15 Months in SOG

by Thom Nicholson

  Not long thereafter, we received intelligence—see, there I go using that word again—that some VC commanders would be gathering in a small village a few miles west of the VN-Laos border, just far enough inside Laos to feel safe from American warplanes. My company was tasked to raid the village and get them, if possible, and kill them otherwise.

  After looking at the map, I noticed that the village was next to a river, with a high bluff on one side. I decided to use Swanson and his sniper team as support from the high ground while we went in from the jungle side.

  At sunset on the night picked for the raid, we loaded into choppers about dusk and flew to an LZ about five miles from the village. As we scrambled out of the black choppers, I motioned for Swanson to join me at the edge of the LZ. He was in his tiger suit, his face blackened. A scope-mounted .30-06 was cradled in his arms.

  “Dick, you take your team and run point for us. I want to be there by midnight, savvy?” I pointed to the high ground across from the village on my field map.

  Swanson took a quick look at the map and nodded. “Gotcha.” He motioned to his recon team, and they moved out, the rest of my unit bringing up the rear.

  We were there in about four hours, just as expected. Away from civilization, Sergeant Swanson was one fine soldier. He was definitely a field soldier.

  I crept to the edge of the bluff and strained to see across the stream to the village just beyond. An American can’t imagine just how dark a country is where there is no electricity for lights and little money for gas lanterns. It was one of the hardest things for me to accept. A country so damned dark, once the sun set. A couple of low fires were all that was visible across the black water, but not three hundred yards from where we were lying was a village of huts and people and livestock.

  I got sentries out and told everyone else to grab a couple hours of sleep. At four A.M., we were on the march, headed for the rear of the village, while Dick and his team of three Bru Yards and his American One-one watched for problems from the hilltop, across the narrow stream. I wanted Dick to shoot anyone who tried to get away from us by crossing the water and to take out any resistance that he could target when the raid started. I glanced back as I left the RON, but didn’t see anything. Swanson and his men had already crawled into the brush next to the bluff’s edge, watching the village. From where he was, the village was an easy shot for a sniper with Swanson’s talents. I didn’t have any worries on that score.

  It took us a couple of hours of hard work to get in position around and behind the village. Then we settled into the brush, waiting for enough light to make our assault.

  The quiet time before a fight is difficult to describe. There’s a lot of pent-up tension, and fear keeps trying to work its insidious way into the brain. It’s also a time to remember things because the images seem so fresh and bright. Perhaps because it may be for the last time. Perhaps it’s the adrenaline. That time I found myself spending the final few minutes remembering the wading pool I got for my little boys and the fun we’d had “swimming” in it the previous summer. The reverie helped me through the last minutes of darkness.

  I could see the foliage around me, so it was time to start the show. Standing up, I motioned my men forward, and soon we were closing in on the unsuspecting village, still asleep, I hoped. As we moved forward, we formed a huge C around the village. The stream would be the back door of the trap.

  Just as we reached the edge of the village, a voice penetrated the dimness of the early morning. A sentry had been right in the path of one of my soldiers. My soldier plunged a knife into the shouting man, but the damage had been done.

  Shouting at the top of my lungs, I led my sweating soldiers into the village, moving from hut to hut, and sending in a Yard to herd any occupants outside for interrogation. At the far end, down by the river, AK-47 shots rang out, and then the muffled pow! of Swanson’s sniper rifle. A ragged volley of M-16 shots fired by my troops overwhelmed the enemy fire, and then two M-26 grenades krumped in the din.

  I moved toward the shooting, darting past the dark doorways of several huts. Each time, I held my breath, afraid that someone inside would open up on me with an AK-47. By the time I reached the hut where all the firing had occurred, all was quiet. I could see my line of troops reaching the river’s edge. The raid was over. I glanced at my watch. It had taken three minutes.

  Near a boat drawn up by one of the huts, a man lay dead, his head blown open by Swanson’s bullet. A still-smoking AK-47 was lying beside him. I waved toward the bluff, but didn’t see any response from the sniper team.

  I turned back and entered the hut. It was a mess, with the damage caused by two hand grenades clearly evident. Strewn about were the bodies of three men and two women, all quite dead.

