A Shau Valor

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A Shau Valor Page 33

by Thomas R. Yarborough


  While those aging survivors will forever remember their lost friends, most cannot recall the strategy behind the specific operations that hurled them into combat in the A Shau, operations that repeatedly sent them into the shadowy valley over the course of nearly a decade. Most of those distant campaigns—Delaware, Dewey Canyon, Massachusetts Striker, Apache Snow, and Texas Star—went down in American history as successes, although after 40 years, numerous historians now regard the operations as short-term expedients that accomplished little in stopping a determined enemy from occupying a vital piece of real estate. The problem was the lack of a coherent strategy, the limited objectives, and the shortsighted execution. The main flaws were clear from the outset, like periodically attempting to neutralize the A Shau without occupying and holding the ground, then trying the same tactic again six months later—and expecting a different result. For that reason the various campaigns in the valley did not achieve their objectives, but as historian John Correll cogently notes, it is essential to remember that “North Vietnam was fighting a war. The United States was sending signals.”2 Those signals notwithstanding, one must ask how MACV could have hoped to force Hanoi into backing off without eliminating the strategic A Shau Valley from the equation, certainly not by a stratagem that periodically reacted by poking a finger in a hole in the dike. That misstep was not just a miscalculation—it amounted to intellectual negligence by military leaders who unfortunately became enamored with their own rectitude.

  In that self-imposed ethos of infallible judgment among tone-deaf senior U.S. leaders and planners, war in the A Shau—always inherently more subjective than objective—proved to be both perplexing and unmanageable. American efforts around the Valley of Death came to resemble periodic production-line campaigns where success was measured by statistics. Body counts, kill ratios, overly optimistic after action reports, and bomb damage assessments produced perceptions of success and only the illusion of victory—Operation Delaware prevented a second Tet attack on Hue; Dewey Canyon shut down infiltration along Route 922; Apache Snow defeated the communists on Hamburger Hill; without the success of Ripcord the 1972 Easter offensive would have been advanced a full year. Such bravado and counterfactual thinking, linked to false standards of success, fooled many into believing U.S. forces were winning the war in the A Shau.

  Furthermore, given Hanoi’s commitment to long-range objectives and a willingness to absorb punishing losses, North Vietnam repeatedly demonstrated the institutional fortitude to outlast the United States. Despite America’s enormous expenditure of firepower and men, MACV’s strategy for winning in the A Shau was neither realistic nor focused enough to ensure a successful outcome. Only taking and holding territory could have done that, something that was never seriously considered by American leadership. In effect, self-delusion substituted for strategy.

  After the A Shau, one Columbia University professor astutely observed that when it comes to the use of force, “America should either bite the bullet or duck, but not nibble.” That notion was reiterated by Army Chief of Staff General John A. Wickham’s views on the A Shau in particular and Vietnam in general when he stated, “Once we commit force, we must be prepared to back it up as opposed to just sending soldiers into operations for limited goals.”3 MACV failed on most counts in the A Shau Valley and never did devise a strategy appropriate to the war at hand—they nibbled. Why that happened will remain the subject of rancorous discussion for years to come.

  On reexamination, the 1970 battle for Fire Support Base Ripcord encapsulates in microcosm the long, bloody U.S. effort in the A Shau. The operations officer of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry at Ripcord, Major Herb Koenigsbauer, offered a profound and emotional analysis that resonates even today:

  I cannot reconcile in my mind that the chain of command could not foresee the impact the opening of Ripcord would have on the NVA. The potential for a major enemy response must have been realized at the highest levels. If the political climate was so clear to people above battalion and brigade that evacuation was the only viable option when the enemy massed around the firebase, it makes no sense that the battalion was ever committed to taking Ripcord. There had been no change in the political situation from the time we were ordered to take Ripcord and the time we were ordered to evacuate. To write Ripcord off made clear to those of us fighting the war that there was no national commitment to fight and win … The evacuation saved U.S. lives, but it was also one more step towards our tactical, operational, and strategic defeat in Vietnam.4

  Yet in no way does that defeat reflect on the grunts, marines, and airmen who did the fighting and the dying. Their extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of the armed forces of the United States. They consecrated the ground known as the Valley of Death with their blood, sweat, tears, and sacrifices. Retrospectively, Admiral Chester W. Nimitz’s observation about Marines on Iwo Jima applies equally well to the gallant men who fought in the A Shau Valley: “Uncommon valor was a common virtue.”

