A Shau Valor

by Thomas R. Yarborough

  As the remaining Americans in the rear guard broke out and raced through a hail of bullets for the north wall gate, Specialist George E. Pointon, who had both arms shattered and had suffered a large open chest wound during the early morning firefight, ran by himself all the way to the landing zone—almost 400 meters—only to find all the H-34 helicopters gone. Seeing Pointon’s predicament, Vic Underwood flagged down a Huey gunship that dropped its empty rocket pods and landed. As told by Underwood, “I helped Pointon on board and he pulled a pistol and pointed it at me; I side-stepped and he shot a Vietnamese off my back.” Underwood then loaded 14 other wounded men aboard, and the Huey evacuated them to safety. All told, the valiant helicopter crews lifted out a total of 69 personnel, including 4 gravely wounded Americans.33

  As the last of the walking wounded moved toward the LZ, the NVA infantrymen renewed their assaults. The rear guard action became extremely violent, but the Americans and Nungs succeeded in holding the north wall until everyone who was still alive got out of the camp. Among the last out were Lieutenant Louis A. Mari and SFC Bennie Adkins. Fighting their way through heavy fire, they carried Sergeant James L. Taylor who had been critically wounded earlier in the day. As they worked their way through the north wall trench line, Adkins killed an enemy soldier who blocked their way. Under fire the entire way, the two men carried Sgt Taylor on a stretcher to the LZ only to find all helicopters had gone. Jimmy Taylor died several hours later during the evasion, his body hidden in the heavy brush by his fellow Green Berets.

  By the time the last of the rear guard reached the landing zone, all helicopters except for two that had been shot down were gone. All that remained on the LZ were 8 Marine helicopter crewmen, about 50 wounded CIDG irregulars, 40 Nungs, 7 Americans, and 2 women. Enemy fire continued to sweep the landing zone, and NVA soldiers could be heard shouting to one another in preparation for a final assault. Under the circumstances it became obvious that further chopper rescue was not possible. The only course of action was to begin evading.

  As the senior combat arms officer present, Lt Col Chuck House, armed with a map and a compass, took command and began leading the A Shau garrison survivors in a northerly direction. His plan was to evade across Laos to Thailand. About two hours after dark the evaders stopped to rest; extreme fatigue, hunger, thirst, and wounds had made the column’s movement slow and painful. The evaders rested until 2 a.m. on a mountainside about two kilometers northwest of the camp. While in that location, the Special Forces officers advised Lt Col House that the run-down physical condition of most of the evaders would prevent their being able to make it to Thailand over 100 miles away and that a move to Hue, only 25 miles northeast, was the better choice. Taking their recommendation under advisement, House set out heading north. During this portion of the trek, the party became separated in the dark—whether by accident or on purpose—with Capt Carter, SFC Adkins, and approximately 8 Nungs continuing to evade northeast on their own.

  Around noon on March 11, House’s column spotted several Marine H-34 helicopters circling around Ta Bat. Lt Mari approached Lt Col House about a route he knew to a suitable LZ for helicopters. House refused, stating that it would be too dangerous for the helicopters to land. Apparently at that point a heated disagreement developed between Lt Mari and Lt Col House. The lieutenant told House he didn’t care what House did, but that the A Shau people were going to signal the helicopters, move to a suitable landing zone, and go for a pickup. The young lieutenant, wounded and exhausted, then struck out toward Ta Bat, leaving Lt Col House standing there fuming and threatening to have Mari court-martialed. Seven of the Marines and all of the other men followed Mari; Chuck House then reluctantly rejoined the column. Needless to say, it had not exactly been a red-letter day in the annals of inter-service cooperation.34

  The HHM-163 helicopters made up for the discord on the ground. With the help of an O-1 Bird Dog, the choppers spotted the main column and began lifting the men out individually using a “horse collar” sling, the previous day’s mob scene still fresh in their minds. By 3:15 p.m. they had picked up Lt Col House and all the Marines, SFC Underwood, who was barely able to walk, four seriously wounded CIDG, and the two women. The remaining SF soldiers and about 50 Vietnamese and Nungs could not be picked up and had to continue evading.

