by Tom Clancy
Several flights of close support aircraft arrived shortly after that, and the airborne forward air controller began to put strikes on the enemy position. Afterward, C Company was able to advance far enough to reach the point squad and recover the dead and wounded.
During the air strikes, it proved possible to lift in B Company, and they were able to link up with C Company. By nightfall, and after hundreds of rounds of artillery and mortar fire and many more air strikes (including napalm), both companies had advanced approximately 300 meters inside the woodline, several NVA had been killed, and their position had been overrun, while our troops had suffered fifteen to twenty casualties. A couple of captured NVA soldiers revealed during interrogation that they were part of a battalion of the 2nd NVA Division. Their division had moved into the area two to three weeks earlier and now occupied the lower ridgeline.
Throughout the night, we continued to defend our two companies with close artillery support, while at the same time pounding the area farther down the ridge with air strikes and artillery fire. Throughout the night, periodic enemy mortar fire was received from Hill 1338, which dominated the ridgeline. This was the terrain over which our two companies would have to advance the next morning.
Before movement began the next morning, October 29, it was decided to send a recon patrol up Hill 1338 to determine if it was occupied. Before they'd gotten a third of the way up, the patrol was pinned down by enemy fire, but they were able to disengage and returned to report that the fire was coming from an enemy position constructed with concentric and interconnecting trench lines.
Based on this report and contact the previous evening, it was obvious that we were up against more than a battalion of NVA — and maybe a regiment. All this information was reported to Division, along with our assessment that reinforcements were definitely needed: All indications were that a major battle was in the making.
In the meantime, the best thing our battalion could do was get a third company up on that ridgeline and try to clear it far enough back to protect the airfield (where reinforcements would have to land) from direct enemy fire. While we were doing this, we could attempt to keep the NVA forces on Hill 1338 under control by fire until a major attack could be mounted against them.
Division bought our recommendation, and the next morning, October 30, the third company, A Company, was lifted up to the ridgeline. Throughout the day while the 3rd/12th pushed down the ridgeline, with two companies in the lead, advanced elements from the First Brigade, our parent brigade, began arriving, along with advanced elements from its other two organic battalions. Next day, the two companies pushing down the ridge were only able to advance a couple of kilometers, even with the assistance of continuing air strikes. Several very intense engagements were fought, some at very close range. (One sergeant won the Distinguished Service Cross when he used a shotgun with double-0 buckshot to fight off an NVA squad charging directly at the company command element.)
Searches of dead NVA revealed that some of them were carrying photos of girlfriends and canteens taken from soldiers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade that had been killed in that same area in June. These discoveries enraged our own soldiers, and increased their determination to make the NVA pay a high price for the Americans they'd killed earlier on this same battleground.
By late afternoon, the First Brigade headquarters had arrived, and they were now in charge. On the following day, another battalion from the First Brigade, the 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry, had also closed. Convoys of heavy artillery (155mm and 8-inch) from Division were also on the way.
On November 1, the 3rd/8th Infantry was inserted farther down the ridgeline, a little farther to the south on Hill 837. This put them directly astride the infiltration route supposedly blocked by drums of persistent CS gas. During the insertion, the LZ was hot, and several soldiers were killed or wounded, including the battalion commander. Nevertheless, support from air strikes and helicopter gunships made it possible for the entire battalion to close at its new location before darkness. The 3rd/8th Infantry then found itself heavily engaged, under siege, and isolated from reinforcements for the next few days. They were unable to get replacements in or to evacuate its casualties and dead. Every helicopter that approached the LZ was either shot up or shot down.
During this period, their defensive perimeter was penetrated several times, leaving little doubt that the enemy's intent was to overrun and wipe out the battalion.
Finally, Arc Lights were brought in — flights of nine B-52 bombers dumping hundreds of tons of 500- and 750-pound bombs — and the siege was broken. This gave the battalion the opportunity to bring in much-needed replacements and to evacuate casualties (the dead had to be brought out in cargo nets slung underneath Hueys). The intensity of this action made it apparent that the 3rd/8th Infantry was likely facing another regiment-size unit from the 2nd NVA Division. In fact, the intelligence folks were saying that the entire 2nd NVA Division could well be deployed in those mountains, with the objective of taking Dak To and advancing farther down the road to Kontum. Success in this would give them control over the major routes leading through the Central Highlands, with a straight shot on to Pleiku. Once there, they'd control most of the Central Highlands.
Reinforcements continued to pour in, and by the fourth of November, three U.S. brigades, reinforced by twelve battalions of artillery, were fighting in the Dak To area. The battle for Dak To was turning into one of the largest and bloodiest battles of the war. It lasted until near Christmas.
Some of the heaviest fighting was still to come.
After clearing most of the ridgeline, our battalion was given the mission to seize Hill 1338. Our plan of attack called for A and C Companies to attack up separate ridgelines, with the Recon Platoon (approximately fifty soldiers) in the center and maintaining contact between the two companies. Operating under the assumption that the 2nd NVA Division headquarters was located there, we decided to place continuous artillery fire on the hill's summit. Our minimal hope was to neutralize its effectiveness until we could get to the top.