  A view of the infamous A Shau Valley looking south. American forces fought along the valley’s forbidding terrain and in perpetually miserable weather for nine years.—National Archives

  An aerial view of Special Forces Camp A Shau looking east to west. The runway can be seen in the foreground with the triangular-shaped camp in the upper center. The camp fell to the NVA on 10 March 1966.—U.S. Air Force

  Majors Bernie Fisher and Jump Myers photographed in front of their A-1E following the miraculous rescue at Camp A Shau. For his actions on 10 March 1966, Fisher was awarded the Medal of Honor.—U.S. Air Force

  Troopers from the 1st Cavalry Division combat assault into the west wall of the A Shau during Operation Delaware.—U.S. Army

  A flight of Air Force A-1H Skyraiders escorting an HH-53 Jolly Green on a sortie over Laos. Both aircraft teamed up to run some of the most dangerous rescue missions of the war in Target Oscar 8, just a few miles west of the A Shau Valley.—U.S. Air Force

  Major General John Tolson, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, confers with his counterpart, Major General Ngo Quang Truong, 1st ARVN Division, and an unidentified aide during Operation Delaware.—U.S. Army

  A mortar crew from Bravo Company’s 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division preparing to evacuate a landing zone in the A Shau on 23 April 1968 during Operation Delaware. Note the crashed Huey just to their rear.—Bettmann/Corbis

  When no landing zone was available, UH-1 Hueys often rescued SOG or Project Delta personnel using any means available. Here, members of a reconnaissance team ride out on ladders after an emergency extraction from Laos.—Richard Madore

  A CH-47 Chinook with supplies suspended in a net beneath its fuselage delivers its load to 101st Airborne troopers on Fire Support Base Berchtesgaden in the A Shau Valley during Operation Somerset Plain.—U.S. Army

  Marines from 3rd Battalion, 9th Marines, slog their way up the steep slopes of Tiger Mountain during Operation Dewey Canyon, a search and destroy sweep through the north end of the A Shau.—U.S. Marine Corps

  Route 922 on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. This bomb-cratered segment was located in the northwest corner of the infamous A Shau Valley.—Author’s collection

  Marines stop to inspect some of the 606 enemy rifles captured in the A Shau on 28 February 1969 during Operation Dewey Canyon.—U.S. Marine Corps

  Marine Corps 1st Lieutenant Wesley L. Fox earned the Medal of Honor during a ferocious firefight in the A Shau Valley on 22 February 1969.—1st Battalion 9th Marines

  This is the view that greeted Screaming Eagle troopers as they waited for orders to advance yet one more time up Dong Ap Bia—a place they would dub Hamburger Hill.—U.S. Army

  During Operation Apache Snow a Screaming Eagle platoon leader talks on his PRC-25 radio while one of his troopers engages the enemy with his M-16.—U.S. Army

  Troopers from the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, 101st Airborne Division, assault an enemy bunker near the top of Hamburger Hill.—Bettma
nn/Corbis

  Scribbled on the bottom of a C-rations carton, this iconic sign gave the battle for Hill 937 its unflattering name.—U.S. Army

  Weary troopers from the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry, collapse on the top of bloody Hamburger Hill after finally securing the summit on 20 May 1969 during Operation Apache Snow.—U.S. Army

  This English version of a 2009 memorial plaque placed on Hamburger Hill by the “People’s Committee of A Luoi” uses bombastic rhetoric to tell their version of the battle for Dong Ap Bia. A heavy dose of propaganda permeates the text, seen at right.—John Podlaski

  A close up view of a camouflaged enemy bunker on Hill 996, just a few kilometers south of the infamous Hamburger Hill. These dugouts all had a distinctive odor the NVA always seemed to impregnate everything with: a smell of cordite, rotting fish, and untended urinals.—U.S. Army

  A patrol from the Screaming Eagles motors along a rough trail toward Ta Bat in mid June, 1969 during Operation Montgomery Rendezvous.—U.S. Army

