—Military Review
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Seventy-seven deadly days in combat
WEST DICKENS AVENUE
A Marine at Khe Sanh by John Corbett
In January 1968, John Corbett and his fellow leathernecks of the 26th Marine Regiment fortified a remote outpost at a place in South Vietnam called Khe Sanh. Within days of their arrival, twenty thousand North Vietnamese soldiers surrounded the base. What followed over the next seventy-seven days became one of the deadliest fights of the Vietnam War— and one of the greatest battles in military history.
“In this short, readable account, Corbett
describes his days at Khe Sanh in almost dis-
passionate prose and in great detail. . . .
effectively convey[ing] the siege from a
Marine grunt’s point of view.”
—Publishers Weekly
Published by Presidio Press
Available wherever books are sold
General Merrill B. Twining
Interior of sandbagged command post shelter—nerve center of Guadalcanal—and known as “Impact Center.” (Left to right) Sgt. Bob Brant, Maj. Bill Buse (on phone), Col. Bill Twining, and Capt. Ray Schwenke. Fifth member of operations section is Sgt. Dick Kuhn.
Going over orders for the 8 September attack across the Matanikau River. (Left to right) Lt. Col. Bill Twining, Col. William Whaling, Maj. Bill Buse (standing), Col. Herman Hanneken. Thomas denounced it as a “council of war” and he never held another.
The Matanikau River laundry and bath.
Front line Marines cleaning their weapons after a rain.
Okinawan construction workers. Marines called them “termites.” The Marine sergeant-in-charge has already given them “the word.”
Our first visitor, RAdm. John S. McCain, and Maj. Gen. Alexander A. Vandegrift outside the operations section tarpaulin on Guadalcanal. McCain’s fighting spirit was welcome.
1st Marine Division Hospital. Wounded were kept on stretchers to expedite evacuation during frequent air raids or bombardments. Building was a former Japanese barracks.
Butch, the world’s best cook. D-day plus two and Tech. Sgt. Butch Morgan is boiling beans and coffee on the Japanese blacksmith’s forge.
A Japanese tarpaulin spread over rough cut poles served as General Vandegrift’s first tent. The furniture came from Mr. Widdy’s (Lever Brothers plantation manager) house at Kukum.
Combat post near mouth of Matanikau. Heavily battered by light and medium Japanese artillery, it suffered severe casualties but stood fast under repeated attacks.
Japanese heavy machine-gun position.
Higgins boat making run from shore to ship.
Arrival of first contingent of Seabees. (Author’s collection)
Edson’s Ridge after the battle. A four-man fire team is “mopping up” enemy snipers and stragglers under the watchful eye of the lone Marine in the foreground.
Led by native scouts, Carlson’s Raiders begin their famous patrol.
Navy plane taking off from Henderson Field.
Japanese building on Henderson Field used as a headquarters by our aviators. The Japanese Navy also used it as an aiming point with results disastrous to us.
Marines landing on Red Beach on D-day, 7 August. The landing craft are Higgins boats. The beach is “steep to,” perfect for landing even at low tide as here.
General Vandegrift caught working at his field desk. The “Old Man” glowers at the camera. He despised offices and paperwork.
“Red Mike” Edson briefs General Holcomb, Commandant of the Marine Corps, as to the disposition of his regiment, 5th Marines.
Generals Vandegrift and Rupertus with group of scouts and carriers during operations at Koli Point in November.
1st Marines debarking into landing craft alongside USS McCawley (P10) en route to Red Beach on Guadalcanal, 7 August 1941. (Author’s collection)
The huge crater at the edge of the Henderson Field runway was made by a 14-inch shell fired by a Japanese battleship during the night of 13/14 October. (Author’s collection)
Possession of the sand bar at the mouth of the Matanikau was vital to the retention of Guadalcanal by our forces. (Author’s collection)
The hellish terrain of the Matanikau battlefield. (Author’s collection)
One of the “Marus” that participated in the saltwater “banzai” of eleven unprotected transports. Only five made it to the beach west of Kokumbono. (Author’s collection)
Tech. Sgt. William A. (“Stinky”) Davis checks out the first amphibian bridge at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. On D-day it proved invaluable. (Author’s collection)
Five Japanese tanks, two medium, three light, lie burned out on the sand bar following the climactic night battle with 3d Battalion, 1st Marines. (McKelvy)
Red Beach at 1500 on 8 August (D +1), hopelessly blocked due to the untimely initiation of general unloading of cargo before troops ashore were prepared to receive it.
