Fire in the Streets

by Eric Hammel

  As the main body of Company A passed the small graveyard in its path, two platoons of 1st Lieutenant Michael Thompson's Company C jumped off from Company A's left (north) rear. The open area was wider in Thompson's zone and there was absolutely no cover between one treeline and the other, so Thompson left his 2nd and 4th (weapons) platoons in the treeline to lay down covering fire for the assaulting 1st and 3rd platoons.

  Company C's assault had covered about half the distance to the enemy-held treeline when snipers directly ahead and within the large graveyard to the northeast began dropping individual American troopers with uncanny accuracy. The bulk of the kills, in fact, were from head shots. Compounding the problem were the high casualties among troopers who stopped to help their wounded comrades. Company C's two lead platoons had now lost their momentum and were pinned down in the middle of an open area under lethal fire.

  At that moment Captain Helvey, the Company A com­mander, was set up among the burial mounds in the little grave­yard. The Company A executive officer, 1st Lieutenant Anton Kalbli, was bringing the rear echelon forward. As Kalbli ap­proached the graveyard, the intense NVA fire relaxed a bit. Hel­vey was already positioning his machine guns to lay a base of fire along the treeline, but if the stalled lead platoon did not advance quickly, Company A would lose its momentary fire superiority. Helvey ordered Kalbli to advance to the stalled vanguard platoon and lead it the rest of the way into the enemy-held treeline. Kalbli ran forward in the open and, through sheer force of will, got the lead platoon moving again despite a surge in enemy fire. By about 1230, Company A's lead platoon was in the enemy-held treeline, carving a niche for itself in the NV trenches.

  As soon as Company C's attack had bogged down on the battalion left, Lieutenant Colonel Sweet had ordered his reserve company, Captain Richard Kasparzyk's Company D, to attack the enemy trenchline through Company C. Captain Kasparzyk left his weapons platoon and one rifle platoon to man a base of fire and personally led his two remaining platoons into the open field.

  Fortunately, a scoutship helicopter following the action from above was able to bring accurate machine-gun fire on the NVA trench line facing Company C and Company D. This allowed Captain Kasparzyk's two-platoon assault to get all the way into the enemy trench line. By 1330, the cavalry troopers had cleared the line in its entirety.

  After reorganizing, Company A and Company D began pushing their way almost due south through Thon Que Chu. By then, with the aid of scoutship helicopters from C/l/9 Cav, Lieutenant Colonel Sweet had been able to lay on ample helicop­ter support. Employing the precise air-ground coordination that was the hallmark of the 1st Cavalry Division, observers with the advancing ground elements were able to direct the reconnaissance scoutships against pinpoint targets in the dense undergrowth and trees.

  However, the gunships eventually ran out of fuel and ammu­nition and had to leave. Through the middle of the afternoon, the two cavalry companies pushed the NVA back an average of 300 meters before they linked up at a trail that bisected the hamlet.

  By 1630, Company C, Company B, and the battalion com­mand group had crossed the open area from Thon Lieu Coc Thuong to Thon Que Chu. During the late afternoon, while Company C and Company B mopped up bypassed NVA posi­tions, the 2/12 Cav medevacked nine dead, forty-eight wounded, and three prisoners. The NVA threw in mortar rounds from time to time during the late afternoon, and snipers were active around the entire periphery of the American-held area. At 1800, in failing light, the ongoing attack by Company A and Company D was halted, and the troops set in a night defensive perimeter.

  In the morning, the 2/12 Cav was to finish clearing Thon Que Chu and attack southward into the next hamlet, Thon La Chu. Unknown to Dick Sweet or any of his superiors, the Tri-Thien-Hue Front headquarters was in an American-built multi­story ferroconcrete bunker at the southern end of the village.

  Thon La Chu was the main staging area and transit point for NVA reinforcements and supplies bound for Hue. Most of the 5th NVA Regiment was guarding Thon La Chu. Indeed, the 2/12 Cav had engaged at least two battalions of the 5th NVA Regiment in Thon Que Chu.

