“Lieutenant.” A messenger came to Nam Thay. “There’s good news.”
Mitterschmidt watched the two men, uncomfortable in his lack of understanding of their words. In the darkness they were black silhouettes against a black backdrop. The German looked east. Before him the land fell away, the canopy disappeared. What earlier had been flatlands alive with fire now seemed to be an endless black void. By 0330 hours the rain softened and the fogmist fell to hug the earth in a layer no thicker than a man’s height. Across the unseen quagmire the raised highway emerged, a line of lights—torches, flashlights, headlights, spotlights, and mortar-launched parachute flares.
A second messenger came to Thay, spoke, quickly and left. “There’s good word, sir.” The Viet Namese escort officer beamed. “You’re to be congratulated.”
“The bridges?”
“Yes sir. They floated the mines downstream to them with complete success. All three have been dropped.”
“Without dac cong?”
“The sappers floated with them to the bridge supports, then floated on.”
“Is that one?” Mitterschmidt asked as a parachute flare lit a twisted sculpture in the distance.
“That’s the Tang Kouk Canal bridge.”
“I should like to film that when it’s lighter.”
From behind them in the forest the tremendous bang of two 130mm guns lobbing a salvo toward the small airfield between Tang Kouk and Rumlong made the German dive flat. His fear-leap caused Thay to respond alike. A minute later the explosion of outgoing erupted again and both men sat on the wet forest floor and laughed. Then again and again the blasts. Farther north a sister unit launched a series of l22mm rockets. Still the 130s banged out their rounds. With each salvo the ground jumped. The concussions hit Mitterschmidt’s ears as hard as if he were being hit by fists. Now he did not smile. Methodically he cleaned the Bolex. Three kilometers south, almost exactly where the bombers had hit earlier, there was more firing. A forested plantation ridge protruded into the vast sea of rice fields to within a few kilometers of Phum Pa Kham. From it four 120mm mortar squads were unleashing a continual barrage. All along the twelve-kilometer stretch from Pa Kham to Tang Kouk and Rumlong shells burst, and under the shelling, under the tully fog, the regiments of the NVA 7th Division moved out, ran along prepared trails, along dikes and through paddies with shallow water cover, trotted forward in the dark following the dim red or green flashlights of guides who had moved in as the farmers had evacuated. Behind the first wave of light infantry came a second. Behind the second a third and with the third trotted Hans Mitterschmidt, his two escorts and his personal porter.
At 0330 hours 26 October 1971 the siege and shelling of Pa Kham, estimated population 9,000 began. At 0335 hours shells began to rain down on Tang Kouk, estimated population 8,000. An hour later the airfield north of Tang Kouk was probed by ground assault teams. At 0440 hours the shelling of Rumlong, estimated population 12,000, commenced. The shelling of all four sites and the connecting roadway was heavy and sustained.
“Get them off the road!” Sullivan screamed at Sergeant Seng Sovat as he recognized Colonel Chhan’s enlisted aide. Sullivan grabbed Seng’s shirt shoulder with his left hand. With his right he pointed furiously at a mixed group of dependants, soldiers and refugees. “Them! Them!” He gestured. “Off there!” He pointed to the dark murky waters off the west side of the road. “Shit!” he cussed himself. For an hour he had coursed up and down the roadway attempting to force organization on anarchy. “Where’s the colonel?” he railed in French. “Perimeter! Here!” The refugee farmers needed little prodding. Their section of roadway wasn’t under attack but both north and south were being pulverized with thousands of rounds. Fear grabbed them. The bridge to Pa Kham, almost within spitting distance, was out. Terror grabbed them. They had nothing. Their past had been destroyed in the fires. Their future, the bridge to Phnom Penh, to reinforcements, to escape, was a twisted mass of steel with the long center span lying one end up, the other in the deep canal. The old, pulling and chasing the very young, hobbled over the edge. “Stay with Grandpa! Don’t get lost.” “Where’s Mama!” “Gone with the Patriots. We’ll find her later. Come down. Come down here. Help your grandmother.”