  In the heat of battle, Cobra pilots on occasion rescued fellow fliers. In this shot Loren Gee hitches a ride on the ammo bay door of an AH-1 after his Cobra was shot down in the Valley of Death on 19 February 1970.—Author’s collection

  During a sapper attack in the A Shau at Fire Support Base Maureen, Private Kenneth M. Kays, a medic with the 1st Battalion, 506th, 101st Airborne Division, earned the Medal of Honor on 7 May 1970 for saving the lives of his wounded comrades in Delta Company.—U.S. Army

  Members of a battery from the 2nd Battalion, 11th Artillery, 101st Airborne Division, man the 155mm guns on Fire Support Base Ripcord, July 1970.—U.S. Army

  An Air Force OV-10 Bronco, call sign Covey, marks a target in Laos. The Covey FACs flying the Prairie Fire mission supported SOG reconnaissance teams on their dangerous journeys into the A Shau Valley.—U.S. Air Force

  A patrol from 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry, returns through concertina wire strung around Fire Support Base Ripcord on 7 July 1970.—U.S. Army

  In this shot of the rugged west wall of the A Shau, the “1706” is the case file designation for the Huey crew lost on 18 February 1971 during the attempted rescue of RT Intruder. In June 2015, Cliff Newman returned to the site to resume the search for his missing comrades.—JTF-FA photo

  Heavy black smoke billows from Ripcord on 18 July 1970 after a CH-47 Chinook crashed into the 105mm howitzer battery on the southeast corner of the FSB. Enemy machine gunners at the base of the hill brought the Chinook down.—U.S. Army

  Troopers from Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry, refill canteens at a stream along the east wall of the A Shau.—U.S. Army

  A Huey Dustoff lands on Ripcord to evacuate the wounded.—U.S. Army photo

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  This project could never have been undertaken without the support and encouragement of many friends, colleagues, researchers, and scholars across this wonderful country. I am indebted to all of them. I especially want to thank those who shared with me their own stories and writings: in particular Jim Butler, John Carter, Loren Gee, Jim Mitschke, Cliff Newman, Evan Quiros, Robby Robinson, Mike Sprayberry, and Don Taylor.

  Still more people helped in other ways. I benefitted greatly from numerous individuals who assisted with tracking down hundreds of primary source documents. Steve Sherman and John Plaster, two Special Forces veterans and well-known Vietnam scholars, generously shared their data with me by bringing after action reports and valor citations to my attention. Rick Blythe from the Ripcord Association, Gary Roush from the Vietnam Helicopter Pilots Association, and Cal Rollins from the Special Operations Association guided me through the mountains of literature on operations in the A Shau Valley. Information and insights provided by Rick Blythe, Jason Hardy, Bill Kindred, and Gary Robb have been invaluable.

  My endeavor has been greatly facilitated by the tireless efforts of staff members in various government agencies and universities. I owe a special debt to Dr. Fred Allison, chief of the Marine Corps Oral History Archives, for providing hours of taped interviews with participants in Operation Dewey Canyon. The same holds true for Barry Spink and Archie DiFante of the Air Force Historical Research Agency, Sharon Edgington at the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, and Dr. Janet McDonnell, senior historian at the Defense Intelligence Agency. Thanks also to Tim Nenninger, Holly Reed, Marcus Martin, and all the dedicated folks at the National Archives for their assistance and patience as I proceeded to drive them to fits of distraction with my constant demands for more information and photographs. I am also beholden to the U.S. Army Center of Military History and to the Texas Tech University Vietnam Center and Archive for allowing me access to their outstanding databases. And a special ‘hats off’ to Professor Ian Ward and graduate assistant Jeff Huewinkel in the Department of Geography at George Mason University who were instrumental in creating maps for A Shau Valor, and to Dr. Richard Diecchio, geology professor at GMU, who graciously spent time tutoring me on the geological origins of the A Shau Valley.

  I chose Casemate from among the publishers who bid for A Shau Valor because of the company’s impeccable reputation for producing top quality military history books. I am particularly grateful to Casemate’s editorial director, Steve Smith, for guiding and nurturing this project. The other Casemate personnel who assisted in the book’s publication—publicity director Tara Lichterman and production editor Libby Braden—were committed and supportive from the beginning. Throughout the project they worked with unbounded energy and efficiency.

