A Shau Valor

by Thomas R. Yarborough

  The decision to send Company H into Laos was not without controversy and appeared to confirm the time-honored adage that it is sometimes easier to ask forgiveness than permission. Such was the approach taken by the 9th Marines commander, Colonel Barrow. He had advocated the raid as early as February 20, but his request had moved at a snail’s pace through the chain of command, so he took matters into his own hands—they had their schedule and Barrow had his. When Company H was already 500 meters inside Laos, Colonel Barrow informed his immediate superior of the move, reasoning that “even that much of a minor violation might in itself provide a little bit of assurance of approval.” It worked. According to Barrow, “approval came through that yes, we could do what we were going to do, but the implication clearly was you had better make it work.”28 Colonel Barrow also understood what many did not—permitting sanctuary for the enemy was not only illogical, it represented real danger. That same feeling had been incubating for at least four years, ever since the commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, Major General Harry W.O. Kinnard, had bluntly stated:

  When General Giap says he learned how to fight Americans and our helicopters at the Ia Drang, that’s bullshit! What he learned was that we were not going to be allowed to chase him across a mythical line in the dirt. From that point forward, he was grinning. He can bring us to battle when he wants and where he wants, and where’s that? Always within a few miles of the border, where his supply lines were the shortest, where the preponderance of forces is his, where he has scouted the terrain intensely and knows it better than we do.29

  The initial reports of the ambush reached the 3rd Marine Division in the form of monitored 9th Marine radio messages. Everyone felt uncomfortable since two days earlier General Abrams, reacting to the earlier request, had stated categorically that all operations into Base Area 611 were to be conducted by SOG forces. As news of the Marine raid made its way up the chain of command, a senior officer at III MAF offered a decidedly positive response when he said, “Good news—who knows where the border is anyway.”30 The day after the highly successful raid, Colonel Barrow sent another message outlining why he had taken the actions he did and emphasizing the success achieved. Furthermore, he requested authority to continue operations along Route 922. In justifying his request, Barrow said, “I put a final comment on my message which said, quote, put another way, my forces should not be here if ground interdiction of Route 922 not authorized.”31 Thus faced with a fait accompli, General Abrams finally approved the request on February 24, stipulating however, that there be no public discussion of the Laotian incursion. Whether General Abrams and his staff were focused on the raid and its implications is problematic; their hands were full coping with other issues. The day before, the NVA had launched a “mini Tet,” striking 110 cities throughout South Vietnam.

  As Company H moved back into South Vietnam during the early morning hours of February 22, Company A of the 1st Battalion at the regiment’s center moved along the ill-defined border near the village of Lang Ha. In a sharp firefight, the company’s 1st Platoon took on an NVA squad camouflaged in the dense underbrush, killing seven while losing one Marine. In the lull following the battle, Lt Wesley Fox, the company commander, took the opportunity to ask battalion to send a water detail down to a creek near his position since his men were badly in need of water. As the 20-man detail started to fill canteens, they were attacked by heavy machine gun and mortar fire. As 1st Platoon deployed to meet the attack, they discovered they were confronting a reinforced NVA rifle company supported on the ridge above by a bunker complex with a host of automatic weapons and RPGs. Lt Fox immediately moved up his 3rd Platoon and placed it on line with the 1st, but when the attack stalled, he committed the 2nd Platoon through the center. As the close quarters fighting raged, Lt Fox faced a tough choice. He either needed to pull back so artillery could be called in, or he must push through the enemy complex. With his casualties mounting and no possibility of close air support due to low cloud ceilings, Fox reasoned that pulling back, carrying his dead and wounded, would leave no Marines to hold off the enemy; the NVA would wipe out his company. Pressing the attack was the lesser of two evils, so he decided that they would all stay in the Valley of Death together, or they would walk out together.