  “Drag ’em outside where we can look them over,” I instructed Lieutenant Lawrence. “Check the house for documents and guns. I’m gonna see how the rest of the unit did.”

  I watched while the two South Vietnamese officers accompanying my unit quickly interrogated the occupants of the unfortunate village. It seemed that all the bad guys were in the one hut, except for guards. We’d killed one guard, and any others had beat feet away from the area.

  The four men we killed, along with their two female traveling companions, were indeed VC big shots. We got a regional VC commander, a tax collector, and a political officer, as well as one of their special bodyguards. And of course, the two women, both with pistols strapped to their dead bodies.

  “Bring me the radio,” I shouted at Pham. I decided to call in Swanson and his team, and extract from the edge of the stream. The choppers could easily land along its flat bank.

  Just as I pushed the “talk” button, a burst of gunfire broke out on the bluff above us. We all dove for cover, but the shots weren’t directed at us. “Viper One-zero, this is Bravo Six. Come in, over.” The noise of the fighting up above us grew even louder and then, just as suddenly, died out. Again and again, I called, but received no answer.

  “Saddle up,” I instructed my troops, who were all peering up at the high bluffs across the rippling water. I led the way back into the jungle and downriver to the spot we’d crossed just a couple of hours earlier. Moving fast, but cautiously, we returned to the spot where we’d left the five men in the sniper team.

  The signs were everywhere. A vicious firefight had occurred here, blood and spent cartridges everywhere. Strangely, there was no sign of Swanson or any of his recon team. I called for my platoon leaders.

  “Lawrence, you go east on a five-hundred-meter counterclockwise swing, and Will, you go north on a clockwise loop. Keep a sharp eye, and watch out for the recon team and each other. I don’t want you two bumping into each other and shooting the hell out of yourselves. McMurray and I will stay here, and come a-runnin’ if you find anything. Clear? Then get going. I wanta get outa here quick as we can.”

  The two search units were back in a couple of hours. Neither had seen a thing. I had the troops staying with me look for sign, but the dense jungle had swallowed both Swanson and his men. We never saw them again.

  Finally, I gave up and called in the evacuation helicopters. There was too much danger in staying on the ground any longer. For the next few days, whenever the Covey plane flew the area, the Covey rider called on the radio, and monitored for the emergency beacon, to no avail.

  Swizzle Dick Swanson dissolved into the dim dusty memories of yesterday, his fame to live on after him, a treasured war story for those of us who knew him and remembered his special time in the limelight.

  10

  Wallaby’s Coming

  or

  Put the Steaks on the Barbie, Mate

  “Captain Nicholson, I want you to take B Company up to FOB (Forward Operating Base) 1 at Vandegrift and stand by to launch operations into Base Area 901 by ground insertion on my command.”

  Major Skelton, CCN’s S-3, tapped the map with his new toy, a collapsible pointer that he carried in his pocket like a pencil and could pull open to abo
ut three feet in length like an automobile radio antenna. He liked to slap it against the map, just to hear it pop, I guess. He paused to let me find the designated spot on the map. “We’ll send out recon teams to infiltrate across the border, and your reaction company will be ready to reinforce against any major contacts. This will allow us to keep the pressure on Charlie even though this damned rain is grounding chopper inserts.”

  I was rapidly scribbling down his instructions as he talked. “Yes, sir. You want me to take the entire company? Won’t that fill up the FOB to overflowing?”

  “You’ll make out,” the S-3 replied. “There’s not much likelihood that this bad weather will last beyond a week or so. You can suffer a little crowding that long, can’t you?”

  “Roger, sir, if you say so. I’ll get the company alerted. I’ll have my XO bring by a list of the equipment I’ll want to take along. We’ll be ready to go by 1600.”

  FOB 1 was located just outside the big Marine outpost at Camp Vandegrift, only a few klicks east of the Laotian border. A small detachment of CCN people there monitored radio-relay traffic from our teams across the border, and liaised with the Marines if we needed their artillery or air support.

