Fire in the Streets

by Eric Hammel

  Though the 1st and 5th VNMC battalions were each larger than 1/5, they were less well equipped and less acclimated to the bitter weather. Despite the best efforts of their officers and enlisted troop leaders to get them going, the Vietnamese Marines made only the most feeble efforts to advance.

  Late in the afternoon, the equally wet and miserable 4th VNMC Battalion slid into position on Battle Group Alpha's right flank, along Thuy Quan Canal, and the 1st VNMC Battal­ion went into reserve. If the weather improved by the next morn­ing, Battle Group Alpha would kick off what was expected to be the final assault to clear the southwest side of the Citadel. Over­all, more than 1,200 Vietnamese Marine infantrymen—two 700-man battalions, less casualties—were to attack an area no larger than that assigned to 1/5—a force of fewer than 400 Marines— and the Hoc Bao and 1st ARVN Division Reconnaissance compa­nies, which together numbered fewer than 200 men.

  *

  February 19 was more of the same. Following a day of rela­tive rest, 1/5's three hungry, exhausted front-line companies jumped off again, but feebly. The NVA had all the advantages of position and time, and may also have had the advantage in num­bers.

  The area held by the NVA was so compact that 1/5's attack was less the reduction of a built-up city area than an assault on a fortified position. Major Bob Thompson said later that the fight­ing during this period was more like that in Tarawa than that in Seoul. The whole objective was really one big strongpoint, com­plete with interlocking bands of fire from mutually supporting fortified positions. Moreover, the NVA defenders literally had their backs to a wall, so their fanatical resistance was the only alternative to annihilation. On the brink of defeat, the NVA soldiers facing 1/5 were first-rate combat veterans.

  Even for fresh, experienced troops, the task facing the U.S. Marine battalion would have been formidable. As it was, 1/5 was understrength and diluted by inexperienced replacements. The troops were inadequately supplied and unable to take advantage of their supporting-arms superiority. Moreover, the only tactic avail­able was the frontal assault, which was expensive in terms of men and equipment. With so much against it, 1/5 was simply unable to build up momentum.

  Major Thompson considered the tanks and Ontos his most important assets. A tank was able to take a fair licking, but an Ontos was extremely vulnerable. For all that, the mobile 106mm recoilless rifles, fired in any combination from one to six, were easily the most effective weapons on the battlefield, superb for tackling the masonry houses the NVA were turning into bunkers. The trick was to get an Ontos into firing position—without getting it blown away. Lieutenant Ron Morrison, the tank-pla­toon commander, provided the solution. Quite simply, Morrison teamed one or two tanks with each Ontos. Then, at Major Thompson's express order, whenever infantrymen came up against a target they thought was worth risking an Ontos to blow down, the infantry commander requested an Ontos via the battal­ion CP. The Ontos and tank commanders and the infantry com­mander would then conduct a personal reconnaissance of the target. If the target could be fired on without undue risk, the Ontos commander laid out the plan. Generally, the infantrymen fired all the suppression they could while the tank nosed up and fired its main gun and machine guns. While the NVA still had their heads down, the tank withdrew and the Ontos zipped up, fired all its 106s, and reversed through the dust and debris thrown up by the backblast. Every M-48 tank attached to 1/5 had taken ten or twelve hits apiece, and many tank crewmen had been wounded or killed. None of the Ontos supporting 1/5 had ever been hit, and none of the Ontos crewmen had been injured by enemy fire.

  Perhaps the worst liability facing 1/5 was the prohibition against firing at NVA positions within the Imperial Palace. The Hoc Bao and 1st ARVN Division Reconnaissance companies were supposed to deal with opposition on that flank, but their efforts never amounted to anything because they did not have access to effective supporting arms. Thus, as long as NVA ma­chine guns and snipers could fire into 1/5's rear and flanks with virtual impunity, 1/5 could not advance. This is not to say that the U.S. Marines honored the letter of the law—tanks and Ontos fired at the palace wall when there were clear targets—but the heavy artillery needed to blast enemy positions and their occu­pants to dust could not be employed.

