Devil's Guard- The Complete Series Box Set

by Eric Meyer

  He gave us the full text of the message. They’d been jumped by a large force of North Vietnamese regulars and had been forced to make a fighting retreat to the outskirts of Vinh. MACV were liaising with the United States Navy and the Air Force to arrange for an air strike on the enemy, as soon as they were due to go in they wanted us airborne.

  “We’ll be ready, you can acknowledge, let us know as soon as we can take off.”

  “Yes, Sir.” He went back to the tower and we sat on edge, waiting for the word to go. An hour and a half later, we were told to take off immediately and pick them up from a point five miles due south of Vinh. We climbed aboard our aircraft and minutes later I was flying north. I was wondering about navigation if things got difficult when Helene appeared in the cockpit. I nearly leapt out of my skin.

  “What the hell are you doing, you’re supposed to be waiting at Da Nang?” I shouted at her.

  “You needed a co-pilot, Jurgen, you’ve got me so shut up and let’s get on with it,” she said matter of factly as she sat down in the right hand seat. She’d timed it beautifully, it was too late for me to head back to Da Nang and remove her from the aircraft. I swallowed the angry retort I was about to make and did as she said, I shut up.

  After two hours we had crossed the DMZ and were well on our way to the pickup point outside Vinh. I saw movement out of my starboard window and glimpsed two squadrons of Douglas A-4 Skyhawks, heading for Vinh. They were travelling at high speed, inside of a minute they had disappeared from view.

  “They obviously mean business, sending that many aircraft over,” I said to Helene. She just pulled a face. I kept scanning the sky, then saw even more aircraft, a squadron of Grumman A-6 Intruders, ground attack bombers, they were new in Vietnam and carried a very heavy bomb load. I assumed they’d been launched from an aircraft carrier offshore, but it was too far away to see their markings. I looked again, a further squadron of aircraft were flying escort above the A6 intruders. One dipped down and came to check us out, they were F-100 Super Sabre fighter bombers.

  “I think they’ve sent every fighter aircraft in Vietnam to join us,” Helene said drily.

  I nodded, I was staggered at the awesome display of airpower, there must have been at least sixty aircraft in the air, maybe more. As we approached the vicinity of Vinh, we saw the results of their intervention. Half a dozen A4 Skyhawks were circling around a point several miles south of the town, occasionally one or two would swoop down and blaze away at a ground target. The wing leader came onto our frequency.

  “Civilian C-47s this is blue wing leader flying escort patrol over your party, acknowledge you have the LZ in sight.”

  I peered down and could see a large group of men in a defensive position either side of a sports field, it was Goldberg’s party without doubt. They were besieged by a number of North Vietnamese regulars who were themselves pinned down by the relentless firepower of the Skyhawks.

  “Civilian C-47s, acknowledged,” I replied.

  “Very good C-47s, let us make one more pass and then you can go in for the pick up.”

  “Acknowledged.”

  All six Skyhawks banked hard and swooped down on the North Vietnamese. The air came alive with rockets and cannon fire, the twenty millimetre cannon shells hammering the enemy ground troops to shreds. One by one they delivered their deadly ordnance and swept back up into the sky. I throttled down, dropped flaps and went straight in for a landing, Ritter followed suit and landed exactly parallel to me, showing off his superb flying skill as usual. As I taxied over to the men, Helene ran back to open the door, then they were pouring into the aircraft. Inside of a minute, Goldberg came into the cockpit and started when he saw Helene.

  “I didn’t expect to see you aboard, Ma’am,” he said. “Jurgen, we’re all aboard, you can take off right away?”

  I didn’t need any further encouragement, I opened the throttles wide and got us into the air. Ritter was right behind us and I felt comfortable to see several Skyhawks fall in around us as escort. Back in the cabin there was uproar, somehow they’d manage to locate some booze and were celebrating. Goldberg came into the cockpit. “Hoffman, I don’t suppose you take a drink when you’re driving?” He grinned.

  I shook my head. “No, thank you, Colonel. What are you celebrating, it sounds like a party back there?”

