moment to throw them down. I kept the left side of the aircraft toward the VC bunker so that Downing would make less of a target. We slid in right over Gratton and hovered down as low as I could get. Then Downing let go of the ammo.
