Fire in the Streets

by Eric Hammel

  Late that night, the houseboy, Cao Viet Chuong, learned from friends that Jim Bullington had been seen on February 8 as he was being driven from the priests' home near the municipal power plant. Later the rumor was confirmed by a friend of Tuy-Cam's who worked for the U.S. consulate in Hue, where Bulling­ton had been stationed during his first tour in Vietnam.

  It took all night for Jim Bullington to learn that Tuy-Cam had survived her ordeal. Though Bullington's boss denied his request to fly to Hue from Danang, Bullington arranged passage to Hue aboard a U.S. Army helicopter. He was dropped off the afternoon of February 14 at the riverside helo pad across Le Loi Street from the provincial administration complex. Thanks to help from Bullington's former colleague at the consulate, Tuy-Cam was there, right beside the helo pad, waiting for him. In fact, Tuy-Cam saw Jim before he saw her.

  On February 15, while wrapping up many loose ends in Hue, Jim Bullington visited Albert Istvie, the manager of the municipal power station. The news Istvie had to share with Bul­lington was tragic. Two days after Bullington had been rescued from their home, Father Marie Cressonier and Father Pierre Poncet had left the house to conduct mass and comfort refugees at a nearby church. On the way home, their jeep was waylaid by armed men dressed in black pajamas, and both priests were shot and left dead beside the road. Albert Istvie had recovered their bodies and buried them.

  Jim Bullington and Tuy-Cam were married in Danang on March 16, 1968. A few days later, at the conclusion of Bulling­ton's tour, they flew to the United States.

  The brothers, An and Long, were never seen again.

  ***

  Chapter 30

  The situation facing the ARVN, VNMC, and U.S. Marine units inside the Citadel differed considerably from that 2/5 and 1/1 had faced south of the Perfume River. The primary difference was the compactness of the battlefield. Cheatham's and Gravel's battalions had had ample room for maneuver, but the units inside the Citadel were confined in their movement by a number of struc­tures and features that could not be crossed or flanked. The largest and most troublesome of these was the Citadel wall, as many as seventy-five meters thick in places and honeycombed throughout by passages and bunkers excavated by the Japanese toward the end of World War II. As Alpha/1/5 had learned at the outset, the Citadel wall so dominated the terrain within the Citadel that the wall was a battlefield unto itself.

  Another factor limiting Vietnamese and American units was the Imperial Palace, the citadel within the Citadel. For reasons of culture and politics, the palace was considered sacrosanct by the GVN forces and their allies. NVA and VC firing down from the palace walls could be engaged only by small arms. Moreover, the palace sat roughly in the center of the southeast half of the Citadel, channeling the attacking units into two distinct corri­dors that could not be mutually supported. In effect, in the southeastern half of the Citadel there were two distinct battle­fields, isolated from one another and dominated by high walls on either flank.

  Early on, another bizarre restriction came to light. Although the Americans did have the guns of the U.S. Navy in the South China Sea, and the AWN 105mm battery at PK 17, all the U.S. Marine land-based artillery—105mm howitzers, 155mm and 175mm guns, and 8-inch howitzers—were to the south. To hit anything in Hue, all the tubes had to fire into the faces of the infantry they were supporting. Everyone involved knew how easy it was to fire artillery "over" the target. In an ideal scenario, the artillery fires from behind the troops it is supporting. In the second-best situation, the artillery fires across the front of the troops it is supporting, as it had when artillery based to the south supported 2/5's attack to the southwest. The close quarters of the battle in the Citadel and the fact that most of the available supporting artillery was firing toward the friendly front had a chilling effect when it came to using artillery in the Citadel. Though the artillery professionals had the skill to meet the challenge, no one was eager to bet the lives of the infantry on a bravura performance.

  Air support might have made an enormous difference, pick­ing up the slack where artillery could not be used. But there was little or no air support; flying conditions were too dangerous. The clouds were so low and the battlefield was so hot that air­borne observers in light, slow spotter planes faced intense small-arms fire. Radar-equipped jet fighter-bombers were certainly capable of bombing through the cloud cover, but the radar-marking system could not achieve the pinpoint accuracy required. Massively armed American jets and VNAF Skyraiders were kept on station over or near Hue, but they could be used only when the pilots could see what they were bombing, rocketing, or strafing— and then only if there was adequate room between the target and friendly troops.