  “Jesus Christ, man, we got out, we really hit those commies hard. Did you see those fighter bombers go in?”

  “I saw them, yes. I assume your mission was a success, Colonel?”

  “Hell no,” he laughed, “it was a total mess up from start to finish. But we got out with only a couple of minor casualties and the air force gave them a damn good pasting. Christ, it’s something to celebrate,” he laughed again and went back into the cabin.

  We flew on in silence for almost an hour, then Helene spoke to me. “What are you thinking?”

  “I was wondering whether it would be worth us considering buying a Douglas DC-4, it’s a much bigger aircraft, four engines and over eighty seats.”

  She stared at me. “You cannot be serious? These people are lunatics. Those soldiers back there are celebrating a failed mission and the total devastation of a North Vietnamese town. Crazy.”

  I laughed at that. “Did you not realise that before, Helene? Of course they’re all crazy, war itself is lunacy. But it’s the way things are, I can’t change it or them.”

  “They’ll never win a war if they fight it like this, you know. The people on the ground must hate them,” she snapped back.

  I shrugged. “I expect they do hate them. But it’s not my problem, I’m not dropping the bombs.”

  “So that’s all it is to you, Jurgen, just a way of making money?”

  “That’s all this business has ever been, Helene, a business like any other. When I fought here in the Legion I fought hard and honourably. Now I run my business just as honourably. What would you have me do, retire and become a missionary?”

  She laughed then. “No, perhaps not. I can’t see you preaching the word of God.”

  “Good. And what about the baby, won’t you want him to have a decent home, nice clothes, a good education? Maybe the Sorbonne? We could get an apartment for when we visit.”

  She laughed. “You’re so sure it’s going to be a boy?”

  I shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know, I’ll be happy either way.”

  “That’s ok then. Paris, the Sorbonne, yes, that would be wonderful. But I don’t know, it’s a terrible way to earn a living.”

  “So is being a soldier, at least this pays better. It’s our business, Helene, it’s what we do.”

  She went quiet for a while as we droned on. Just before we came into land at Da Nang, she suddenly turned to me. “If we were to stay here for a while longer, Jurgen, what does a Douglas DC-4 cost these days? I hate it all, but we do have to think about the future of our child.”

  I grinned. “A lot of money, my darling, but at this rate we’ll be able to afford it. Providing the war goes on for a few years.”

  I smiled, French women were both beautiful and very practical and my brave, lovely wife possessed both of these qualities in full. How could any man be as lucky as me, to have a wife like her? We were both survivors, both battered by the forces of war and both able to keep looking forward.

  “Oh, the war will go on for some time,” she said. “But you know that sooner or later we’ll have to leave South Vietnam?”

  “You mean when the communists take over.”

  She nodded. “Exactly.”

  *****

  Once upon a time our traditional goal in war and can anyone doubt that we are at war? - was victory. Once upon a time we were proud of our strength, our military power. Now we seem ashamed of it. Once upon a time the rest of the world looked to us for leadership. Now they look to us for a quick handout and a fence-straddling international posture.

  Barry M. Goldwater

  General Harkins looked out of his office window. Jurgen Hoffman and his pretty
wife Helene were walking out of the building having just signed a new one year contract with the U.S. military. Jurgen was carrying their new baby, a girl named Celine, apparently after Helene’s grandmother. They were a happy, prosperous looking couple, he reflected, more prosperous now that they had the new contract to make payment on a Douglas DC-4. He looked around as an aide, a major, walked into his office and saluted.

  “Sir, the news has come through, Diem is dead, the information minister Tran Tu Oai has declared it was a suicide.”

  “And?” Harkins pressed him.

  “It was General Duong Van Minh, Sir. Together with the Army Chief of Staff, Tran Van Don. Just as we expected.”

  Harkins nodded. That would leave the way clear for someone who would be more acceptable to the Buddhist majority.

  His thoughts turned to the other problem, the New York Times correspondent David Halberstam. Four months ago they were having a Fourth of July celebration at the American embassy when David Halberstam became so angry that he refused to shake hands with Harkins. When the host called for a toast to the General, Halberstam shouted ‘Paul D. Harkins should be court martialled and shot!’ It was all bullshit, of course, but that kind of bullshit tended to stick.