  Behind the scenes three individuals have played key roles in bringing this manuscript to life. Thanks to Gary Jacobson, the “poet laureate of Vietnam,” for inspiring me and allowing me to reprint his gut-wrenching poem, A Shau Ripcord. Also, I offer my profound thanks to a trusted friend: former Air Force nurse, Vietnam veteran, and Da Nang colleague Naomi Fisher, who read the manuscript carefully and critically—her moral compass always pointed true north and helped keep me on track. Finally, every step of the way I relied on the good judgment and counsel of my longtime literary agent, Ethan Ellenberg, who backed the project with enthusiasm from concept to completion. I thank them all. As the incomparable New York Yankees manager Casey Stengel said after his team won the 1958 World Series, “I couldn’t a done it without ’em.”

  NOTES

  PREFACE

  1 Arnand S. Khati, Jim Corbett of India (Noida, India: Pelican Creations International, 2008), p. 103.

  2 T.R. Yarborough, Da Nang Diary: A Forward Air Controller’s Gunsight View of Flying with SOG (Havertown, PA: Casemate Publishers, 2013), p. 24.

  3 Keith W. Nolan, Ripcord: Screaming Eagles under Siege, Vietnam 1970 (New York: Ballantine Books, 2000), p. 4.

  4 L.V. Averyanov, “Phytogeographic Review of Vietnam,” Komarovia, March 2003, pp. 3–6.

  5 Minority Groups in the Republic of Vietnam, (Washington, DC: Department of the Army Pamphlet 550–105, 1966), p. 9–6.

  6 Shelby L. Stanton, Green Berets at War: U.S. Army Special Forces in Southeast Asia 1956–1975, (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1985), pp. 38–41.

  7 Nikolas Arhem, In the Sacred Forest: Landscape, Livelihood and Spirit Beliefs Among the Katu of Vietnam (Götenberg, Sweden: Götenberg University, SANS, 2009), p. 12.

  8 Ibid, p. 13.

  9 Ibid, p. 15.

  10 Ibid, p. 17.

  11 Yarborough, Da Nang Diary, p. 119.

  12 John Prados, The Blood Road: The Ho Chi Minh Trail and the Vietnam War (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 1999), pp. 9–10.

  13 Michael D. McComb, “Fading Photographs from My Mind’s Own Album,” NamVet Newsletter, November 8, 1994, p. 91.

  14 John Laurence, The Cat From Hue: A Vietnam War Story (New York: Publicaffairs, 2002), p. 501.

  15 Bernard B. Fall, Hell in a Very Small Place: The Siege of Dien Bien Phu (Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press, 2002), pp. 431–432.

  16 Fredrick Longevall, Embers of War: The Fall of an Empire and the Making of America’s Vietnam (New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks
, 2013), pp. 488–489.

  17 For works that explore this battle, see Harold G. Moore and Joseph L. Galloway, We Were Soldiers Once … and Young (New York: Random House, 1992); Shelby Stanton, The 1st Cav in Vietnam: Anatomy of a Division (Novato, CA: Presidio Press, 1999).

  18 Bernard B. Fall, Street Without Joy: The French Debacle in Indochina (Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 1994), p. 34.

  CHAPTER 1: INTO THE VALLEY OF DEATH

  1 Mark W. McChord and Nguyen Thi Dieu, Culture and Customs of Vietnam (Westport: Greenwood Press, 2001), pp. 9–16.

  2 Robert S. McNamara with Brian VanDeMark, In Retrospect: The Tragedy and Lessons of Vietnam (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 49.

  3 Ibid, p. 50.

  4 Malcolm W. Browne, The New Face of War (New York: Bantam, 1986), pp. 79–85.

  5 Colin L. Powell and Joseph E. Persico, My American Experience (New York: Random House, 1995), p. 83.

  6 Ibid, p. 89.

  7 Stanton, Green Berets at War, p. 65.

  8 1st Special Forces Group, Monthly Operational Summary, 20 Nov 1963–20 Dec 1963.

  9 McNamara, In Retrospect, pp. 84–85.

 

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