The attack itself turned out to be a trenchline-by-trenchline fight, lasting three days, day and night. The NVA had rung the entire mountain with interconnecting bands of trenches, dug six to seven feet deep. Inside the trenches, they'd carved out little seats of dirt so their soldiers could sit with their backs facing downhill toward the advancing companies. At each position was a case of 82mm mortar rounds. They'd take up a round, strike the fuse on the ammunition box, and fling the round back over their heads toward our advancing troops. It was literally raining mortar rounds.
These positions were so secure that artillery fire had little effect on them, unless a round by chance landed directly in one of the narrow trenchlines. The most effective weapon turned out to be napalm flown in by A-4 Skyraider propeller-driven airplanes. Skyraidcrs were slow, but very accurate, and the troops loved them. Much of the napalm was brought in "danger close" — fifty to one hundred meters in front of the advancing troops. This resulted in some casualties to our own troops — but by choice; the alternative was worse.
When we finally reached the summit, we discovered that a few of the NVA troops who remained there had actually been chained to trees to make sure they staved and fought. We also discovered that, sure enough, the 2nd NVA Division headquarters had been located there. By then, what was left of the division had withdrawn down the backside of the mountain into the valley, but the area was by no means secured.
One of the more memorable experiences during my tour occurred later that evening at the Dak To airfield. For several days, a steady stream of C- 130s had been landing day and night, bringing in unit reinforcements and ammo (one of them had already been destroyed by mortar fire), and I had gone down to meet and orient ten just-arriving replacements, about to go to C Company on Hill 1338—a pair of lieutenants straight out of Officer Candidate School, two new sergeants, and six privates. As they were off-loading from a C-130, a helicopter was also arriving, carrying a cargo net
loaded with soldiers' bodies to a Graves Registration Collection Point near the C-130. There the casualties would be placed in body bags and then transloaded to the C-130. As the helo was maneuvering to set the load down, something went wrong and the load was accidentally dropped about eight feet onto the tarmac. The crunching of bodies and breaking of bones had to leave an indelible impression on the new replacements.
As soon as the helicopter moved off, I gathered the new replacements, welcomed them to the battalion, and gave them an orientation about on-and off-loading from a helicopter. 1 then wished them good luck and told them that when they arrived (after a ten-minute flight) they would be met and welcomed either by the company commander or, most likely, by the first sergeant.
Except for the two new lieutenants, and possibly the NCOs, none of them had met until three days earlier, when they'd been in-processed at brigade rear at Pleiku. There they'd received their orientations, drawn their gear, and zeroed their weapons. And now they were only ten minutes away from combat.
This was the way the replacement system worked in Vietnam. Replacements came in as individuals and not as units. In units, soldiers get to know each other well before they have to fight, and they develop relationships based on mutual respect, trust, and confidence — relationships that often endure a lifetime. Forming and completing training as a unit before commitment to combat is far more effective in every sense than an individual replacement system.
They reached their company on Hill 1338 and were integrated into its ranks as the company was preparing its night defensive positions.
Next morning, after dropping off much-needed ammunition, the first helicopter carried back the bodies of one of the two new lieutenants, a sergeant, and three of the privates to where they had arrived some twelve hours before. During their first night in combat they'd made the supreme sacrifice, even before they'd met all the members of their units.
The next day, as we swept over the ridge and down into the valleys that led to the backside, we found some amazing things: There was a swinging bridge, at least a quarter of a mile long, built underneath the triple-canopy jungle, so it could not be observed from the air. The NVA would use it to rush reinforcements back and forth between various battle positions. A dug-in hospital complex had been constructed along a stream in a valley on the backside of the mountain. It was so well-concealed that it was discovered only when a man from the point squad fell into a covered fighting position. A search of the area revealed complete underground operating rooms and enough body parts in a pile to fill a small truck.
We also learned that the NVA had taken far more casualties in the battle than the eighty or so that we'd taken in capturing Hill 1338.
About this time came the climax of another action that was part of the fight for Hill 1338: On an adjoining ridgeline about two kilometers to the west was a dug-in NVA gun position that for a few days had been shooting at the ammunition dump down at Dak To, so far without hitting it. From its "crack," we thought it was a 57mm recoilless rifle, well-concealed and protected in a cave. The gunner would fire only six rounds or so a day, obviously hoping he wouldn't be detected.
A reconnaissance patrol had been sent to the area where he was believed to be located, but hadn't found his position. For some reason he did not fire while the patrol was in the area. After that, brigade headquarters assumed the mission of neutralizing him; they leveled an eight-inch howitzer and fired directly at the shooter's position — but had no more luck than the recon patrol.
He continued to shoot, but not daily, and he varied the time on those days he did fire, then pulled the weapon back into the cave before counterfire could be placed on his position.