  It was lucky that he had the ear of President John F Kennedy, at least Kennedy would be there for the long haul, he wasn’t likely to go the way of Diem in this fly-blown country, assassinated by his own people.

  Even the Times correspondent, Lee Griggs had the impertinence to compose a sarcastic rhyme about him.

  ‘We are winning, this I know, General Harkins tells me so.

  In the mountains, things are rough,

  In the Delta, mighty tough,

  But the V.C. will soon go, General Harkins tells me so.’

  These damn traitors ought to be shot, he thought to himself. Thank God for the United States.

  The End

  DEVIL'S GUARD COUNTERATTACK

  By Eric Meyer

  PUBLISHED BY:

  Swordworks Books

  FOREWORD

  The Tet offensive came as a massive shock to the Americans at the end of January 1968. The Vietnam War was at its height and General William Westmoreland’s plan to engage the enemy in an attritional battle at Khe Sanh had only just begun. The government and military line for the media and public was unequivocal, the war is being won, the communists are weakened and almost ready to lay down their arms. When they broke the traditional New Year’s truce during the Tet holiday, the shock to the South Vietnamese and more importantly the American government and public was shattering. Their confident understanding that the troop losses were worthwhile, that the end was in sight, were wrecked. It seemed to them that they had been misled.

  Despite the fact that the Americans and ARVN inflicted massive damage on the communist ability to fight, the damage to the image of the war in the public perception was beyond repair.

  For several weeks the major towns and cities of South Vietnam became battlegrounds and Khe Sanh itself saw a battle for survival that lasted for many months and inflicted countless casualties on all sides. Even when the siege of Khe Sanh was lifted and the communists defeated, the base was abandoned shortly afterwards, awarding the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army a propaganda victory.

  The role of mercenaries in the war and during Tet is well documented, as is the role of civilian aircraft flying up and down the country on a range of mysterious errands. Equally well documented was the Phoenix Program, the American policy of using Special Forces and civilian mercenaries, both Vietnamese and foreign to assassinate communist leaders both military and political.

  Amidst the turmoil and hell of this critical period there were many accounts of actions behind enemy lines. This is one such account.

  For obvious reasons, some of the details in this story cannot be individually verified, but in general most of the events took place and are true. For the rest of the story, I earnestly hope the reader will forgive the interpretation that I had to make to weave the mass of data into a coherent story.

  Eric Meyer

  INTRODUCTION

  At a time when Jurgen Hoffman has settled into his new life with his beautiful French wife Helene, running a growing but small airline in South Vietnam, the communist Tet offensive takes away everything he has been working for. His airline is wrecked, the aircraft and hangar destroyed in a Viet Cong mortar attack. His wife, a doctor, is kidnapped. All he has left are his comrades from the old days, veterans of the Waffen –SS legions that were feared across Europe. Experienced in fighting the communist guerillas from their service in the French Foreign Legion, the brutal fighting skills are the only resource they have left with which to restore their families and fortunes. Valued by the American military as experts in guiding armed incursions into the Viet Cong jungle strongholds, this is the story of their efforts as they work with the Americans to blunt the impact of the Tet offensive.

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘We are at war with the most dangerous enemy that has ever faced mankind in his long climb from the swamp to the stars, and it has been said if we lose that war, and in so doing lose this way of freedom of ours, history will record with the greatest astonishment that those who had the most to lose did the least to prevent its happening.’

  Ronald Reagan 1964

  I surveyed the wreckage of my whole life, everything I had worked for, fought for, shed blood for. The hangar was partially destroyed, outside three aircraft lay drunkenly at odd angles on the concrete. Two Douglas DC-4s, the big, profit making aircraft that promised to be the basis of a flourishing and successful airline. As well as the Douglas C-47, the reliable old friend that had been the early mainstay of the launch of our new airline. All smashed, destroyed in a series of mortar strikes that had devastated Tan Son Nhat, the huge military and civil airfield outside of Saigon. A salvo of shells had struck the heart of our operation, scoring hits on the aircraft and the hangar, we had counted more than thirty shells in all during the initial attack. Mortar attacks were nothing new to us and we had a sandbagged trench prepared thirty yards from the hangar where we were able to shelter during the raid. With total shock we had watched the attack, seeing all we had worked for destroyed in a matter of a few minutes.