  ***

  Chapter 22

  Lieutenant Colonel Dick Sweet's 2/12 Cav spent a relatively uneventful night in Thon Que Chu. The NVA fired four 82mm mortar rounds into the American battalion's perimeter at around 0300, but that was about it. For the many Air Cav troopers who had left their sleeping bags and blanket rolls behind the previous day, the worst aspect of the night was the cold, damp air.

  At first light, the Air Cav battalion began preparing to resume its attack southward through Thon Que Chu and on into Thon La Chu. At 0710, as preparations mounted, the American perimeter was subjected to a flurry of small-arms fire. In min­utes, the fire became increasingly—then unbelievably—intense and accurate. Company A snipers a few meters in front of the perimeter were kept busy shooting at NVA soldiers moving later­ally behind the NVA line. It became apparent that, in the dark, many NVA soldiers had woven a tight cordon around most of the 2/12 Cav's perimeter and that much of their fire was coming from within hand-grenade-throwing range.

  The enemy fire was so intense and so accurate that the battalion could not even begin to launch its attack; the 2/12 Cav was pinned within its perimeter. The supply of enemy troops seemed inexhaustible, as indeed, in relative terms, it was. Each time an NVA soldier fell, more NVA soldiers arrived to drag him to safety and replace him. As the hours passed, the enemy soldiers inched perceptibly closer. The pressure increased noticeably with each passing hour. By 1000, the American perimeter had been struck by as many as sixty 82mm mortar rounds and countless bullets, and twenty Air Cav troopers had been wounded.

  The first successful attempt to medevac the wounded was made at 1035, under a heavy mortar barrage. The one medevac chopper made it out with only three or four wounded.

  The houses outside the American perimeter were of stone and relatively impervious to American fire. Even LAAW rounds had little effect. The NVA eventually set up a mortar in a stone house only forty meters from Company C's line—so close, in fact, that the Americans could not at first distinguish the noise of its discharge from the noise of their own weapons. The house was impervious to the M-79 grenades and LAAWs that the Americans fired at it. In the end, however, a trooper threw a hand grenade into one of the windows, and that silenced the mortar.

  At 1135, two 122mm rockets impacted within the American perimeter. This was seen as a major escalation in the ongoing bombardment and small-arms barrage.

  Around 1350, the Americans tried another medevac. As soon as the NVA heard the helicopter approach, they poured an im­mense volume of fire into the sky and against all possible LZs within the perimeter. The helicopter—the same one that had flown the earlier medevac—dropped off a resupply of desperately needed ammunition, picked up a handful of wounded, and took off at 1355. During the late afternoon, the same bird made several more trips, bringing in more ammunition and taking out dead and wounded troopers. The last flight left Thon Que Chu at 1651.

  *

  From the outset of the morning action, Lieutenant Colonel Dick Sweet had faced just three alternatives: he could continue his attack, he could stand and fight, or he could leave the ground to the enemy. The simple mathematics of attrition were clearly work­ing against the 2/12 Cav. There were far more NVA soldiers than there were Air Cav troopers. It quickly became apparent that the 2/12 Cav could not advance against such vastly disproportionate odds, so that option was ruled out. As the day progressed, the steady attrition on Sweet's side clearly was not being matched on the other side, so standing and fighting ceased being a viable alternative. Moreover, the battalion's position, which was not on particularly defensible terrain, was not worth a do-or-die, last-stand effort. Sweet would have to withdraw, leaving Thon Que Chu to the NVA.

  Having made his decision, Sweet faced several new alterna­tives, the most important of which was the timing of the 2/12 Cav's departure. Also, he had to decide where he was going and how he was go
ing to get there.

  Night movements of any sort were very rare for Americans in Vietnam. It was virtually an axiom that "the enemy ruled the night." However, Dick Sweet did not see things the way many other American commanders did. He had, after all, been a senior tactics instructor at The Infantry School. He knew his onions, and he found the idea of a night movement ideally matched to the 2/12 Cav's situation on February 4. Besides, Sweet had already led the battalion in several night moves during the three weeks since his arrival, and he knew what his officers and men could do.

  So, where to go, when to go, and how to go—those were the variables. The first and obvious choice was a night move toward Thon Trieu Son Tay, a hamlet island astride Highway 1 about 2.5 kilometers east of the 2/12 Cav perimeter. Early in the after­noon, Sweet asked his forward air controller to lay on an observa­tion mission over Thon Trieu Son Tay. This was accomplished to the accompaniment of powerful 37mm antiaircraft fire from the objective. Rule out Thon Trieu Son Tay; if the enemy had antiair­craft guns there, the place was powerfully held.