1 Clark’s Book Sales Business
2 J. F. C. Fuller, The Second World War (New York: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1949), p. 207.
3 Lt. Gen. H. M. Smith, The Development of Amphibious Tactics in the U.S. Navy (Washington, DC: History and Museums Division Headquarters, U.S. Marine Corps, 1992), p. 250.
4 This phrase originated in the Navy War Plans office during the visit of General Vandegrift and his staff. In my orders to New Zealand as advance man I was specifically directed to inform the New Zealand Army authorities of this eventuality. There were no formalities. It was done on a piecemeal, transitory basis.
5 See the epigraph at the beginning of this book.
6 George C. Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1972), p. 410.
7 Ibid., p. 283.
8 Richard Tregaskis, Guadalcanal Diary (New York: Random House, 1943), p. 47.
9 Theodore Roscoe, United States Destroyer Operations in World War II (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1988), p. 174.
10 John L. Zummerman, The Guadalcanal Campaign (Washington, DC: Marine Corps Monographs, 1949), p. 46.
11 Ibid., p. 46.
12 Edwin P. Hoyt, Warlord Tojo (Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1993), p. 124.
13 George C. Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer, Vol. 1 (Washington, DC: Department of the Navy, 1972), p. 373.
14 Information given to Col. Gerald C. Thomas, USMC, and myself in Brisbane, Australia, by an officer of USS Chicago, 26 December 1942.
15 Turner denies sending any such message, according to Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer. Nevertheless, at least two were logged in and recorded in full together with our replies in the G-3 journal for the night of 8–9 August 1942 appearing in Phase II of the Final Report of the 1st Marine Division.
16 The only information we received from ComNavForSoPac during the landing proved false, and ComNavForSoPac apologized. Nevertheless it was harmful in that establishment of the defense was given priority over pursuing the remnants of the enemy garrison across the Matanikau, which had been our intention at nightfall on 8 August.
17 Richard F. Newcomb, Nightmare in Savo Straits (New York: Bantam), p. 146.
18 See the epigraph at the beginning of this book.
19 Martin Clemens, “A Coastwatcher’s Diary,” American Heritage (Feb. 1966), p. 109–110.
20 Referring to Rupert’s abandonment of Bristol to the forces of Cromwell.
21 See the epigraph at the beginning of this book.
22 Dyer, The Amphibians Came to Conquer, Vol. 1, p. 193.
23 Robert Leckie, The Wars of America, Vol. 2 (New York: Harper & Row, 1968), p. 227.
24 A. J. Watts, Japanese Warships of World War II (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1966), pp. 161–223. Most Japanese submarines mounted one deck gun of 3 to 5.5 inches.
25 Edwin P. Hoyt, Warlord Tojo (Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1993), pp. 6, 86. Our forces outnumbered their captors at Bat
aan by a ratio of more than four to one. At Singapore 100,000 British surrendered, without firing a shot, to a Japanese force one-third its size.
26 Final Report, 1st Marine Division, Phase IV, Annex H.
27 Jonathan M. Wainwright, General Wainwright’s Story (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1946), p. 9.
28 Peter Andrews, “The Defense of Wake,” American Heritage (July/Aug. 1987).
29 W. J. Holmes, Double-Edged Secrets (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1979), p. 23.
30 Michael Blankfort, The Big Yankee (Boston: Little, Brown, 1947), p. 298.
31 See page 108.
32 A. A. Vandegrift, Once a Marine (New York: Ballantine Books, 1964), p. 200.
33 Thomas Parrish, ed., Encyclopedia of World War II (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1978), p. 348.
34 Alfred A. Vagts, Landing Operations (Washington, DC: Military Service 1946), pp. 1–8.
35 Edwin P. Hoyt, Warlord Tojo (Lanham, MD: Scarborough House, 1993), p. 124.
36 The term used for Japanese landing forces similar to our Fleet Marine Forces.
37 S. L. A. Marshall, “Last Barrier,” Marine Corps Gazette (Jan. 1953): 16.
Edited by Neil G. Carey:
FIGHTING THE BOLSHEVIKS: The Russian War
Memoir of Private First Class Donald E. Carey,
U.S. Army, 1918–1919
Books published by the Random House Publishing Group are available at quantity discounts on bulk purchases for premium, educational, fund-raising, and special sales use. For details, please call 1-800-733-3000.
The thoughts and opinions expressed herein are solely those of the author and do not in any way reflect the official position of the United States Departments of Defense and Navy or any other government agency.
A Presidio Press Book
Published by The Random House Publishing Group
Copyright © 1996 by Merrill B. Twining
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by The Random House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
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All photos courtesy of U.S. Marine Corps except where noted. Topography by ProImage
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