  “At least we didn’t suffer any casualties,” Paul said to me.

  Paul Schuster, my companion and partner for the last twenty-odd years. Left homeless and rootless after the Second World War, both of us found that former Waffen-SS officers had little to offer the new Europe. We had joined the French Foreign Legion and fought our way through Indochina. After Dien Bien Phu, the disastrous French defeat, we had built a new life for ourselves with a small airline operating out of Tan Son Nhat. Years of work and sacrifice destroyed in minutes by yet another communist attack, just when it seemed that we were getting ahead. I looked at Ritter, another veteran of World War Two, he couldn’t return my gaze. A brilliant pilot, the aircraft were his life and his loves, now it was effectively over. Emile de Grasse, our chief engineer and his assistant Joe Ryder looked on stonily, like Ritter the aircraft were their life.

  “I should go out to Cholon, Jurgen, to check on Helene and Sophie,” Lan said.

  I looked around at her. Nguyen Vo Lan was our office manager, a twenty-eight year old Vietnamese, competent and efficient, she was the backbone of our operation. I wondered why she was so keen to go to Cholon, the mainly Chinese area of Saigon in which my wife Helene and I lived with our daughter in a rented bungalow. My thoughts were interrupted by an explosion as another mortar shell hit the main runway two hundred yards away from us. We ducked down while debris showered around us.

  There was a brief pause and everything seemed to have gone quiet. I looked over the parapet of our trench only to duck down again as a machine gun started chattering. Then there were a series of screams and shouts, Paul and I had heard them before, the VC were attacking. The distinctive sharp sound of M16 bursts added to the din as the U.S. and ARVN forces fired back, then we heard the pneumati
c drill sound as someone got a .50 calibre machine gun into action. All we could do was wait until it was over, after all, it wasn’t our battle. I crouched down and looked back at Lan, I kicked myself for not thinking of my wife and daughter before now. Thank God she cared for their welfare.

  “You’re right, it would be good to have someone go check on them. But Lan, we don’t know how far this attack has spread, the VC may have got as far as Cholon.”

  “In which case you’d want me to check, Jurgen.”

  I smiled. “Yes, Lan, thanks. What about Nhu, would it be best if you got her out of here?”

  Nhu was our pretty, tiny young Vietnamese office assistant, she helped Lan with the day to day business of typing and filing.

  “Yes, I’ll take Nhu with me if you wish. We’d better get going, Jurgen, I can find a way through the city that keeps us clear of the fighting.”

  I put my hand on her arm. “No, wait until this attack is over, I don’t want you exposed to the crossfire, Lan.”

  She frowned, but nodded and went over to talk to Nhu. The sound of the gunfire intensified. Paul Schuster looked grim, he would certainly be thinking along the same lines as me. These terrorists had destroyed our business, our future, how tempting it would be to take one of the assault rifles and start seeking revenge. When the attack started we had all grabbed for our rifles, for when the VC attacked there was no rule of law in South Vietnam, it was every man for himself. We still used old but reliable M2 carbines, the compact, fully automatic rifle that dated back more than twenty years to the last days of the Second World War. But it wasn’t our battle.

  We waited out the battle, hearing the screams and shouts of both attackers and defenders. Screams of hate, of fear, of pain and panic. At last the firing started to die down and I guessed that the airfield defenders were getting the best of it. To my knowledge there were at least four battalions of troops based in and around Tan Son Nhat, at least three thousand men. More than enough to deter a Viet Cong guerrilla raid. I looked out of the trench again and saw the terrible sight of our aircraft ablaze, total wrecks. The wind changed suddenly and the smoke cleared from the furthest DC-4, to my horror I saw several black clad figures emerge through the smoke, retreating from the fighting and heading straight towards us.