  Late in the afternoon, Capt Carter’s small group also contacted a Bird Dog and put the wheels in motion to be rescued. Second Lieutenant Donald J. Berger piloted his H-34 under the heavy weather and through an intense barrage of enemy fire to reach Sam Carter. Since jungle growth prevented landing, Berger, totally exposed and vulnerable, went into a hover and was attempting to hoist the defenders aboard when hostile automatic weapons fire damaged the tail pylon of his aircraft, causing complete loss of tail rotor control. Exhibiting outstanding flying skill and great presence of mind, Lt Berger executed a text-book perfect forced landing and promptly ordered the co-pilot and one of the crewmembers to board another rescue helicopter. Due to darkness and inclement weather precluding further rescue attempts, he remained on the ground and guided the outpost defenders through difficult terrain where they encountered and successfully fought off an enemy patrol. In the brief skirmish one Nung was KIA. After helping set up a night defensive position, Berger stayed on watch throughout the night, giving the exhausted soldiers a chance to rest. However, during the long night a tiger continuously circled around the perimeter and frightened the Vietnamese. Undoubtedly the stench of the wounds attracted the tiger and whetted its appetite. Much to the relief of the evaders, the big cat eventually gave up the hunt and went to find easier prey. At first light on March 12, Berger guided the group to another location, then signaled for help and succeeded in getting a rescue chopper to hoist the exhausted men aboard. For his extraordinary heroism in the air and on the ground, Lieutenant Donald J. Berger was awarded the Navy Cross.35

  At approximately 10:30 a.m. on March 12, Marine H-34 helicopters from HHM-163 returned to the perimeter held by the main column and began hoisting men aboard by sling. In a repeat performance of the mob scene at the camp two days earlier, the CIDG, fearful of being abandoned, began killing one another in their stampede to get to the sling and be hauled aboard the hovering helicopters. The first to start shooting were some of the men on the perimeter, but soon everyone was shooting at everyone else, and the Americans could not stop the indiscriminate firing. Someone even threw a hand grenade into the mob crowding around the sling, the explosion killing and wounding several of the Vietnamese. In desperation, the three Americans grabbed the collars of the helicopter slings and were snatched to safety, being hauled aboard the choppers as they rapidly climbed for altitude.36

  That same day word came in that another A-1E had been shot down over the A Shau Valley. Major Monroe E. “Buzz” Blaylock was strafing an antiaircraft position near the fallen camp when the heavy fire damaged his Skyraider, forcing him to bail out. Luckily for Blaylock, a flight of H-34s from HHM-163 plucked him out of harm’s way and flew him to Phu Bai.37

  In one of the most bizarre episodes in the immediate aftermath of the battle, Lt Col Chuck House gave an incredibly candid interview to reporter John Laurence in which he described the rescue and giving orders to shoot the panic-stricken Vietnamese mobbing the helicopters trying to evacuate the camp survivors. When the reporter asked if House would be willing to repeat the story on camera, he responded, “Yeah, what the hell, I’ve been passed over for promotion twice. So I’m on my way out anyway.” His words proved prescient. For his role during the rescue at Camp A Shau, Lieutenant Colonel Charles A. House, USMC, received the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism. For emotionally charged statements to the press, he received a letter of reprimand and was relieved of command of HHM-163.38

  On March 18, 1966, Special Forces Detachment C-1 at Da Nang conducted Operation Blue Star, a body recovery mission to the abandoned Camp A Shau. The bodies of the Americans, along with those of 200 NVA, lay scattered about the compound undisturbed. Evidently the Katu tribesmen had
not entered the camp for fear of ghosts. The remains of Raymond Allen, Billie Hall, Owen McCann, and Phillip Stahl were retrieved. The body of Jimmy Taylor, who had died during the evasion, was never found.

  By any standard of measurement, the 1966 battle in the Valley of Death resulted in a traumatic ordeal for both sides. Estimated enemy losses were 1,000 killed, with many more wounded. But they now owned the valley, and that undisputed fact suggested much larger ramifications. Indeed, the fall of Camp A Shau had a major bearing on the future course of the entire war. After its fall, mainstream American Army units would not return to the Valley of Death for two years. But the valor of the men who fought there was forever immortalized in their citations for bravery. In addition to the posthumous awards to Staff Sergeant Billie Hall and Specialist 5th Phillip Stahl, the Distinguished Service Cross was also awarded to Captains John Blair and Sam Carter, First Lieutenant Louis Mari, and Sergeants First Class Victor Underwood and Bennie Adkins. Some 48 years later, the circumstances surrounding Bennie Adkins’ Distinguished Service Cross were reevaluated—and with good reason. In reexamining the 38-hour battle, it was determined that Adkins fought ferociously with mortars, machine guns, recoilless rifles, small arms, and hand grenades, killing an estimated 135–175 of the enemy and sustaining 18 different wounds. His DSC was upgraded to the Medal of Honor and presented to him at the White House on September 15, 2014.