  It was fairly certain that the route the battalion had covered between PK 17 and Thon Que Chu on February 3 was still open, but this route was not seen as an alternative. A withdrawal to PK 17 was, in reality, a retreat, and it was a point of honor that retreat was unthinkable except as a last resort.

  At length, after carefully consulting his maps and discussing options with his officers, Dick Sweet arrived at a plan that, for him, had great appeal: an advance to a dominant piece of real estate deeper inside enemy territory.

  Only a short distance to the southwest of Thon Que Chu, the coastal plain rose suddenly at the verge of the Annamite Cordillera. The nearest dominant high ground was right at the edge of the mountain chain, directly overlooking Provincial Route 554 and the Perfume River. If the 2/12 Cav could disen­gage in Thon Que Chu and march overland at night to the new objective, it would be in an ideal position to overlook and help interdict the only possible enemy infiltration route into Hue from the west. The high ground would also be an effective point from which to continue the 2/12 Cav's own attack toward Hue. As Sweet's mind settled on this alternative, he liked it more and more.

  At a commanders' meeting at 1600, Lieutenant Colonel Sweet let his company commanders in on the plan, and he issued specific orders to each of them. Preparations would commence immediately for departure at 2000 hours. Discretion was of the utmost importance; the troopers must give no indication of the move. To the enemy, everything must appear as if the battalion intended to spend another night in its perimeter.

  All the wounded who needed to be evacuated during the day had been flown out by 1651, but eleven dead Americans remained in the perimeter. They presented a major problem. It was anathema for U.S. units to leave their dead on the battlefield. In this case, however, carrying out the dead could only result in slowing the night march and adding to the chance of discovery. With extreme reluctance, the Americans decided to leave the dead behind in a temporary mass grave until an opportunity to recover them presented itself. Once the hard decision was made, the two engineer squads attached to the battalion converted an 81mm mortar pit into the grave site. Along with the bodies, all gear belonging to the dead and many medevac cases, some cumber­some ammunition, and other expendable gear were placed in the hole.

  In preparing for the night move, the 2/12 Cav was indeed discreet. Many of the troopers were quite innovative in rigging dummies in their fighting holes. With the onset of darkness, the enemy fire died away, a sure indication that, for the moment at least, the NVA had been taken in.

  When it came to issuing orders for the move itself, the men were briefed in very small groups. There was to be absolutely no talking, no cigarette smoking, no extraneous noise. If a single sniper was encountered, he was to be ignored. If a sizable enemy force was encountered, a base of fire was to be established and the affected unit was to attack swiftly through the enemy force. Becoming bogged down at any point could doom the mission. At the last moment, everyone—officers and troopers alike—was literally shaken to determine if anything on them rattled.

  The Air Cav battalion was to move in a column of files, two companies abreast and two companies deep. If the enemy struck at any point, the battalion could deliver an immediate assault with two companies up and two back, a classic tactical formation.

  As darkness settled in, the Cav 105mm howitzer battery newly emplaced at PK 17 fired individual smoke rounds in a pattern designed to thicken the fog in front of the 2/12 Cav's position, without alerting the NVA to Sweet's impending with­drawal. As the smoke drifted outward, Company A and Company D evacuated their sectors on the south side of the battalion perimeter. They passed through Company C and Company B and took the lead. The battalion command group followed the lead companies, and Company B and Company C followed the battal­ion command group. It was a moonless night, so dark that many troopers in the column had trouble seeing the next trooper ahead.

  By 2020, the 500-meter-long American column was out of the Thon Que Chu perimeter, heading north into the open area it had fought across the previous day. On the battalion point was Private First Class Hector Camacho, a nerveless trooper who had excelled in earlier night operations. After Camacho marched 200 meters to the north, he turned toward his next checkpoint, a stream 350 meters to the southwest. There was enormous tension, and one fear-induced stop when Camacho heard what sounded like the snick of a machine-gun bolt being worked.

