The Fall of Camp A-555: The Vietnamese Army are one step closer to victory... (Vietnam Ground Zero Military Thrillers Book 4)

by Eric Helm

  “I was wondering about that. What’s the scoop?”

  “Both Krung and the lieutenant say the Hueys came in unannounced just before we flew over. One of them brought in a conex that’s been outfitted as a mobile field command center. It’s got its own generator, air conditioner and a radio big enough to talk to Mars. Krung says a general came with it.”

  “Christ! They’ve got a general officer in there?” asked Gerber. The situation seemed to be getting worse.

  “Apparently so, sir. Sergeant Krung says he heard Dung tell some of his men to take the general and his men to the team house inside the redoubt. Evidently they’re being held there, along with the chopper crews. I did see a couple of VC enter and leave the team house, but I was unable to positively ascertain the presence of any prisoners there.”

  “Sergeant Krung, did you see this general? Do you know who he is?” asked Gerber.

  “Krung not able to see. But hear Dung call man general several times. Also man call self general. Later try get close team house and see, but too many VC like Sergeant Tony say. But hear voices there, American and Vietnamese.”

  “I wonder who in hell it is,” mused Gerber.

  “Captain, I’ve been thinking,” said Fetterman. “Do you suppose it could be our boy? After all, Westmoreland is supposed to be in the area.”

  “No, Master Sergeant. It can’t be. The report from Crinshaw said Westmoreland was in an Otter, remember? Not flying around in a couple of Hueys with his own private mobile command center.”

  “The man is still a general, sir,” Fetterman reminded him. “A four-star one at that. He could have called for the Hueys to pick him up, and we’d never have known about it. Besides, who else would be dumb enough to fly into the camp unannounced and get himself captured?”

  “I hardly think that’s an appropriate way for you to be talking about general officers, Master Sergeant, especially the commander of MACV.”

  “Yes, sir. I only meant that it’s the sort of thing a general would do, sir. Not announce himself, I mean.”

  Gerber knew what Fetterman had meant, but he let it pass.

  “After completing my reconnaissance of the helicopters and mobile field command center,” Fetterman continued, “I proceeded to check the communications bunker, command post, and fire control tower. In each case, I found them occupied by anywhere from two to five enemy soldiers, precluding a detailed, close reconnaissance of the targets. I then proceeded in the direction of the redoubt, intending to recon that. While passing the POL bunker, I encountered Staff Sergeant Krung, who apprised me of his Intelligence, and the two of us proceeded on to the redoubt.

  “While conducting our reconnaissance of the redoubt, we became aware that two VC were apparently sited so as to prevent someone’s exit from the southeast machine gun bunker in the redoubt. Assuming that there were friendly forces in the bunker, we eliminated the enemy soldiers, thereby permitting Lieutenant Novak to egress from the bunker and join Sergeant Krung and myself. The three of us then proceeded to my original point of entry into the camp and exfiltrated through the drainage culvert and back across the minefield, again following the route left clear for E and E purposes.”

  “You left out one thing, didn’t you, Tony?” Gerber asked quietly, needing to know the answer but afraid to come right out and ask the real question.

  “She’s alive, sir,” said Fetterman. “At least she was half an hour ago. I’m afraid Dung and the NVA have got her over in his hootch. I don’t think she’s enjoying the visit much. They’re not exactly holding a political discussion.”

  Gerber felt the bottom drop out of his stomach. It seemed as if the trees were suddenly pushing in on him, the whole jungle threatening to crush him. He’d insisted Morrow stay in camp because she’d be safe there. He’d been wrong, and because of that Dung and his cronies were now doing God only knew what to her. Probably the very thing Gerber had tried to protect her against.

  Gerber took a deep breath and tried vainly to push the thought from his mind. If Morrow, if any of the prisoners, were to have any chance at all, he had to keep a clear head and keep his mind on the immediate problem of how to get the camp back without getting all the prisoners killed in the process.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s go rejoin the others. Once we’ve filled them in, we’ll try to route a call through Moc Hoa to Lieutenant Colonel Bates and see if he’s got any ideas on how we’re going to get those people out of there and get our camp back.”