After a few days of this cat-and-mouse, he finally hit an ammo bunker filled with 155mm rounds — causing an explosion of something like 1,100 tons of various calibers of ammunition, including 8-inch and 175mm.
From my location on the 1,000-foot-high ridgeline, it looked and felt like an atomic explosion, with the mushroom cloud blossoming 1,000 feet above us.
A couple of moments after it went off, I called my Leavenworth friend, Maury Edmonds, who was still the brigade S-3, and said, "Maury, did you just get nuked? It looks like it from my location."
"I don't know what happened," he answered, "but there's eight-inch and 175mm unexploded shells lying all over this area."
The explosion was so intense that it caved in many of the bunkers, and it took days to clean up the mess, and several ammunition convoys to restock the ammo.
After the battle for Hill 1338, a lot of fighting was still going on throughout the brigade area of operation, and my battalion was given the mission to secure Hill 660, near the intersection of the Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnamese border. It also turned out to be a very hot area, and we continued to be involved daily in significant contacts until the twenty-seventh of December, our first day in a long time without enemy contact.
At this time some of the reinforcing units that had arrived at the beginning of the battle began redeploying elsewhere within the division area of operations. The First Brigade, with its three organic battalions, would now assume responsibility for the mopping-up operation, as well as security for the entire Dak To area of operation.
All our units had fought magnificently, and we were very proud of our accomplishments — essentially, thwarting the 2nd NVA Division's plans for taking control of the Central Highlands and the major infiltration route that would have permitted them either to cut Vietnam in two all the way to the coast or turn south toward Kontum and Pleiku.
I have never known a more dedicated and selfless group of men: men who were motivated for the right reasons and who were willing to lay their lives on the line for our freedom. We were fighting for what we believed in, what we thought was right, and 1 can never recall a time when a single soldier refused to fight or showed cowardice in the face of the enemy.
Near the end of the war, newspapers in the States carried stories of pot-smoking, rapes, and fraggings of officers and NCOs. None of that happened in my unit.
After the battle, the 3/12 Infantry received a Presidential Unit Citation for its accomplishments, and many individual soldiers received medals for heroism. When General Westmoreland visited our battalion around Christmas, he told us that our battalion had seen more combat than any other battalion in Vietnam.
IN retrospect I would like to emphasize our respect for the NVA soldiers. They were outstanding fighters, who had little material support beyond what they carried on their backs. They knew how to survive, and they were tough.
On the other hand, it's hard for me to understand the ways they chose to motivate their troops to fight. Or at least their ways were alien to our culture.
If they had one weakness, it was in their noncommissioned officers' corps. They neither trained nor trusted their NCOs with enough authority to exercise flexibility in reacting to changing battlefield situations. I'm baffled by a culture whose leaders will chain their troops to trees to make sure they remain in position and fight. It is equally hard to understand a culture where political indoctrination forms the basis for motivation.
Every NVA soldier carried in his combat pack a small bag of marijuana wrapped in plastic. Before each battle, the troops would assemble to hear a lecture by the political officer (one for each company). As part of this preparation process, everyone would smoke the marijuana. You could often smell the aroma a good distance away from their attack position, and you knew they were ready and coming when you started smelling it and started hearing the bugles blowing.
Once they'd launched, they stuck to their attack plan — without any obvious ability to change it — until they had either suffered so heavily they could not continue or had been ordered to withdraw.
During the Battle of Dak To of November and December 1967, we were involved in almost continuous daily fighting, yet we had inflicted heavy casualties on the 2nd NVA Division, forcing it to withdraw into their Cambodian and Laotian sanctuaries for refitting.
&n
bsp; During this same period, the Special Forces detachments in the Central Highlands reaped the benefits of their Village Defense Program efforts to organize and direct the Montagnard tribesmen. Their outstanding work denied the Viet Cong supplies and recruits from the area tribes, and reduced the Viet Cong's capability primarily to small-unit activities such as occasional ambushes and weapons attacks.
The main threat, however, still remained: the NVA units using the Ho Chi Minh Trail to infiltrate into the "sanctuary" and resupply areas located in Laos and Cambodia, and from there directly into Vietnam, a one-night march.
In response to the change in mission assigned to Special Forces in 1965—"border surveillance and control, operations against infiltration routes, and operations against VC war zones and base areas" — most Special Forces camps had been relocated closer to the border near the main infiltration routes. Because their activities disrupted the NVA, they were prime targets. That meant in practice that they became vulnerable to attack by battalion- or regiment-size units at any time.
Two years earlier, there had been six SF A-Detachments (at Ben Het, Dak Pek, Dak Seang, Dak Sut, Poly Klang, and Plei Me) in what was now the First Brigade's operational area. All had been heavily involved in organizing and training the Montagnard tribesmen. But by January 1968, only Ben Het, Dak Pek, and Plei Me remained.
Although all of them had been well fortified, Dak Seang had suffered heavily during a three-week siege (all resupply had to be air-dropped), and the camp was closed. Dak Sut and Poly Klang, subjected to repeated attacks, had also been closed.