  A late-season typhoon had brought in several days of bad flying weather, and more was forecast. Using the FOB as a start point and walking across the border was a good idea. I just hated the thought of two hundred people cooped up in a compound built for twenty. I hoped everyone brought their toothbrushes.

  We choppered into the FOB just ahead of another roaring thunderstorm and still managed to get just about everything soaked despite our best efforts. I never saw it rain as hard as it had those few days. It didn’t just come down in buckets; it rained solid sheets of water. I pitied the poor grunts out in the bush, who were trying to survive the enemy and not drown at the same time.

  We settled in and dispatched the unfortunate recon teams to make their wet, miserable hike into Laos. Those of us left made the best of a crowded situation. The FOB had a big enough bunker/TOC to house the Americans, but the Yards were crammed into pretty close quarters, sleeping in tents around the perimeter of our little camp.

  In spite of the wet conditions, a routine was established, and we practiced for combat operation across the line. We didn’t stray far from the main wire, since the VC were never far from it themselves. The teams weren’t having much success finding any targets of opportunity, so it appeared the trip would be a quiet one. Then, Lieutenant Mac reported that we were running out of rice and foodstuff for the Yard soldiers.

  Just about the worst thing you could do to create unrest in the ranks of our mercenary troops was mess up their rice allowance. They were adamant about keeping their bellies full, to the extent that other camps had suffered mass rebellion and desertions when the food ran out. It could be embarrassing and worse if it happened here, so close to Bon Hai, where most of my strikers lived. If they got hungry, they might just cut out for home and some of Momma’s cooking.

  I called down to CCN on the secure radio and ordered a resupply run. “Don’t know, Nick,” the S-4 supply officer replied. “We have no way to get it there right now. The air force is just about standing down while this rain persists, unless there’s an all-weather strip to land on.”

  “Hell’s fire,” I snarled in frustration. “You know all we’ve got here at the FOB is a dirt strip, or rather, a mud strip. Still, I gotta have some resupply.”

  “All right, I’ll try the Australian unit at Nha Trang. They sometimes fly when no one else will.”

  “Whatever it takes, just get some grub up here pronto, or I’ll be in charge of a ghost company.”

  The Aussie fliers, who used the call sign Wallaby, were famous throughout South Vietnam as crazy fliers. They’d fly when the ducks were walking. More than once I had heard how the bravery of the Wallaby crews paid off in big dividends to some hungry or supply-short SF camp. When it came to aerial resupply, they were certainly the favorites of the American Special Forces.

  The Aussies flew the de Havilland CV-7 STOL (short takeoff and landing) cargo plane. The twin-engine cargo carrier was ideal for the rough, unimproved landing strips carved out of the jungle beside the isolated camps scattered around the Vietnamese countryside. The U.S. Army had used the plane as its cargo carrier until the air force, fearful that it would lose control of some of the air operations in South Vietnam, insisted the planes be turned over to them. The boys in blue then quickly declared the sturdy but unglamorous puddle-jumpers obsolete and got rid of them.

  For the type of work we did, and the primitive airstrips we normally had, the Aussies were the best resupply unit in South Vietnam. If anybody could get through, the Wallabys could, and regularly did.

  When I passed the word that Wallabys were bringing in the supplies, a satisfied murmur went around the room. We all looked forward to meeting the nifty chaps of the Royal Australian Air Force.

  The next morning was unchanged from any that week, drizzly and gray. Low clouds came to within a few meters of the ground. I could have thrown a baseball into the air and seen it swallowed in the swirling mist. It was a miserable day for flying, at least anywhere around the FOB. Because we were in the mountains on a plateau surrounded by other mountaintops, no pilot in his right mind would try and get low enough to find us. The chances of being splattered on the slope of a surrounding hill were just too great.

  About noon, the radio blasted the eagerly awaited message. “Hello, Yanks! Wallaby’s coming. Are you there?”

  “Roger, Wallaby, we read you. Be advised that the ceiling is less than two hundred feet, and the runway is extremely muddy.” The FOB radio operator was all business; he wanted the plane to make it down safely.