  At that point a mortar round landed in the middle of the command group, killing several and wounding the rest, including Lt Fox. Advancing through heavy enemy fire in spite of his wounds, he personally took out one enemy position and calmly led an assault against a series of hostile emplacements, all the while carrying his own radios since both radiomen were down and out of action. Although wounded a second time, he continued to move through the hazardous area coordinating the activities of his men. From all directions, tracers curved in toward Fox and careened off at wild angles like sparks from an acetylene torch. When the four other company officers were either killed or wounded, Lt Fox reorganized the company and moved from position to position under withering enemy fire to lead his men as they hurled grenades against the enemy and drove the hostile forces into retreat. Wounded again in the final assault, Lt Fox, constantly in the open and under fire, refused medical attention, established a defensive posture, and supervised the preparation of casualties for medical evacuation. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty while serving as commanding officer of Company A, 1st Lieutenant Wesley L. Fox was awarded the Medal of Honor.32 In addition to 84 Purple Hearts, the Marines of Company A were awarded 3 Navy Crosses and 6 Silver Stars for their heroic actions on February 22.

  By way of explanation, in order to piece together the story of that intense and often times confusing engagement, several primary source documents come into play, none of which gives a complete picture. The first is the 1st Battalion After Action Report, a vital document that provides a brief overview of the “when, where, and what.” Unfortunately, AARs rarely provide any insight into the “who, how, and why.” For example, here is the 1st Battalion’s AAR entry for February 22:

  At 1100H at YD 202052 Company A made contact with an enemy squad in a bunker complex, killed 7 enemy, captured 14 chicom grenades, 1 AK47 rifle, and 3 AK47 magazines while suffering 1 KIA and 1 WIA. At 1300. Company A, on a company combat patrol, came under fire at YD 199049 from RPG’s, 82mm mortars, 61mm mortars, machine guns and automatic weapons deployed by an estimated company of enemy troops, well entrenched in thoroughly camouflaged bunkers. Company A assaulted through one enemy position at YD 198049 while artillery missions and air strikes were called in on others at YD 204045. Company A suffered 72 WIA and 11 KIA, while killing 105 enemy and capturing 4 machine guns, 2 B40 rocket launchers, 2 7.62 bolt action rifles, 17 AK47 rifles, 47 chicom grenades, 13 RPG rounds, 2 75mm recoilless rifle rounds, 2 VC flags, documents, and 20 brand new packs full of new clothing and gear.33

  To flesh out the story it was necessary to analyze the lengthy taperecorded interview with the company commander, Lt Wesley Fox, conducted immediately after the battle. While Lt Fox provided a wealth of detail and insight into the engagement during the interview and in his book, Marine Rifleman, his accounts glossed over his own heroic actions, leaving yet another hole in the story. That segment was filled in by Lt Fox’s gallantry citation for the Medal of Honor.

  Company A’s battle on the 22nd was the last large-scale engagement of Operation Dewey Canyon. The NVA lost 105 confirmed killed; the dead, all wearing new uniforms, were apparently highly decorated veterans of other campaigns. Marine casualties in Company A were also high: 11 killed and 72 men wounded.34 Due to the inaccuracy of the maps of the day, it was impossible to determine on which side of the border the action occurred or where the men died, but for political reasons no public mention was made of Laos.

  In spite of the official clampdown on actual battle locations, the 2nd Battalion’s Company H once more saddled up and headed back into Laos on February 24 for more ground interdiction of Route 922. The plan called for Company H, followed by Companies E and F, to cro
ss the border and drive east along the road, forcing enemy troops into blocking positions held by the 1st and 3rd Battalions. At approximately 11 a.m., Company H sprang an ambush on six NVA soldiers, killing four. The following day they overran and killed eight enemy soldiers and captured one 122mm field gun and two antiaircraft weapons. Later the same day a company patrol was ambushed by 15 enemy troops, resulting in a short but vicious firefight. Corporal William D. Morgan was a member of a flanking patrol screening Company H’s movement along Route 922 when they were temporarily pinned down by an NVA force occupying a heavily fortified bunker complex. Observing that two fellow Marines had fallen wounded in a position dangerously exposed to the enemy fire, and that all attempts to evacuate them were halted by a heavy volume of automatic weapons fire, Cpl Morgan unhesitatingly maneuvered through the dense jungle undergrowth to a road that passed in front of a heavily manned hostile emplacement. Fully aware of the possible consequences of his action but thinking only of the welfare of his injured companions, Cpl Morgan shouted words of encouragement to them as he initiated an aggressive assault against the hostile bunker. To nearby Marines Morgan yelled, “Pull ’em in.” Then, with complete disregard for his own safety, he charged across the open road and into the bunker firing his M-60 machine gun from the hip and pouring a stream of hot lead into the bunker. Standing upright, the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania Marine was totally exposed; every hostile soldier in the area turned their fire in his direction, mortally wounding him. His diversionary tactic and deliberate self-sacrifice enabled the remainder of his squad to retrieve their casualties and overrun the NVA position. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, Corporal William D. Morgan was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.35