  The vanguard troopers knew they were approaching the stream when they marched into soft, muddy ground. Camacho halted the long column, and tension mounted by the second as he searched for a suitable ford across the five-foot-deep, twenty-foot-wide stream. As Lieutenant Colonel Sweet waited, he became concerned that the battalion would not reach its objective before sunrise. At length, a shivering Camacho reappeared and reported that he had found a crossing. The troopers had to ford the stream in pairs, and two precious hours of darkness were used in the crossing. Around the midway point, timed demolitions packs left in the former battalion perimeter detonated in several huge balls of flame. Shortly, troopers in the rearguard reported seeing tripflares go off and hearing the chatter of small-arms fire.

  The enemy attack on the empty perimeter had been foreseen. In an elegant flourish, Lieutenant Colonel Sweet ordered his artillery forward observer to call in a preregistered artillery fire mission on the enemy scouring the perimeter. The battery also fired smoke rounds to help reorient the battalion toward its objective.

  The ground on the far side of the stream was rougher, and the troopers frequently lost contact with each other. The column often had to stop to wait for the rearguard to catch up.

  As the march continued, the 2/12 Cav began to pass into exhaustion. Troopers who had been concealing wounds to avoid medevac gave in to shock and blood loss and had to be carried. Men who had been high on adrenaline for two days fell asleep on their feet. During one halt, a drowsy Company D trooper fired an M-79 round into the ground. Fortunately, the 40mm grenade did not detonate.

  The company columns swung slightly to the southeast, and then due south. The battalion now had four kilometers of open ground—terraced rice paddies and unimproved pastureland—to cover before sunrise. Along the way, many of the troopers saw the flash of signal lights between villages. They assumed that such lights were part of an enemy navigational system, but they may instead have been the means by which the ever-suffering locals warned one another of the approach of all armies.

  Wading through the paddies and climbing over the paddy dikes was cold, slow work. Somehow the 2/12 Cav maintained momentum.

  But now a new danger threatened in the form of U.S. para­chute flares. Friendly flareships were illuminating Hue, which was about five kilometers to the east of the 2/12 Cav. Borne by the steady breeze off the South China Sea, several flares drifted over the unit, spotlighting its position. Dick Sweet's request that the flareships douse the lights was passed up through the chain of command. The flare drops were discont
inued.

  The night march took eleven tense hours to complete. At 0710, the battalion rearguard reached the new high-ground position and began setting in under intermittent mortar fire. For most of the rest of the day, the 2/12 Cav troopers ate, smoked, and slept. The battalion executive officer, back at Camp Evans, arranged a major lift of ammunition, gear, and replacements.

  Though the 2/12 Cav had been forced to retire from Thon Que Chu, the troopers who completed the night march had much to be proud of. It had been an epic effort for a significant payoff. For the next four days, as higher U.S. Army headquarters scrambled to lay on more pressure north and west of Hue, the 2/12 Cav observed the routes the NVA used to infiltrate soldiers and supplies into Hue from the west. Artillery and mortar fire called by observers in the 2/12 Cav perimeter entirely shut off the flow during the day. The enemy's access to the battlefield was far from being sealed, but thanks to the 2/12 Cav, NVA access was seriously reduced from February 5 onward.

  ***

  PART VI

  The Hospital

  ***

  Chapter 23

  On February 5 the ARVN battalions inside and outside the Citadel continued their relentless attacks against the stoutly resis­tant but otherwise unaggressive battalions of the 6th NVA Reg­iment. The entire reinforced 1st ARVN Airborne Task Force redeployed along the northeast wall of the Citadel, and the 4th Battalion, 2nd ARVN Regiment, launched an attack to the south­west, along the airborne task force's left flank.

  The badly understrength 4th Battalion, 3rd ARVN Regi­ment, left MACV at dawn and was ferried to the north bank of the Perfume River aboard a variety of riverboats and small naval vessels. Once ashore, the battalion launched a total of seven successive assaults aimed at gaining access to the Citadel's Thuong Tu Gate. When the battalion finally had to concede that the gate's defenses were impenetrable, it fought its way southwest along Highway 1 to link up with the 3rd ARVN Regiment's 2nd and 3rd battalions, which were still stalled between the river and the southeast wall.