  *

  Despite the lack of adequate supporting arms, 1/5 nonethe­less jumped off once again at 0800, February 14. On the battal­ion right, away from the Citadel wall, Lieutenant Scott Nelson's Charlie/1/5 faced relatively mild opposition and quickly ad­vanced approximately 100 meters. On the left, the wall side of the battalion line, Captain Fern Jennings's Bravo/1/5 got nowhere fast. The NVA who had the previous morning followed the with­drawing ARVN airborne troops back to the northwest had had a full night to retrench around the Dong Ba Gate. They were im­movable. Particularly heavy was the fire from the Dong Ba tower, which Jennings's troops had not quite been able to secure the preceding afternoon. NVA manning the tower completely domi­nated the two city blocks adjacent to the wall, and the small Marine company could not breast the uncannily accurate and intense fire. The Marines and NVA were so closely intermingled at street level that supporting arms—including tanks and 106mm recoilless rifles—could not be effectively employed where they would have mattered most, right along the front line paralleling Mai Thuc Loan Street.

  The only reasonable alternative to a toe-to-toe struggle be­tween infantry in the streets was a voluntary withdrawal by 1/5 so massive supporting arms could be employed. Major Bob Thompson and Major Len Wunderlich drew up a plan, got ap­proval for it from Regiment, and began easing back from the fight along Mai Thuc Loan. The planned artillery and naval-gunfire bombardment could not be initiated until all friendly troops were clear of the impact zone, and that did not happen until the middle of the afternoon.

  The bombardment began so late that the commanders de­cided to continue it through the night. Late in the afternoon, breaks in the cloud cover allowed several Marine and U.S. Air Force jet fighter-bombers to salvo bombs and rockets against known NVA positions along the northeast Citadel wall. The air support was effective, but it was limited. While the bombardment continued, 1/5 reorganized and consolidated its temporary posi­tions for the night.

  *

  Late in the afternoon, Captain Myron Harrington's Delta/1/5 assembled at the Hue LCU ramp for a quick trip up the river to the Citadel. Problems arose at the outset. The LCUs were already crowded with loaded resupply trucks, ammunition, and gear—no one could see room for Harrington's Marines. But somehow, as the LCUs were casting off, space was found for Harrington, his company CP group, and one rifle squad.

  The journey was about halfway over when the LCUs passed up the eastern side of a long, narrow island. Other landing craft had passed the island without being molested, but snipers opened fire this time. One Marine was wounded before the LCUs passed beyond range, a minor enough outcome. However, because of the threat implied by the snipers, the LCU commander refused to return to the Hue LCU ramp to pick up the rest of Delta/1/5.

  Though the bulk of Delta/1/5 was temporarily stranded on the wrong side of the river, the company was assigned the task of leading the contemplated dawn assault on the Dong Ba tower. Everyone was sure that the rest of Harrington's company would be across in time.

  Late in the day, after a good deal of hectoring from 1/5, the 1st Marines CP arranged to transport the balance of Delta/1/5 to the Citadel via a flotilla of three motorized patrol junks provided by the Republic of Vietnam Navy. The company main body arrived after 1700, just as Marine F-4 Phantom jets were dropping CS tear gas on the NVA-held portio
n of the Citadel. An unlucky last-minute shift in the wind carried the gas toward the motorized junks. Since most of the Delta/1/5 Marines had long ago discarded their gas masks, nearly all of about 100 Marines were severely sickened. Many hurled themselves into the river to escape the roiling fumes. Once ashore, the company main body drew fire from snipers manning positions along the outside of the northeast Citadel wall.

  The selection of Harrington's company to lead the February 15 assault along the Citadel wall was a sound—perhaps an in­spired—decision. Though Delta/1/5 mustered only about 100 Marines in Hue—a twenty-man platoon had been detached by higher headquarters for convoy security duty—it had not been traumatized by the February 13 battles inside the Citadel, as had all three of 1/5's other infantry companies. Nor did Delta/1/5 lack experience in Hue. It had spent two full days sweeping along the Perfume River, west of the Phu Cam Canal, as an attachment to Lieutenant Colonel Ernie Cheatham's 2/5. Delta/1/5 was thus the only U.S. Marine company to reach a front-line assault position in Hue with what amounted to an orientation course in city fighting under its belt.

  For all that, the flap with the LCUs and the late arrival of the main body of Delta/1/5 prevented Captain Harrington and his officers and troop leaders from reconnoitering the ground over which their dawn attack was to be launched.