  Although the camp had been lost, the horrendous struggle by the small outpost against the human wave attacks by 1,000 NVA and VC determined soldiers ironically received a modicum of public attention thanks to Hollywood. For John Wayne’s 1968 film The Green Berets, the screenwriter contacted Ken Facey, the former Detachment C-1 commander, who briefed him on the events at Camp A Shau. The screenwriter then based the film’s battle scenes on that briefing—except for the “heroism” of the LLDB commander.39

  Of all the recaps on the fall of Camp A Shau, perhaps the most insightful belonged to reporter John Laurence when he wrote:

  The A Shau Special Forces camp is closed. But the story of what happened there—the overwhelming attack, the evacuation and dramatic rescue, the panic and confusion, and especially the shooting of South Vietnamese soldiers—will be debated for months to come. It has been said that this is a strange and ugly war. It has never been worse than at A Shau.40

  To be sure, in some respects it was a strange and ugly war—all wars are. But what Laurence neglected to mention was that American valor and sacrifice shown through above all else like a shining beacon. It has never been more inspirational than at A Shau.

  chapter

  3

  PROJECT DELTA INVADES THE A SHAU

  Deeds of great courage were done in the

  darkness and never seen or recorded.

  —PIERRE CORNEILLE

  Nineteen sixty-seven ushered in what Americans would call the “year of the big battles.” To the Vietnamese it was also the Year of the Goat, in particular, the Fire Goat. For Vietnamese and Chinese astrologers, the year suggested a cautionary time when one might be drawn into complex predicaments. Under that zodiac sign the powerful usually shied away from confrontation, pulled back when faced with heavy decision-making, and blatantly refused to take an unpopular stand in a conflict. Those predictions may well have colored Saigon’s thinking in the Year of the Goat, but they had little if any bearing on Washington—and none at all on Hanoi.

  After the battle and loss at Camp A Shau, the U.S. military focus in South Vietnam shifted away from unconventional warfare and the border surveillance missions involving Special Forces detachments and CIDG companies. Instead, to facilitate the large-scale destruction of the VC and NVA units flooding into the country, MACV launched a new tactical doctrine, backed up by a powerful American ground force consisting of seven U.S. Army and Marine divisions, two airborne and two light infantry brigades, and one armored cavalry regiment, in addition to the 5th Special Forces Group. The strategy sought to exploit American firepower and mobility by forcing major engagements with NVA/VC main force units, thereby thwarting the enemy’s capability to threaten and destabilize Saigon. While American units attempted to destroy the main force units, ARVN units were to focus their efforts on the pacification effort in the populated areas. General Westmoreland made it clear that it was never his intention to keep U.S. troops in a defensive posture. Specifically, he planned to employ them to wipe out insurgency in War Zone C and the Iron Triangle, drive the VC out of populated areas, and to attack enemy strongholds along Vietnam’s borders, especially in the II and III Corps tactical zones.1 Surprisingly, the plan did not address combat operations in I Corps or the A Shau.

  Westmoreland’s strategy was new, bold, and from the beginning controversial. Some referred to it as a strategy of “search and destroy,” while others called it a “war of attrition.” In any case the strategy had its roots in both the present and the past: first, General Westmoreland latched on to the lopsided kill ratio of ten North Vietnamese to one American. But since he was also a product of the meat-grinder campaigns of World War II and Korea, he also came to the conclusion that he could bleed the enemy to death over the long haul, especially in large-unit battles. Whatever the name, for the first time in modern warfare the goal was not territory—it was body count.

  Operation Cedar Falls kicked off the first of the year’s big battles, running from January 8–26 and had the distinction of being the first corpssized American action of the war. The objective was a 60-square-mile chunk of real estate known as the Iron Triangle, an NLF stronghold just 20 miles north of the capital, often characterized by the Vietnamese as “a dagger pointed at Saigon’s heart.” The target area included dense jungle and wet rice paddies, all occupied by the VC since the mid-1950s.