At first the FANK infantry soldiers of the First Brigade Group just north of the bridge panicked. They, like the peasants, scattered, dove, ran, fled. But quickly half realized there was no place to go. To swim or float the canal would only place them in the mortar explosions to the south. To sprint north would risk the artillery barrage on Tang Kouk or the airstrip. East was the enemy, west the uncharted paddies and formidable swamp. With no place to go, with their families hugging the west bank of the road, half the FANK troops rose and assembled in fire teams, squads and platoons. Those with training, no matter their rank, took charge while those who’d bought their office either obeyed or fled, huddled with the civilians or shouldered rifles and slid off the east bank into the paddies, sliding down the embankment under the tully fog until their feet and legs were in the cool water and their eyes were below the tops of the stalks—trained and untrained, officers and peons, a concealed perimeter without cover, without fields of fire, without observation ability—waiting, without offensive, counteroffensive or defensive tactical plans.
By 0500 hours the sky had lightened, the clouds had thinned, the rain had ceased. Along the road the six APCs of the brigade’s armor battalion had dispersed—two, with the section’s only tank, near the bridge ramp to cover that flank if the NVA launched a waterborne assault from the canal, then one every half kilometer to the outskirts of Tang Kouk. Sullivan found Colonel Chhan Samkai and his command post in a troop bus, behind the first lone APC north of the southern flank. To Sullivan the CP was a criminal cluster-fuck. Chhan Samkai was in a funk, a pout which he did not, could not, hide from the American captain.
Diplomatically, the colonel’s senior aide-de-camp, Captain Sisowath Suong, greeted the scowling Sullivan. “Son of a bitch,” Sullivan growled. If he could have, he would have taken charge retrospectively, back three or four months, back long enough to have ensured that the men were paid, equipped and trained.
“Pardon?”
“I said”—Sullivan curbed his anger—“ ‘son of a bitch.’ ” Then he laughed. He shook his head as might one standing with beleaguered teammates. “This is the shits,” he said, coughed, laughed out the words in French. “We are caught with our pants down, no?”
The aide laughed in the oppressive atmosphere of the CP inside the bus. “Yes and no,” he answered. “Let them come. You talk to the forward air controllers and the bombers will kill them all.”
“Have there been orders? The APCs are so far apart. Could they be moved closer to cover each other?”
“He tells us,” Colonel Chhan injected, “he tells us to create an illusion.”
“An illusion?” Sullivan smiled with false sympathy. “Who tells—”
“Our orders come directly from General Lon Nol. He has given the identical order to every commander. ‘Create the illusion of many soldiers and frighten the enemy away.’ ”
Sullivan swallowed. He attempted to hide his disapproval.
“Here, Captain”—Chhan motioned to a field table with an unrolled map—“here is the situation.”
Sullivan studied the map. The entire corridor was in disarray. With the three bridges down Kompong Thom was cut off. The middle column between Tang Kouk and the Chinit River was isolated; the southern section, which might expect reinforcements from Phnom Penh, was suffering the heaviest artillery barrage of the war. From Radio Phnom Penh, not military channels, Lon Nol was urging his troops to destroy the thmils, to fight the holy fight against Communist atheists. As they listened, as Suong translated, Sullivan removed the PRC-25 from his back. The NVA 130s shifted south to the roadway just below Tang Kouk. In the clearing dawn, clouds from the explosions could be seen rising only a kilometer north. South by the bridge ramp sniper fire dinged off an APCs shell. The gunners returned can
non and machine gun fire, spraying haphazardly. The urge to fire rolled up the FANK line—first a few, then entire sections, then an entire kilometer of troops wasting their ammunition against unseen “targets.” Sullivan keyed the handset. “Birddog Oscar Victory One, this is...”
Fourteen kilometers north-northeast of John L. Sullivan’s location, the 2d Company of the KT 104th Battalion of the Krahom Army of the North marched single file down a mud-slick dike, marched west under the trajectory of the NVA rockets blasting Rumlong, marched toward a battery of FANK 105mm howitzers that was answering the NVA shot for shot. The FANK battery, one of the few that was well trained, paid and supplied, had laid and registered its guns when the column halted a week before, and for a week they’d improved their defensive position. Using ground radar to determine the launch sites of the NVA rockets the nationals systematically fired half-battery salvos into the forest.
Quietly Nang’s troops advanced. Overhead the rockets roared horrible roars, passing low, impacting and exploding fifteen hundred meters ahead, ahead where the blasting of the 105s terrified the Krahom boys. To the boy, they were frightened. It was one thing to conquer a lightly armed hamlet, one thing to run the unarmed villagers to detention centers for further evacuation, one thing to burn the land, kill the animals—it was a totally different thing to march into battle against a heavily armed enemy force backed by air support that most of them not only didn’t, but couldn’t, understand.