  CHAPTER 12

  U.S. ARMY SPECIAL FORCES CAMP B-41, MOC HOA, RVN

  When Bocker put the call through to the camp at Moc Hoa, he was more than a little surprised that the radio operator at the other end answered him immediately and came through with such clarity.

  Afraid that if there were VC in the camp they might monitor radio traffic, Gerber had asked the pilot of the CH-47 to forward a request through Bates that the Moc Hoa team monitor a different frequency and expect the call sign Captain Queeg. After all, he was dealing with a mutiny of sorts, and he’d figured it was unlikely that any of the VC would be familiar with the movie or that anyone else in Vietnam would be using that particular call sign.

  What surprised Bocker was that such a roundabout method of communicating had apparently worked and that he was getting such good reception from one of the miserable radios he’d worked so hard to get back into operation. He’d managed to fix two of them now, and from what he could tell, they both seemed to be functioning fairly well. The rest of them were going to remain junk until he could get to the spare parts back in his tiny repair shop in the camp.

  Gerber had gotten an even bigger surprise when Bocker had passed him the handset. Moc Hoa had advised him that Crystal Ball, meaning Bates, was en route to Camp B-41 and had requested that Captain Queeg meet him there and brief him personally, if feasible. Air asset was standing by for that purpose.

  Gerber had acknowledged the request, and twenty minutes later, after a tricky nighttime pickup, he was aboard a Huey bound for Moc Hoa, along with Fetterman, Krung, Novak and Kepler, leaving the others at the LZ with Tyme in charge.

  Bates was waiting for them when they landed, having arrived only minutes before. Captain Dave Henderson, the Mike Force commander, was with him. He was an old friend, and Gerber greeted him warmly.

  “Colonel,” said Gerber, shaking Bates’s hand first, then Henderson’s. “Dave, you old warhorse. I figured they’d have sent you home by now.”

  “Had to extend,” said Henderson, smiling. “Can’t go home until they give me my own camp. Problem is Nha Trang thinks I’m doing such a fine job of rebuilding other people’s camps they wouldn’t give me my own to play with. Colonel Bates managed to get me the Mike Force assignment just before your boys had that little trouble over the P.O.W. business, but I had to extend to keep it. SFHQ was going to put me back on fill-in duty.”

  “Just keep right on extending,” joked Gerber, “and one of these days I’ll go back to the States and leave you my camp.”

  “Ugh!” said Henderson. “No, thanks. Not if I’m going to have to rebuild it for you again. I’ll stick with the Mike Force.”

  “Sergeant Major Taylor come out with you, sir?” asked Gerber, turning back to Bates. “I think we could probably use his advice on this one.”

  “Sergeant Major Taylor’s on emergency leave,” said Bates. “His nephew was killed up near An Khe. He’s accompanying the body home for burial.”

  Gerber came to a dead stop. “I’m sorry to hear that, sir. I didn’t know Sergeant Taylor had a nephew in Vietnam.”

  Bates nodded. “A nice-looking young kid from what I saw. He was a grenadier with the First Air Cavalry Division. I went up to the Eighty-Fifth Evac with him this morning to claim the remains. It sounds like you’ve been having a few problems while I was gone.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Gerber grimly. “If you don’t mind, I’d like to get a cup of coffee for my men and me before we tell you all about it. I brought Kepler along because he�
�s the Intel specialist. The rest have firsthand knowledge of the situation in the camp.”

  When they were all seated in the team house with heavy china mugs of strong black coffee before them, Gerber began his briefing, recounting to Bates the details of the radio call from Brigadier General Crinshaw, informing him of the loss of the Otter with General Westmoreland aboard.

  “That’s the most preposterous story I ever heard in my life,” exploded Bates. Then, seeing the look on Gerber’s face, he quickly continued. “I meant Crinshaw’s story, Mack, not yours. You acted in good faith and did the best you could to comply with stupid orders given you by a madman who needs close adult supervision.”