  Adding to the general craziness was the need to consider the safety of many hundreds of civilians who were crowding in be­hind the battalion, waiting to return to their homes—or what was left of their homes. Several sniping incidents behind 1/5 con­vinced Major Thompson that there were NVA and VC infiltrators among the refugees, but there was nothing he could do. There were too many people for his Marines to interrogate or even cordon off from the battlefield. In the end, Thompson assigned the 2nd Battalion, 3rd ARVN Regiment, to handle the refugees. (In Thompson's opinion the battalion wasn't much good for any other detail.) The U.S. Marines did their best to ignore the civilians, but the civilians were there and they were a factor.

  The effect of all the mounting problems was that 1/5 made little progress on either February 19 or February 20. The U.S. Marines claimed the lives of many NVA soldiers, but they sus­tained casualties in kind. The Americans overran NVA strong-points, but they could not find the key to breaking into and overcoming the NVA defensive sector. In two days of heavy fight­ing—and after sustaining heavy losses—1/5 had penetrated only one block farther into the NVA defensive zone.

  At first the Marines thought they were battling a demoral­ized 6th NVA Regiment rearguard. Instead, documents taken from NVA bodies showed that the enemy ranks consisted of soldiers from the 5th NVA Regiment, the 324B NVA Division's 90th NVA Regiment, and the 325C NVA Division's 29th NVA Regiment. The U.S. Marines and their ARVN and VNMC allies suddenly found themselves facing a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fresh combat-experienced NVA soldiers.

  By dusk on February 20, after a week's fighting, 1/5 had sustained a total of 47 Marines and corpsmen killed, 240 Ma­rines and corpsmen wounded and evacuated, and 60 Marines and corpsmen wounded and returned to duty. Nobody knew how many Marines and corpsmen had simply kept their injuries hid­den to avoid being transferred from their units. Among the casualties arriving back at the battalion aid station were many replacements who had completed their training in the States little more than a week earlier.

  The casualty figures alone do not present a complete picture; attrition from other causes was also significant. In one of the maddest aspects of the Vietnam War, Marines who were due to be rotated home or who qualified for R and R could not be held with the battalion main body if they chose not to be. Many such Marines did stay, and some were killed or wounded. But many grabbed the opportunity to depart Hue. What is more, the mis­erably cold, damp weather, the inadequate diet, the focus on treating the wounded, the hazards of living in the rubble, and just plain slipping morale resulted in losses due to injuries and illnesses of all sorts.

  By the end of February 20, Alpha/1/5 was down to around seventy effectives and Bravo/1/5 was down to about eighty effectives. Charlie/1/5 and Delta/1/5 were not much better off. Only two rifle platoons in the entire battalion were commanded by officers, and all three of Bravo/l/5's platoons were being led by corporals. The troops had not been adequately fed in four days, and there was never enough of the right kinds of munitions.

  *

  Truth was, 1/5 was slipping. Major Thompson saw it hap­pening, but he could do nothing beyond yelling at higher head­quarters to get the help he needed: food, ammunition, replace­ments, permission to level the Imperial Palace walls, and some way to seal the city against the further infiltration of NVA rein­forcements. Higher headquarters yelled back. At one point, Thompson became so fed up with prodding radio messages from seniors who had never deigned to visit in person that he asked one of them to find his replacement. The senior officer backed off, but Thompson had the clear impression that his days as 1/5's commanding officer were numbered if his tired battalion did not overcome the NVA right quick. (In fact, Lieutenant General Robert Cushman, the commanding general of III MAF, actually
announced Thompson's relief to reporters. When Cushman or­dered Colonel Stan Hughes, the 1st Marines commander, to effect the relief, however, Hughes replied that he would resign his own command before he relieved Bob Thompson. Cushman backed down. The first Thompson heard of the Cushman an­nouncement to the press was several weeks later, in a letter of condolence from his wife.)

  Compounding the pressure was Thompson's certain knowl­edge that the 5th Marines commander was going to do every­thing in his power to obstruct the relief of 1/5 by Marines from any other regiment. The 5th Marines commander did not want a battalion from another Marine regiment to go down in history as the liberators of the Citadel of Hue. Even higher Marine head­quarters did not want any of the U.S. Army battalions then becoming available in I Corps to finish the job inside the Citadel. So, topping all their other priorities, Major Thompson and his hard-pressed staff found themselves saddled with the exigencies of making history.

  The only bright news on Thompson's horizon was that the 5th Marines commander was trying to get a company of 3/5 moved up from southern I Corps to attach to 1/5. In fact, late on February 20, Lima/3/5 was alerted for the move, which was to commence in stages the next day. When the Lima/3/5 troops heard they were going to Hue, they thought it was for leave, a reward for doing a good job around Danang.