On another approach route a hundred meters north, Met Horl’s Krahom company, in parallel file to Nang’s, followed another NVA guide. Farther north and farther south, the 1st and 4th of the KT 104th also advanced. Bracketing them, with far greater intrinsic firepower, were elements of the NVA 141st Regiment. Behind them, in the forest, was the NVA 40th Artillery.
Nang squatted on the dike. Met Duch closed behind him, squatted. Then Hon and Rath stopped. Ahead of them the Tiger Platoon continued, but behind, Monkey and Rabbit waited, Nang motioned for Hon. “I don’t like it,” he whispered.
“What?”
“There’s no plan.”
“The plan is to overrun Rumlong.”
“I’ve fought with them before,” Nang whispered. “This isn’t the way to fight. We’re too late. It’s too light. This is not a plan.”
“There’s money in the city,” Hon whispered. “There’s evil there. To reform the people we must destroy it. It’s as you’ve said.”
“Yes. No. That’s not what I mean. We’re...”
Whistles blew before and behind them. A guide came back, out of breath. “Quick. Move. Fo...w...ward,” he stuttered in broken Khmer. “Quick. The attack c...co...mence now.”
Overhead the full assets of aerial surveillance also converged. With the thinning clouds, photo reconnaissance satellites 150 miles above the earth beamed images of trucks and tanks down to earth stations in Thailand. From 85,000 feet an SR-71 Blackbird picked up columns of humans. At 15,000 feet RF-101 Voodoos with high-powered telescopes mounted on inertial stabilized platforms and using a variety of light and sound enhancement techniques, including infrared and radar, produced quick and accurate photo maps of troop deployment. A C-130 came on station, dropped light bombs, gigantic flashbulbs, clicked photos and verified target locations. Though the targets were moving the aerial reconnaissance workers had no problems keeping track as bombing missions were computer developed, ordered and loaded. On the RF-l0ls, exposed film was automatically processed and scanned and the images were converted to radio beams which were relayed to ground stations with high-resolution TV screens. Within minutes of overflight, technicians were identifying specific targets, calculating the ordnance needed and requesting permission to destroy.
Across the rice fields from Pa Kham to Rumlong seven thousand Communist soldiers advanced on the FANK column and on the cities of Highway 6. Every move was timed, coordinated, efficiently meshing exactly as the planners at COKA’s A-40 office had foreseen. Four fighter-bombers from Da Nang screamed in low over the plantations, across the paddies, up over the highway, up and north, east, rolling, beginning their bombing runs. The ground was dark, landmarks blurred. The enemy had frozen, doused its lights, covered its machines. East of Pa Kham a jet unleashed a pair of napalm canisters where the pilot believed target coordinates and visual observation matched. The plane shrieked up over the land as the cans tumbled. The jet turned south, the jellied gas ignited splashing fire in two jagged cones lighting the land, exposing a gun emplacement. Again the jet dove, this time with visual contact of its target. As the pilot aimed in he relayed target data to a slow-moving, approaching OV-1 Mohawk forward air control aircraft, then released two high-explosive iron bombs. Before they exploded he was off station. No Allied observer, ground or aerial, saw the impact, the concussion eighty feet off target, the shrapnel slashing rubber trees; mostly spent before clattering against the armor plate of the field gun. East of the airfield, east of Phum Chamkar, east of Baray, similar attacks were repeated and the first wave of bombers went off station.
Nang took control of his unit. “Now! Yes! Quickly!” They were less than three hundred meters from the berm which led up out of the paddies to a small cluster of homes and the only buildings of Rumlong east of the road. “Quickly,” he said to Hon. “The fog is lifting.” Still in file the yotheas ran toward the berm which loomed above them like a great castle wall. Two hundred meters, one hundred. Still rockets crashed into the city. Through the ground mist a plume of smoke could be seen rising west of the road into the dawning sky. Still the FANK 105 howitzers reported, the clap at such close range jolting the boy soldiers. Behind them, north and south, two A-130s with mounted 40mm cannons strafed the flatlands, grenades bursting at, on, in the water with odd PWOCK, PWOCK, PWOCKs. Screams—paddies away. “Quick. Quick,” Nang urged his fighters. “Hit the berm. Hug the enemy. Make his planes useless. Don’t stop. Don’t fire until you’re at the top.” Twenty meters. Ten meters. Three-point attack. Concentrate fire. The berm loomed like a wall. Suddenly phftp! phftp! phftptptptptp! About them, small arms bullets.