  On March 3, after five days in Laos, the 2nd Battalion began its withdrawal, or phased retraction, back to Vandegrift. While in Laos the battalion sustained 8 killed and 33 men wounded, but in keeping with the subterfuge regarding crossing the border into Laos, all dead were officially reported as having been killed in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. Even Corporal William D. Morgan’s Medal of Honor citation indicated that the action occurred in Quang Tri Province southeast of Vandegrift Combat Base.36

  Also on March 3, the 3rd Battalion began its trek north toward FSB Cunningham, yet the move away from the border did not lessen the chance of facing combat. Returning from a reconnaissance-in-force mission, the 1st Platoon of Company M came under intense automatic weapons fire and a grenade attack from a well-concealed enemy force. While the center of the column was pinned down, the leading squad moved to outflank the enemy. Acting as squad leader of the rear squad, Private First Class Alfred M. Wilson, from Odessa, Texas, skillfully maneuvered his men to form a base of fire and to act as a blocking force. In the ensuing firefight, both his machine gunner and assistant machine gunner were seriously wounded and unable to operate their weapon. Realizing the urgent need to bring the machine gun into operation again, PFC Wilson, with complete disregard for his safety, fearlessly dashed through the heavy fire with another Marine to recover the weapon. As they reached the machine gun, an enemy soldier stepped from behind a tree and threw a grenade toward the two Marines. Observing the grenade fall between himself and the other Marine, Mac Wilson, fully realizing the inevitable result of his actions, shouted a warning to his companion and unhesitatingly threw himself on the grenade, absorbing the full force of the explosion with his own body. For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty, Private First Class Alfred Mac Wilson was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor.37

  Not all of the retraction missions resulted in combat. As part of the 1st Battalion’s phased pullback on March 4, Lt Wesley Fox led Company A on a final sweep through the site of their bitter firefight on February 22. What he encountered was totally unnerving. In that part of the northern A Shau, the undergrowth was so dense that the NVA units had not been able to find and remove all their casualties following the fight. Evidently some of their wounded had crawled into the heavy brush and died; the members of Company A found the enemy KIA by smell—the corrupting stench of death. Lt Fox stated that “all you had to do was follow your nose to find the bodies.”38

  While the gruesome sight and smell of dead bodies at the scene of his A Shau battle were, literally, easy enough to sniff out, according to Lt Fox the larger issue of enemy KIA was not so cut and dried—or completely honest. In a very candid 2012 interview, Wesley Fox opened up and shed considerable insight on the controversial subject of the body count as a yardstick. In the interview he confessed to seeing the practice as a demoralizing culprit. He offered the following explanation about body counts in Vietnam:

  If a body count was good, an operation was considered a success. If there really are bodies on the ground, maybe there’s something to that. When I’d call in artillery on a contact on a ridge or valley, I’d have to give a body count. Maybe we killed some, maybe not. When the major or whoever was on the radio would press for a number, I’d just pull it out of my butt. A fellow company commander, Captain Ed Riley, would never do that. He’d say: “If you want a body count, you come out here and get it. I’m not going to lie.” Not enough of us were the Ed Riley type.39

  Although tallying a final body count may have preoccupied some, the 9th Marine Regiment in general found its units fighting yet another wicked battle with the A Shau’s unpredictable and always foul weather. As the meteorological conditions turned from marginal to horrendous on March 5, the regiment’s withdrawal plan for Operation Dewey Canyon—dependent on helicopter extraction—unraveled. Virtually all chopper flights ceased. When brief holes in the cloud ceiling did appear, the helicopter squadrons scrambled to implement an improvised patchwork scheme for airlift. Unfortunately, many companies and artillery batteries remained stranded for days around FSBs with no rations or ammunition, all the while being constantly probed by aggressive NVA units determined to kill Marines. If a helicopter was lucky enough to make it in, as often as not heavy antiaircraft fire forced the bird to withdraw. When the weather finally broke on March 18, the last of the Marine units was lifted off the A Shau’s Tiger Mountain—under a heavy barrage of enemy mortar and antiaircraft fire. Operation Dewey Canyon terminated at 8 p.m. that same day. An anonymous Marine veteran poignantly remembered the campaign in verse:

  Eleven days of rain and fog;

  Their roof a dark gray sky.