  Bates colored a little as the comment he’d just made sunk in. “Everybody please forget I said that. Even if it is true.”

  Kepler smiled.

  “Forget what, sir?” said Fetterman.

  Novak appeared to find something intensely interesting in his coffee cup.

  Krung leaned back in his chair, took a whetstone out of his pocket and, apparently dissatisfied with the job done by the self-sharpening sheath, began working on the edge of his combat knife.

  Henderson watched the show with mild amusement.

  There was a long silent pause, then Bates said, “What I meant was, it seems hard to believe that Westmoreland’s plane could have gone down without some official word coming through channels on it. At least by now.”

  “Are you saying you have no knowledge of the incident, sir?” asked Gerber.

  “None whatsoever, except for what little Major Pratt was able to tell me, and he got all his information from you. Apparently General Crinshaw left his office shortly after talking with you, without telling anybody where he was going or discussing the situation with anyone. Both Pratt and myself attempted to contact Major General Hull and find out what this mess is all about, but he seems to have pulled a vanishing act, too, and his XO is out of the country on R and R. I can’t find anyone who knows anything, and nobody seems to have heard anything about a missing general, Westmoreland or otherwise. I haven’t even been able to confirm that we’re missing an Otter. I contacted the Transportation Movement Control office, and some Air Force sergeant told me they couldn’t give out that information. When I pressed the issue, a bird colonel came on the line and told me to mind my own business,” Bates finished.

  “Well, somebody’s missing a general now,” said Gerber, “because he’s in my camp, and the VC have got him.”

  Novak and Krung each gave their account of the surprise assault on the camp and the betrayal of the VC infiltrators in the strike force, adding the bit about Dung being a VC Major and such particular details that they were aware of. When they had finished, Fetterman gave his account of his reconnaissance of the camp, including the linkup with Krung and Novak, and the additional details of the two Hueys and the mobile field command center modified conex.

  When they had finished, Bates rubbed his face and looked tired.

  “All right,” he said, “let’s take a look at what we know. Number one, the VC are definitely in control of the camp. They’ve got how many troops in there?”

  “Between three and four hundred,” put in Fetterman. “It was impossible to get an exact count, sir.”

  “Okay, we’ll assume the worst. Say four hundred. Number two, the VC show no inclination to leave the camp. In fact, it appears they’re hoping we’ll try to kick them out of there. That way they can slaughter their three hundred prisoners and claim they were all killed by us when we tried to retake the camp. Number three, one of those prisoners is a United States Army general, exact identity unknown but possibly the commander of MACV. Number four, another of those prisoners is a female member of the American press.

  “As soon as the Saigon press corps finds out about that one, every newspaper in the Western hemisphere will be hollering for our scalps. Number five, we’ve still got two hundred men in the field outside the camp, twiddling their thumbs and wondering what to do. Number six, nobody in Saigon seems to know what in hell is going on out here, so whatever we do, we’re going to have to do it with our own resources. And number seven, whatever we’re going to do, we’d better do it pretty damn fast before the VC decide to hustle our mysterious general out of there. I don’t think that they’re going to be satisfied with just shooting him along with all the rest of their prisoners. Not when they can take him to Hanoi for a show trial. Sooner or later, and probably sooner, they’re going to try and move him.”

  “Excuse me, Colonel,” said Novak, “but isn’t there one more thing you’re forgetting? What about the downed Otter?”

  “Right now that’s the least of our worries,” said Bates. “We can’t even prove for sure that there ever was a downed aircraft, let alone that Westmoreland was on board. We’ve only got General Crinshaw’s word for that and no confirmation from any quarter. If there was a plane, we’ll need an extensive air-and-ground search to locate it. In the meantime, we’ve definitely got a battalion of VC sitting in one of our A-Camps, holding an American general and a correspondent prisoner, along with a bunch of Vietnamese and Tai strikers and another bunch of local civilians. First we deal with that mess. Then we’ll worry about looking for missing airplanes. Now then, do any of you have any idea how we’re going to get our camp back without getting all those people killed? Because right now any idea is better than none, which is the sum total of what I’ve got.”