“Down there!” Screaming from FANK soldiers on the berm. Nang sprinted up, through Monkey Platoon, returning fire. He saw his enemy, fired saw the body jerk, collapse. Tiger Platoon was being mauled. Rabbit Platoon was over the top, firing, throwing grenades. Nang crested the berm. He was directly before the battery of FANK 105s. Cannoneers were cranking the tubes down, loading beehive rounds. Rabbit yotheas were killing the ammo bearers, firing their rifles into the storage culverts trying to explode the stacked rounds, being shot by FANK troops with AK-47s or M-16s, diving, scrambling for cover. Monkey Platoon reinforced. Tiger had broken those able splashing back into the paddies. A 105 cracked, the sound deafening, stinging Nang’s damaged and redamaged ears. One round, eight thousand flechettes, and three cells of yotheas were mutilated, decapitated. Nang, lying against the sandbagged side of a gun emplacement, sensed abandonment. There were no more rockets. The ground heaved spasmodically, as if immense hammers were pounding the plantations and paddies. The sister companies of Nang’s unit were being picked apart, piecemeal, by FANK riflemen, machine gunners and grenadeers. None of the NVA 141st Regiment’s elements had engaged the nationals.
Nang was pissed. Down the line there was a lull. About him there was chaos. From Rabbit Platoon a rocket-propelled grenade burst against a howitzer—shrapnel zinging, dropping the cannoneers. Nang lurched up, leaped, tossed a grenade, dove. More explosions. Thick smoke. Dust, mist, acid taste hanging in air, in lungs, clinging to skin, eyes. Nang leaped again, up again. Rabbit Platoon had seized half the battery, was fighting hand to hand, gun to gun, firing outward from the defensive rings at approaching reinforcements. Behind Nang the remnant of Monkey pinched in, catching the cannoncockers in deadly crossfire. Along this sector they were the only fight. The day dawned clear, the sun turning mud to dust. From a bunker four FANK soldiers jumped, fired, readied to flee. Immediately they were shot. Nang jumped into them, bayoneting the one unscathed troop, then viciously st
abbing the wounded.
“Disengage! Withdraw!” Nang signaled the order. All about him was carnage and calm. He didn’t want to attract the enemy to his position. He grabbed a yothea. They cranked a howitzer around, loaded, barrel sighted. What was left of the 2d of the 104th quickly policed up usable, carryable weapons. They fled down the berm. Two cells fired constant rearguard action, pinning down the FANK troops who’d responded to the fight at the 105 battlement. An APC, machine gun firing quick sporadic bursts, rolled toward them from six hundred meters south. Behind, beside it, FANK infantry soldiers fired wildly, full magazines, into the air, the ground. Nang pulled the lanyard and the howitzer roared. Yotheas had reached the dike, sprinted a hundred meters from the berm and begun slipping into the paddies searching for concealment in the water and rice stalks, dispersing, alternately hiding and lurching farther from the roadway. There was a huge explosion as the APC burst apart, metal chunks skyrocketing, seemingly hanging in the air, then crashing toward earth.
“Quick. Withdraw.”
As fast as they could run the last yotheas leaped the rampart, tore for the dike, the paddy. From concealment, a few yotheas sniped at the berm. On the berm FANK soldiers poked their heads from foxholes where they’d hidden since the fight had erupted. One drew a bead on the last fleeing Khmer Communist. He fired, semiautomatic. The first round too high. Adjust. Fire. Fire. Fire. A rifle kicked from the fleeing boy’s hand but he did not stop.
Throughout the morning the sky cleared and all morning the planes came. Deep in the plantation beneath the high trees Viet Namese soldiers improved their overhead camouflage or dug bunkers, trenches or tunnels. The ground rumbled constantly. Thirty-four B-52 sorties hit suspected plantation staging areas, artillery rear bases and logistics lines. Sixty fighter-bomber sorties blasted the paddies and specific plantation targets. For a time the German “military strategist” attempted to film the attack aircraft flying low over the flatland, but with each sortie he withdrew toward the new bunker, withdrew into himself, the bravado of the night giving way to a somber and pensive mood.
For the Sake of All Living Things Page 54