  *

  The situation on the northwest side of the Citadel, where ARVN units were locked in battle with stubborn NVA forces, required some sorting out. Elements of the 3rd ARVN Regiment, two battle-weakened troops of the 7th ARVN Armored Cavalry Battalion, the 1st ARVN Division's Hoc Bao Company, and the 1st ARVN Ordnance Company had been fought to a virtual standstill over a week before the arrival of VNMC Battle Group Alpha. The ARVN units had not been able to advance from the vicinity of Tay Loc Airfield, the ordnance company's armory, and the Chanh Tay Gate, but neither had the NVA units that were fighting for the same area. Each side had hurt the other, but neither had been able to gain the upper hand in what had become a battle of attrition. The two newly arrived VNMC battalions were to put things right and press the NVA back, particularly in the center, where the ordnance company was holding secure a store of 1,400 Ml 6 rifles and hundreds of other weapons.

  Major Huong Thong, the VNMC battle-group commander, had expected to launch a two-battalion attack to the southeast, between the southwest Citadel wall and the Imperial Palace, as soon as he had arrived on February 12. But the situation in the 3rd ARVN Regiment zone was so chaotic that it took the Viet­namese Marines and their ARVN compatriots two full days to establish a line of departure. In fact, the NVA attacked the rela­tively weak 1st Battalion, 3rd ARVN Regiment, in such strength near the Chanh Tay Gate that the ARVN unit was surrounded and cut off. The Hoc Bao Company and an armored cavalry troop had to be diverted to attack through the enemy cordon in a battle that ultimately lasted two days.

  The sum of all the line-straightening and the rescue opera­tion was that the VNMC battle group was not in position to launch its two-battalion attack to the southeast until the evening of February 14. Even then, there were enemy troops to the rear— and no end of enemy troops to the front. Indeed, by then, un­known to GVN or American forces, the Tri-Thien-Hue Front had taken control of several NVA infantry battalions newly arrived from Khe Sanh, and elements of these units and fresh supplies were being infiltrated into the Citadel through the Huu Gate. As many reinforcements as General Truong could bring in, the NVA could see and raise.

  ***

  Chapter 31

  While predawn artillery preparation raged against objectives all along 1/5's former front, Charlie/1/5 and Bravo/1/5 closed up to the right, and Delta/1/5 slid in between Bravo/l/5's left flank and the Citadel's northeast wall. At 0800, as soon as the preparatory fire lifted, all three U.S. Marine companies jumped off into the block northwest of Mai Thuc Loan Street. As ex­pected, Charlie/1/5 and Bravo/1/5 quickly advanced through the twisted rubble and regained all of the ground they had given up the previous afternoon. As hoped, the NVA resistance on 1/5's center and right was noticeably weaker. For all that, how­ever, Captain Myron Harrington's Delta/1/5 ran into a hornet's nest as it attempted to close on the Dong Ba tower.

  Because Captain Harrington and his officers had been un­able to reconnoiter the objective, Delta/1/5 was obliged to attack blindly, with no real knowledge of the ground or the location of enemy positions. The young lieutenant commanding Delta/1/5's 2nd Platoon advanced to a second-story balcony facing the Dong Ba tower, the better to control the fight. In a flash, the lieutenant, his platoon sergeant, his radio operator, and at least one of his platoon's squad leaders were injured by a B-40 rocket. As debilitating as the loss of the leaders was the loss of the precious platoon radio. The platoon remained in the fight, but Captain Harrington was unable to communicate quickly with the platoon guide, who was now in temporary command of the unit.

  As Delta/1/5 learned, verbal communication of any sort was almost impossible in the din of gunfire echoing across the re­stricted masonry battlefield. Delta/1/5 had arrived in the Citadel confident of its experience in street combat, but the intense close-quarters battle the unit now faced made the company's two days with 2/5 seem like a walk in the sun.

  Bravo/1/5 and Charlie/1/5 were able to fight their way back to Mai Thuc Loan Street primarily because the NVA con­ceded the ground. Delta/1/5 was fought to a standstill well short of Mai Thuc Loan and the Dong Ba tower because the NVA were unwilling to give up the high ground the tower and the wall represented.