  There was long, uncomfortable silence. It was so quiet Bates imagined he could hear his watch ticking. He could hear one, but it might have been anybody’s in the room.

  “Vertical envelopment.”

  “What?” asked Bates.

  “Vertical envelopment,” Gerber repeated. “A combined air assault employing both heliborne and airborne troops, designed to strike the enemy with maximum surprise, stun him and then overwhelm him before he can carry out his plans to execute the prisoners or set up to properly defend the camp.”

  “The enemy is already set up to defend the camp. We built the defenses for him. Your team once repelled an attack by an entire regiment on that camp, and the defenses have been improved and strengthened several times since then,” Bates reminded him.

  “But we lost it to a battalion,” said Gerber. “We lost it because we weren’t prepared sufficiently to deal with a surprise assault from within the camp. Everything out there is set up to defend against an assault from outside the camp. Nothing is set up to resist an internal attack. Even the redoubt is just a last line of defense in case the camp is overrun.”

  “Granted, but the enemy had troops infiltrated into the camp. We don’t. They hit the camp from both inside and outside at once.”

  “Suppose we did the same.”

  “The objection remains,” said Bates. “They had agents inside the camp. We don’t.”

  “But suppose there was a way we could put people inside the camp? Suppose… Damn it, it’ll work,” said Gerber. “It has to.”

  “Explain yourself,” said Bates.

  “Coast along with me on this for a minute, sir,” said Gerber. “I haven’t figured out all the details yet, but it runs something like this. We use the men we’ve already got in the field to create a big diversion, a feint attack, outside the camp, probably along the west wall. That’ll draw the VC’s attention both outside the camp and away from the open area east of the camp.”

  “Continue,” said Bates.

  “Then we’ll put Hueys right into the camp. Each one will carry a squad-sized strike group tasked with a specific target. One to seize the command post, one to raid Dung’s quarters where Miss Morrow is being held, one to take the commo bunker, another one, maybe two, to take the redoubt and rescue the prisoners in the team house.”

  “That’s only thirty men. They won’t be able to hold any of it for more than five minutes.”

  “They won’t have to. As soon as they’ve got their targets secured, we’ll air assault a company directly into the middle of the camp. We’ve got a twelve
-hundred-foot runway cutting directly through the center of the damned place, and the VC will all be busy shooting at the diversion out west of the camp.”

  “Captain, mightn’t the incoming fire hit our own birds?” asked Fetterman.

  “The men outside the camp will have to lift their fire just before the helicopters go in. As soon as they’re clear, the diversionary force can resume firing. While the VC are busy dealing with the threat from without, the air assault company can hit them from within.”

  “Which will still leave you outnumbered by only about three and a half to one,” said Bates sourly.

  Gerber shook his head. “Henderson’s Mike Force is airborne qualified, right? So as soon as the air assault company is in, we’ll parachute the Mike Force into the paddy area east of the camp.”

  “That’s no good,” said Henderson. “They’d have to land in the open, within range of the guns on the east wall, and assault across open ground and through a minefield before they could storm the wall.”

  “That,” said Gerber, “is why we’ve got to take the command post.”

  “Sorry. I don’t follow you.”

  “After that last bit of trouble we had with infiltrators in the strike force, I had Sully Smith and Sam Anderson mine all the bunkers, gun emplacements and mortar pits with demolition charges. They can be fired remotely from a control panel hidden in the command post. Once the strike team takes the command post, they can open a gap in the wall and neutralize any fire you take from there. One of my men can lead the Mike Force through the minefield by following the path left clear for E and E purposes.”

  Henderson and Bates stared at Gerber, stunned.

  “You mined our own positions?” Bates asked slowly. “Is it that bad out there that you’ve got to do that sort of thing? Have you considered the political implications of such an action? What do you suppose our ARVN allies would say if they knew? Why, the camp commander would go absolutely ape.”