  “Not a care, Yank,” was the cheery reply. “We’re starting through the overcast now. Let us know when you think we’re right over the camp.”

  We all hurried outside to listen, fearful of the sound of the Aussie plane slamming into the side of a mountain.

  “You’re right overhead,” the RTO shouted into the mike as the roar of the engines reached a crescendo. The crazy Aussie flyboys were easing down in a tight circle directly over the camp, hoping to break out of the overcast before they ran out of airspace. Lower and lower the circling plane descended, while we willed it to break free of the enveloping mist. Then suddenly, there it was, the red kangaroo painted on the tail, like a travel poster, breaking free of the mist with less than two hundred feet to spare before they plowed into the ground.

  With a roar of reversed engines, the gangly old airplane slipped to a halt in front of us, its wheels buried well past the axles in red clay mud. Cheering in admiration for the flying skill of the Aussie pilots, we slipped through the muck to the door of the craft, anxious to be the first to welcome the Aussie pilots to the FOB.

  “Cheerio, laddies,” a red-haired Aussie with a ferocious handlebar mustache shouted from the door of the aircraft. He dropped to the mud, followed in turn by his companion, a sandy-haired younger man, or really, youth was a fitting description for the copilot. I don’t think he could have been out of his teens. Two grizzled RAAF flight NCOs dropped out after the two pilots, and everyone sort of gathered around our new arrivals, anxious to greet them.

  Shaking hands all around, the pilot introduced himself and the rest of his crew. “Barney Clybourne and Peter Knolls, Royal Australian Air Force. These are my crewmen, Flying Sergeants Bobby Rader and Reggie McQuade.” All the Aussies greeted us like long-lost cousins, and we them. After meeting each other, we all headed for the team house as the Aussies wanted some beer to wash down the collective dryness in their throats. I’m certain the landing hadn’t been the piece of cake they pretended it was.

  First Sergeant Fischer got the strikers to quickly unload enough rice and dried meat to last the company for a month, if necessary. Barney and his flight sergeants walked back to the airplane after a couple of beers to inspect its wheels, which were buried in the red-orange clay of the airstrip.

  “W
e’re stuck here, laddies,” Barney announced at supper that evening. “The boys and I will have to wait until the ground dries a bit before we can taxi. Hope that’ll not slip a cropper into your operation here.”

  “Hell, no,” I answered, and was promptly chorused by the others. “Glad to have the company. Anything you want, just ask.”

  “You know, Captain, there is one thing I’d rather like to do, if you could work it out.” Flight Lieutenant Clybourne grinned at me conspiratorially. “Neither I or any of my crew has ever flown about in one of your Huey helicopters. I’d give a bloody hoot for the opportunity. Can it be arranged?” He brushed his rather long brown hair off his forehead, and winked confidently at me. Apparently, the Aussies didn’t make their soldiers cut their hair as close as we Americans did.

  The other Aussies nodded enthusiastically. “Right on, Barney. That’s a capital suggestion,” Sergeant Rader chimed in. “Maybe even out there where the bloody dinks are messing about. I’d like to take a shot at just one of the muggers before I go back to Queensland. That’d be a fair dinkum way to spend a day.” The slightly built Rader would have lasted about a day in the bush against the NVA. He appeared to be about as vicious as a little puppy dog.

  I shook my head. “I’ll have to see. The only way we can get a chopper is to borrow one from the Marines. It might take some doing, but, what the hell, I’ll give it a try tomorrow.”

  “Bloody marvelous,” Barney pumped my hand. “Now, come on, we’ve got beer to drink and lies to tell. Let’s get to it.”

  My head protested when it came time to get up the next morning, but a cold spray at the rudimentary shower stall washed the misery away. Even a few beers brought back memories of the party at the village. My head would never be the same. The rain had stopped, and there appeared to be a good chance that the sun would come out. I borrowed the FOB jeep and drove over to the Marine S-3 (Air) office with the NCOIC of the FOB, Harvey Saal, a legend among SF troopers. He had been in South Vietnam about as long as any man in country. In fact, we did not know it, but he was at that moment AWOL from a field hospital that intended to ship him Stateside to recover from a previous wound.