  *

  At 0430, February 19, the NVA struck the 5th VNMC Battalion sector with three hundred 82mm mortar rounds and many B-40 rockets. Then they launched a large, well-coordinated infantry assault. Only the effective use of the VNMC 105mm battery, which fired over 2,000 rounds (nearly its entire ready supply), prevented the NVA reserves from attacking through breaches ripped into the VNMC line. The NVA attack was beaten back with enormous losses—estimates put the number of NVA killed as high as 150. The 5th VNMC Battalion's line was fully restored. The 4th and 5th VNMC battalions resumed the Battle Group Alpha attack on schedule, but they made no progress.

  Though the VNMC battle group did field its own direct-support 105mm howitzer battery, which fired constantly from within the 1st ARVN Division CP compound, they lacked sup­porting arms. The heaviest weapons available to the battalions were 60mm mortars; 57mm recoilless rifles; 81mm mortars; and, once in awhile, a few ARVN M-41 tanks.

  Whereas 1/5 faced a sector of densely packed multistory commercial buildings, the terrain facing the VNMC line across Thuy Quan Canal was more open—it consisted of single-story homes with courtyards, vacant lots, parks, and gardens. At first glance, this appeared to give the VNMC companies more room to maneuver, more options. However, the added visibility cut in both directions; NVA snipers had more and wider vistas, and the many NVA machine guns could reach farther in the VNMC sector than they could in 1/5's.

  As in the 1/5 sector, the NVA facing the VNMC battalions were competent veterans. They employed every trick in the book. For example, the NVA placed machine guns in sandbag or rubble bunkers built against the rear walls of masonry houses. They fired the guns through open front doorways, the better to obscure muzzle flashes and defy observation. They fired B-40 rockets, AK-47s, and SKSs from similarly covered positions. The only way to get a direct hit on an in-house bunker was to stand in the front doorway, exposed to fire from the target and from numerous spider holes covering every intersection and every open­ing between the houses. Before coming to Vietnam, the 4th VNMC Battalion's senior advisor, Major Bill Eshelman, had taught tactics to U.S. Marine lieutenants at The Basic School, in Quantico, Virginia. In his years at the school, Eshelman had never heard of an integrated defensive plan as comprehensive as what he saw on the ground in the Citadel. He was frankly awed by the professionalism of his adversaries, whom, he now realized, he had seriously underestimated.

  The reinforced NVA units inside the Citadel had adequate reason to stall 1/5, but their primary goal was to humiliate the GVN troops fighting in the Citadel. Political goals aside, NVA reinforcement, resupply, and withdrawal required the availability of the Huu Gate. Therefore, the NVA naturally put most of their effort into stopping the VNMC advance to that gate.

  For all the resistance the VNMC battalions encountered, all was not well with the NVA forces inside the Citadel. Beginning late in the day of February 19 and continuing into February 20, VNMC officers monitoring NVA radio frequencies reported that high-ranking NVA and VC military and political officers were disappearing from their command post inside the Imperial Pal­ace. There were even indications that several NVA combat units had been ordered to clear out of the Citadel before the Huu Gate was sealed.

  The South Vietnamese forces halted on February 20 so psychological warfare experts and their equipment could be brought to the forward lines. The development was surprising and maddening to most Americans on the scene, but it was entirely consistent with Vietnamese values. Sensing that they were standing on the brink of a major political victory, the GVN forces realized they could afford to be magnanimous to their enemies. In fact, they had much to gain by offering easy surrender terms. If the remaining NVA and VC gave up without a fight, more physical damage—particularly to the Imperial Palace—would be prevented and lives would be saved. And the impact of the political victory would be increased many times over if the GVN could show off Communists and Communist sympathizers who had defected to the forces of freedom. What better way to bury TCK-TKN in Hue than to convert its militant proponents? At this crucial juncture—as both 1/5 and the VNMC battle group faced either collapse or success—ongoing efforts by the 1st Cavalry Division's 3rd Brigade to seal Hue from the outside and capture the Tri-Thien-Hue Front headquarters had likewise reached a critical stage. Indeed, the Cay's efforts no doubt precip­itated events inside the Citadel.

  ***

  PART IX

  T-T Woods

  ***

  Chapter 34

  While 1/5 and VNMC Battle Group Alpha had been struggling to prevail over Communist forces inside the Citadel, elements of the 3rd Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division and the 2nd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division had been trying to seal Hue from the outside.

