by Tom Clancy
After three days, we had caught something like thirty buffalo and reunited them with the lost tribe.
By then, the division commander, Major General William Peers, had learned of the “roundup” and shown up to personally observe the action. After he watched for a while, he observed that it was the most entertaining and daring rodeo operation he had ever seen, but allowed that we had perhaps returned enough water buffalo to the lost tribe, and terminated the operation.
The successful accomplishment of the mission came at the expense of two broken arms, a broken leg, and multiple bruises. Morale was high, and I’m sure that everyone involved in the “roundup” who completed their tour will have told their children and grandchildren all about it.
After three weeks, we had also successfully accomplished our main mission of “clearing out VC Valley.” We had killed, captured, or driven out NVA cadre, and destroyed all their training devices and supply storage facilities.
Near the end of October, we were ordered to move to Dak To to relieve the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized) 8th Infantry—a two-day operation involving a helicopter extraction back to Pleiku, followed by a convoy move some forty kilometers to the north. We arrived as planned at 1400 hours, which would allow the battalion we were relieving enough time to reach Pleiku before darkness. The move was uneventful.
Until recently, Dak To had been the home of a Special Forces A-Detachment, which had moved about fifteen kilometers west to a newly established campsite called Ben Het. Ben Het was only about six kilometers from the triborder area where Laos, Cambodia, and South Vietnam came together, and set astride a major infiltration artery of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. A single dirt road led from Dak To to Ben Het, and a key bridge located about midway had to be kept secured.
Dak To itself was nothing but a name; it had no facilities, no nothing, except for a short asphalt airstrip. The closest village, Tan Can, was a mile to the east; a provincial headquarters and a small U.S. advisory detachment were located there. We established our “firebase” alongside the Dak To airstrip and the road that led from Konthum to Ben Het. There was no other choice.
When we arrived at Dak To, we were greeted by the 2nd Battalion, 8th lnfantry, lined with all their armored personnel carriers and other vehicles ready to go to Dragon Mountain (the 4th Division base at Pleiku). One of their mech platoons, however, still guarding the key bridge on the road to Ben Het, had to be relieved so they could rejoin their parent unit; and one of our own rifle platoons was dispatched immediately to relieve them.
We had already determined in advance the security we would have to get into position before darkness, and our teams and units were ready to assume their positions, but the other battalion was scheduled to pull out in about an hour. That didn’t leave us much time to coordinate the final details of the relief operation, but everything worked out okay nevertheless.
Before the other battalion had moved out, I began to grow very concerned about the mountains to our south, which could give the NVA a significant advantage. The lower ridgeline, two or three kilometers away and a thousand feet high, was dominated by Hill 1338, which controlled the whole area, while the entire ridgeline was about eight kilometers long.
When I asked the outgoing battalion S-3 about the last time he’d had anybody up on that ridgeline, he replied, “You don’t have to worry about that. Our recon platoon just conducted a sweep of that whole ridgeline a couple of weeks ago, and there’s nothing up there but a lot of orangutan monkeys. And besides that, we dropped several Chinook-loads of fifty-five-gallon drums of persistent CS gas14 in the valleys leading to the backside of those mountains. This should hinder any infiltration attempts. It’s almost impossible to get through that stuff.
“You are really going to enjoy being the ‘Lord Mayor of Dak To,’ ” he concluded. “It’s very quiet up here, and too far away from division headquarters for them to bother you.”
I did not share either his confidence or his judgment. On this same ridge, the 173rd Airborne Brigade had lost half of a battalion three months earlier. It was key terrain, if I ever saw it. Whoever controlled that ridgeline controlled the whole valley—the main avenue of approach all the way from the border to Kontum. Surely, if the NVA ever had designs on controlling the Central Highlands, they would most certainly occupy that ridgeline and Hill 1338. Why fool with the Special Forces camp at Ben Het if you could bypass it and occupy this dominant terrain as a location for your heavy-weapons firing positions?
The very next afternoon (even before I could get out to coordinate with the SF team at Ben Het), a critical piece of intelligence dropped in our lap when the rifle platoon securing the bridge captured an NVA recon team. We quickly learned through interrogation that they were from the 2nd NVA Division and had in their possession sketches of the division’s operations plans for taking Dak To. Hill 1338 was to be the location of the division headquarters, while the ridgeline (which we came to call 1001) was to hold the main firing positions for their heavy weapons. And we were the main target: fish down in a fishbowl.
When I told the battalion commander that we’d better get a couple of companies up on that ridgeline, and fast, he agreed. “If you can get the airlift together,” he told me, “we’ll do it tomorrow afternoon.”
Because our parent brigade headquarters had remained at Jackson’s Hole, some seventy kilometers away, we had been put directly under the control of the 4th Division at Pleiku. That’s the way it works when you are operating apart from a brigade that can no longer support you.
I contacted Division and requested and got ten Hueys and six gunships for the air assault. This would give us enough lift to put eighty riflemen on the ground in a single lift. But finding a good place to put them down again proved much harder. Only one small grassy knoll on the eastern end of the ridgeline would accommodate ten Hueys landing at a time. Everything else in the neighborhood was triple-canopy jungle. It’s possible to clear a landing zone in that stuff, but difficult and time-consuming: much too difficult in the time we had. In that jungle, clearing an LZ just large enough to accommodate a single Huey would take a couple of days and several air strikes of 750-pound bombs and hundreds of rounds of 155mm and 8-inch fire. And besides, our only artillery was a 105mm battery with six tubes.
That meant we were forced to use the clearing for the air assault.
On October 28, 1967, at 1500 hours, C Company began the air assault. This was preceded by an artillery prep of the landing zone, consisting of about 150 rounds of 105mm howitzer fire. When the I Iueys set down, the LZ proved to be cold, and the first lift of eighty secured it, then waited for the second lift to arrive before they moved as a company toward the woodline.
The helicopters took about twenty minutes for the turnaround, and the second lift arrived with the remainder of the company. The lift was expected to continue until the second company (B Company) had also been inserted.
As soon as C company was complete, the company commander began his movement toward the woodline, which was about 100 meters away. Chest-high elephant grass provided good concealment for the formation. After advancing fifty meters inside the woodline, the point squad began receiving very heavy fire from a well-dug-in NVA position, which was concealed by spider holes with overhead cover. Although they’d been hit by artillery during the prep, they’d held their fire until the squad was inside their position, thus forcing C Company to temporarily pull back without reaching the woodline.
During the exchange, the NVA deliberately shot about half of the members of the point squad—one of their favorite tricks; they knew that U.S. forces would not leave their wounded or dead on the battlefield. Once the U.S. wounded were on the ground, the NVA would go back down into their holes to await the inevitable U.S. artillery barrage, which would be followed by the company’s attempt to recover their casualties. As the company launched another attack, the NVA would attempt to shoot more, all the while holding the company forward of the NVA’s main defensive position without compromising its true location
. If the American attack had not been successful by darkness, the company would find itself in a very vulnerable position—not properly dug in to defend itself against an NVA attack—with the likelihood that the NVA would drag the U.S. dead and wounded off during the night (they carried body hooks for this purpose).
As a result of all this, B Company, now approaching the LZ, was waved off and returned to Dak To by the battalion commander, who was airborne and controlling the operation.
Meanwhile, the C Company commander had requested artillery fire on the enemy position, and the battalion commander had also requested immediate air strikes. After a couple hundred rounds of artillery fire, the company commander decided to make another push in order to try to recover his wounded personnel. This time he was able to reach the treeline before most of the company came under a hail of withering fire. It was now obvious that he was up against at least an NVA company and perhaps a well-dug-in larger unit.
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.