  Operation Cedar Falls called for a “hammer and anvil” tactic. The 25th Infantry Division with the 196th Infantry Brigade attached to it was to assume blocking positions west of the Iron Triangle while one brigade of the 1st Infantry Division was assigned the same task east of the area of operations. The remaining units were then tasked to hammer the VC 9th Division’s 272nd and 165th Regiments against the anvil by rapidly moving through the Iron Triangle, combing it for enemy troops and installations, and clearing it of civilians. Unfortunately, the treatment of civilians created a public relations uproar.

  An air assault on Ben Suc, a key fortified VC village, took place on D-day. The civilian inhabitants of Ben Suc and surrounding villages, some 6,000 individuals, were physically uprooted along with their belongings and livestock and moved to relocation camps. After the deportation of the civilian population, American engineers systematically razed Ben Suc, first burning the village’s buildings to the ground and then leveling the area and crops with bulldozers. Although the villagers were moved as humanely as possible, the episode generated criticism, especially among the press. Even some senior officers within the military reacted to the forced movement. Brigadier General Bernard Rogers, assistant division commander of the 1st Infantry Division during Operation Cedar Falls, conceded that “It was to be expected that uprooting the natives of these villages would evoke resentment, and it did.” The sight of the refugees from Ben Suc with their carts, chickens, hogs, and rice was “pathetic and pitiful.”2

  As the first of the big unit battles, Operation Cedar Falls was viewed by most as an unqualified victory, even though the fighting had been sporadic and comparatively sparse. American and ARVN units ultimately drove the VC—at least temporarily—out of the Iron Triangle and accounted for nearly 750 confirmed enemy dead and 280 prisoners. By comparison, U.S. casualties were relatively light totaling 72 killed, 337 wounded. The 1st Infantry Division’s commander, Major General William DePuy, called Cedar Falls a “decisive turning point in the III Corps area; a tremendous boost of morale of the Vietnamese Government and Army; and a blow from which the VC in this area may never recover.”3 Some military historians, however, disagreed with that assessment. For example, Shelby Stanton has argued that the battle in the Iron Triangle h
ad disturbing long-range strategic consequences. He noted, “Instead of pushing the NVA/VC into the more ‘vulnerable posture’ as MACV had envisioned, the 9th VC Division had simply been pushed into Cambodia, where it was immune to any attack whatsoever.”4 Because of LBJ’s “hands-off” policy on Cambodian sanctuaries, MACV was relegated to fighting a war of attrition within the geographical boundaries of South Vietnam. Not surprisingly, enemy units returned at will from across the border, and the same region was thus fought over repeatedly. Nowhere was that scenario more pronounced than in the A Shau.

  Just 27 days after Cedar Falls, MACV launched its second big battle of 1967, Operation Junction City, a search and destroy mission into the VC stronghold in Tay Ninh Province known as War Zone C. For the most part thick jungle defined the area, but the 3,200-foot-high Nui Ba Den Mountain dominated the landscape. With the Big Red One—1st Infantry Division—and the men of the “Tropic Lightning” 25th Infantry Division leading the charge, the operation also included separate brigades equal to a third division, to include the 173rd Airborne Brigade which executed the only major combat parachute jump of the Vietnam War. Operation Junction City had three main objectives: to search out and destroy the 9th VC Division and the 101st NVA Regiment; to destroy the Central Office for South Vietnam (COSVN), the supreme headquarters in the South which tied together the various elements of insurgency and provided direction to both the military and civilian communist organizations; and to establish a Special Forces-CIDG camp at Prek Klok. At the end of the 82-day operation, the scorecard showed mixed results. Unlike Cedar Falls, extremely heavy fighting characterized the much longer campaign, and while the enemy forces had not been wiped out, they most certainly received a bloody nose: 2,728 killed. By comparison, the U.S. suffered 218 KIA and 1,576 WIA. North Vietnamese sources, in a heavily propagandized account of the battle, claimed 14,000 U.S. killed or wounded, 801 tanks or APCs destroyed or damaged, and 167 aircraft shot down or damaged.5 Hanoi’s practice of publishing preposterously inflated numbers is evident in these figures; that habit continued throughout the war.