  The big break came at about 1400, when Captain Harring­ton resorted to the obvious. One infantry squad from the 1st Platoon climbed up onto the wall about 150 meters northwest of the Dong Ba tower and began a methodical sweep along the high ground. This was not a matter of running along a narrow ram­part; the wall was up to seventy-five meters thick along the way, and every bit as heavily built up as the streets below. Advancing along the wall was much the same as advancing up a defended street, except the route was more predictable and thus more exposed.

  As the squad on the wall registered modest gains against stiffening opposition, Delta/1/5 Marines on the more lightly engaged company right began sending over scarce hand grenades in response to shouted appeals for what was proving to be the most effective weapon on the narrow high-ground battlefield.

  In the toe-to-toe battle, the contribution of Private First Class Willie Smith was outstanding. Smith had been slightly wounded earlier in Hue. Though the wound hardly bled, it was Smith's third, and he rated a third Purple Heart and a trip home. Captain Harrington did not feel Smith's wound was that serious, however, and he decided to keep Smith with the company CP group until he could figure out what to do with him. On Febru­ary 15, Smith was hanging around the CP when the first call for grenades came down from the wall. He had no part in the battle, so he went out into the street to collect the needed items and carried them to the men on the wall. Thereafter, without being told, Smith ran grenades, ammunition, radio batteries—whatever was needed—to the squad on the wall. He brought wounded Marines down, and he led replacements back up. If a job needed doing that day, Willie Smith was usually the one who did it— often at great peril to his life. Captain Harrington wrote Smith up for a Silver Star, and Smith, who ultimately refused his third Purple Heart, received the award.

  Atop the wall and on the street, every available 3.5-inch rocket launcher was arrayed directly against the tower and the Japanese-built, NVA.-held bunkers and pillboxes inside the wall adjacent to the Dong Ba Gate. Delta/l/5's 60mm mortars were also brought to bear on the gate and tower strongpoint, and they were fired at dangerously close range. It took as much in the way of guts for the gunners to fire the 60s as it did for the front-line infantrymen to call for the support.

  Lieutenant Ron Morrison's platoon of M-48 gun tanks was also extremely effective. By a miracle of coincidence, the narrow streets inside the Citadel—they had no sidewalks—could accom­modate the width of an M-48 tank with only inches to spare. While the other tanks and a pa
ir of Ontos worked farther from the wall, Lieutenant Morrison gingerly guided his platoon's command tank in behind Delta/l/5's 1st Platoon and found a covered spot for it about twenty-five meters from the gate, just behind the building Captain Harrington was using for his com­pany CP and observation post. At frequent intervals, Morrison's driver ran the lieutenant's M-48 right into Mai Thuc Loan. While Morrison personally fired his cupola-mounted .50-caliber ma­chine gun to suppress the enemy RPG teams, the gunner brought the 90mm main gun around to a new target and fired right at the wall or the tower. Often as not, the gunner took his directions from Captain Harrington, who gave instructions via radio. Har­rington was never more than a few meters away from the tank. At first, Harrington thought of using the field telephone that was affixed to one of the tank's rear fenders—a standard procedure— but the tank was raked by NVA bullets as soon as it appeared in the intersection so Harrington opted for the radio.

  The U.S. tanks, rockets, and mortars were deadly accurate, but the NVA were bitterly determined to hold their strongpoint. The best NVA fighting positions were remanned as quickly as they were knocked out.

  *

  As Delta/1/5 struggled forward along the wall, Charlie/l/5's easy morning advance was stalled in the early afternoon by NVA machine guns at the northern corner of the Imperial Palace. Had they been located anywhere else in Hue, they would have been blasted to dust by Marine artillery, naval gunfire, or even 1/5's mortars. But American authorities had declared the Imperial Palace inviolate. The Charlie/1/5 Marines were permit­ted to return fire with M-16s and M-60s, but only ARVN or VNMC units were permitted to put explosives on the Imperial Palace. The only ARVN 105mm battery north of Hue was busy with other missions, and the VNMC battle group's 81mm mor­tars and 105mm howitzers were in hot action against the battle group's own objectives. In short, nothing could be done to help Charlie/1/5. When Charlie/l/5's February 15 advance bogged down, Major Bob Thompson ordered Lieutenant Scott Nelson, the Charlie/1/5 commander, to halt in place and re-fuse his right flank about 100 meters to prevent the NVA from infiltrat­ing the 1/5 zone from that quarter. To help, Major Thompson sent Delta/l/5's 3rd Platoon, which had just arrived in Hue from a stint of convoy-escort duty to the south.