  Three days no food and water.

  The choppers couldn’t fly.

  The nights were long and sleepless;

  Awake was every man.

  The torment dealt by nature,

  Was taken in its stride.

  And the NVA learned lesson one

  About Marine Corps pride.

  Pain and hunger, thirst and blood,

  Were born by these brave men;

  And if you asked them, “Do it again.”

  They’d only reply, “Say when.”40

  In March of 1969, Laos was not the only neutral country whose border the U.S. violated under the terms of international laws and treaties. Ironically, on the very same day that Dewey Canyon ended and the incursion into Laos became history, President Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the secret carpet bombing of sanctuaries and base areas in eastern Cambodia by Strategic Air Command (SAC) B-52 bombers. On the night of the 18th, a group of 60 of the big bombers departed Anderson Air Force Base, Guam, headed for the border area known as the Fishhook. Although the aircrews were briefed that their target was in South Vietnam, 48 of the B-52s were diverted across the border into Cambodia and dropped 2,400 tons of bombs. For obvious reasons the Nixon administration went to great lengths to keep the mission secret, fearing that widespread national outrage and protests would occur if word leaked out.41

  During the 56 days of combat in Operation Dewey Canyon, both sides suffered heavy casualties. Enemy losses included 1,617 killed and 5 captured; many more were wounded. The NVA also suffered significant loss
es of equipment and supplies: 16 artillery pieces, 73 antiaircraft guns, 92 trucks, 1,223 individual weapons, and more than 220,000 pounds of rice. By comparison, the Marines lost 130 killed and 920 Marines wounded, although the official line maintained that all of the losses were in South Vietnam.42 Knowledge of the incursion into Laos, however, did leak out on March 9 when reporter Drummond Ayres, Jr. of the New York Times filed a story disclosing the violation of Laotian neutrality by the Marines. He concluded by writing, “Operation Dewy Canyon seems to indicate that allied commanders operating along borders may dip across lines to secure their flanks.”43 Several days later at a press conference, Secretary of Defense Laird, on a fact-finding trip to Vietnam at the time, initially tapped danced around a question about American troops in Laos by saying that he could not confirm that they were there. Later he admitted that “Marines took up positions in Laos to protect their flank …”44 Oddly enough, raids by the 9th Marines into Laos during Dewey Canyon, while controversial, were essentially ignored by an increasingly disgruntled American public. There was virtually no protest at home about the pinprick raids across the Laotian border; that would occur a year later at the Cambodian border.

  Dewey Canyon became the last major Marine combat operation in Vietnam, and it was and still is considered by many to be the most successful of the entire war. Army Lieutenant General Richard G. Stillwell, commander of the XXIV Corps, best captured the spirit of triumph when he stated, “In my possible parochial estimate, this ranks with the most significant undertakings of the Vietnam conflict in the concept and results…. The enemy took a calculated risk in massing installations right at the border, misjudging our reach…. he lost.”45

  In truth, however, the North Vietnamese in Operation Dewey Canyon, like their predecessors in Operations Delaware and Somerset Plain, only lost tactically. The first clue for the Marines should have been apparent when sizable enemy forces attacked practically every LZ and FSB as Marines boarded their helicopters to leave. That sendoff under fire in no way indicated a defeated enemy, and while the 9th Marines achieved all operational objectives, the self-congratulatory posturing among senior officers in I CTZ and MACV did not mesh with reality. Less than two months after the March 18 retrograde movement terminated, the 6th and 9th NVA Infantry Regiments, the 67th Artillery Regiment, and an assortment of support units had returned to the area and in no time were operating near full strength—the NVA still controlled the Valley of Death and would continue to do so unless permanent “boots on the ground” stopped them. Outsiders like the 9th Marines and the 101st Airborne Division could visit the valley, but they could not and did not remain. That was the inescapable Law of the Valley—it was “Charlie’s Law,” and he enforced the edict with unyielding determination at the point of a gun. Consequently, as in Operation Delaware a year earlier, any long-term success in Dewey Canyon proved to be negligible.