  On February 4, as Lieutenant Colonel Dick Sweet's 2/12 Cav was becoming mired in its no-win fight at Thon Que Chu, Lieutenant Colonel Jim Vaught's 5/7 Cav was moving into PK 17. Vaught's battalion was to guard the vital ABVN base and to establish a new base from which it could conduct patrols along Highway 1, south toward Hue. On the morning of February 5— by which time Sweet's 2/12 Cav had completed its night with­drawal from Thon Que Chu—the 5/7 Cav was ordered to turn over its positions in PK 17 to two companies of the 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division's 2nd Battalion, 501st Airborne Infan­try (2/501 Airborne) and move out toward Hue.

  Mortar fire that had been striking PK 17 throughout the 5/7 Cav's brief stay there seemed to be originating from the hamlet of Thon Thuong, several kilometers to the southeast. As soon as the relief at PK 17 and several adjacent LZs and fire bases had been effected, Lieutenant Colonel Vaught formed his four Cav companies into a standard infantry box formation—two companies up and two companies back—and started moving directly toward the apparently fortified area. It was the first time in memory that the entire 5/7 Cav had operated as a unit. Vaught's orders from his brigade commander called for a move­ment to contact; the 5/7 Cav was to uncover and attack any enemy force that might be in its way. In case of trouble, Vaught would have direct artillery support from Charlie Battery, 1/21 Artillery, which had set in its six 105mm howitzers at a newly established fire base, LZ Sally, adjacent to PK 17. Because the 1st Cavalry Division was severely short of troop-carrying helicop­ters, Vaught's battalion would have to operate on foot. Vaught preferred it that way.

  Jim Vaught was a premier infantryman, one of the best in the U.S. Army. Though only thirty-eight years old, the gruff South Carolinian had fought as a "mud soldier" at the end of World War II. After completing his schooling at The Citadel military academy in his native South Carolina, he had commanded troops in Korea, where he gained a reputation as a leader who loved to close with the enemy. When the 5/7 Cav jumped off f
rom PK 17, Jim Vaught had been in command for only a week, but the battalion officers were already in awe of him, and the troopers loved his blunt, aggressive style. Instinctively, they all knew that there was nothing about field soldiering they could not learn from Jim Vaught.

  As the 5/7 Cav advanced in box formation, the NVA hold­ing Thon Thuong resisted with long-range sniper fire and 82mm mortars. In addition, they shot down a UH-1E Huey command-and-control helicopter that had strayed over the battlefield en-route to another Cav battalion. Lieutenant Colonel Vaught had to divert Company B and Company C to rescue the crew of the downed Huey. Meantime, through increasingly heavy sniper and mortar fire, Company D pressed on toward Thon Thuong, with Company A in reserve. Unfortunately, the 5/7 Cav ran out of daylight, so all the companies had to disengage and pull back to a battalion-size night-defensive position.

  Early on February 6, the 5/7 Cav reopened its two-part attack toward the downed Huey and Thon Thuong. Contact with the NVA was quickly reestablished. Following a 1,000-meter advance, Company B located the downed command-and-control chopper. After securing the area around the wrecked Huey, the troopers conducted a thorough search. Company B got into a brief, intense fracas with a platoon of NVA, but the Communists withdrew. There were no signs of life or death around the helicop­ter. The crewmen might have evaded the NVA on their own, or they might have been captured; no one in the 5/7 Cav ever learned the outcome.

  Lieutenant Colonel Vaught re-formed the battalion, and, following a 120-round 105mm artillery prep, the 5/7 Cav at­tacked into Thon Thuong. By then, the NVA holding the hamlet were long gone. Vaught's men found fighting positions, miles of communications wire, and other signs indicating that the NVA force that had been in residence was a strong one. A thorough search of the hamlet uncovered ample stocks of food, weapons, and ammunition—all in quantities far beyond the needs of even the large NVA force that had occupied the area. Lieutenant Colonel Vaught was convinced that he had discovered a major NVA. supply depot. He suspected that it supported the forces fighting in Hue and, perhaps, was even to supply the volunteer battalions that were supposed to have rallied to the General Uprising in the city. If Vaught's assessment was right, the 5/7 Cav had already dealt the Tri-Thien-Hue Front a significant blow.