by Eric Meyer
“The attack is going well, Dung?” he asked icily.
He knew that it was not, their early attacks had in fact failed badly, possibly due to an intelligence failure following the capture days before the offensive was launched of one of their senior officers. But he wasn’t looking for excuses, according to Comrade Giap, this offensive would see an uprising that would sweep the Saigon regime from power and send their American lackeys into the sea. And of course, the commanders that were at the forefront of the offensive would see themselves receive their just rewards for their successes, and Minh intended that he would be one of them.
“There have been problems, Commissar,” Dung stammered.
In truth, there had been more than problems. The ARVN forces and their American allies had literally been waiting for them and they had fallen into an ambush that had caused the loss of more than a third of Dung’s force. More than three hundred of his men were killed and wounded in the initial assaults, the rest had fallen back to wait for new orders.
“I am not interested in your problems, Captain Dung. Have you finalised plans for the assault on the airbase?”
Dung gulped. Both men knew that the moment they attacked the Americans would unleash their fearsome airpower, using the aircraft stationed at the base as well as reinforcements that they could call in from aircraft carriers stationed offshore.
“Commissar, the base is huge and so many of my men have been killed and wounded already. Could you not send for reinforcements?”
Minh considered for a few moments. He knew that the Viet Cong and their North Vietnamese allies, the PAVN, the People’s Army, were overstretched. Would they be likely to send reinforcements? Probably not, especially since so many of their troops were positioned around the American forward base at Khe Sanh. No, there would be no reinforcements, Dung would have to succeed no matter how many of his half-trained useless troops he lost. He could lose them all if it put Minh where he was going. Which was to the top. The very top, and this offensive would put him there if Dung played his part.
“Hanoi would be disappointed if they thought that their faith in you was in error, Comrade Dung.”
He was careful to use the term ‘comrade’ to appeal to his party loyalty. That’s what was needed now, party fanaticism triumphing over military caution.
“Of course, Commissar,” Dung said eagerly. But he was no fool, what choice did he have, he understood what was being demanded of him and was enough of a realist to agree to anything, his troops would just have to manage. Even as he spoke he was working out how far away he could stay from the main action and yet save face.
“You will continue the mortar bombardment through the night, Comrade Dung. The more aircraft you can damage, the less there will be to launch attacks against your men when they attack at first light, yes?”
“Very well, Commissar.”
“I won’t keep you from your preparations, Captain, you must have much to do.”
“Yes, Sir.”
The Captain stopped himself from saluting the Commissar and left the underground room. Minh looked back at the pile of paperwork on his desk and continued working through it. He caught sight of a map and looked at it for the thousandth time. Saigon, yes, there was a prize worth fighting for. Governor of Saigon, not too ambitious to alarm the leaders in Hanoi, yet a seat of wealth and power to the man who was awarded that illustrious post. What was needed was for that fool Dung to achieve some worthwhile victories over the next few days. Perhaps some of the men needed some encouragement. He remembered a lesson he had learned in school about the Roman legions that had conquered Europe and parts of Asia and Africa. He wrote a careful order on a new sheet of paper, signed it and called for a messenger. The man rushed in and bowed.
“Take this to Captain Dung, he is to acknowledge receipt. Hurry!”
“Yes, Commissar.”
The man took the note and rushed away. Minh wondered at Dung’s reaction to the order, any units failing to take their objective tomorrow would be forced to undergo decimation, the process whereby every tenth man was executed, the victims to be chosen by their comrades. That should put some spirit into their attacks, he smiled inwardly. He bent back to his papers and began checking the equipment manifests returned by some of his outlying units. There was no time to rest during a war.
CHAPTER 2
‘Television brought the brutality of war into the comfort of the living room. Vietnam was lost in the living rooms of America--not on the battlefields of Vietnam.’
Marshall McLuhan
We spent the next twenty-four hours trapped in Da Nang. I was distraught about Helene and Sophie, at one point Ritter and Paul physically restrained me from stealing a car and driving back all the way to Saigon. They pointed out, rightly, that I wouldn’t be any help to anyone from inside a military stockade. Ritter wanted to visit China Beach, he’d never seen it despite his long service in Vietnam and we got permission from MACV to go there with an escort of MPs, including my Jewish tormentor Master Sergeant Aaron Cohen. For a couple of hours we were able to forget the war, at least in part, and we stripped off and swum in the sea while our guards watched us carefully. Perhaps they thought we were about to escape by swimming away, I wasn’t sure. When we were a hundred yards offshore we heard the sound of rifle fire and shots hit the water twenty or thirty yards away. We whirled around to see where it was coming from, but there was no attack. The MPs had decided to get in some target practice on a large baulk of timber that was drifting nearby. A couple of shots missed badly and came near but we ignored them, it was a stupid macho game, no doubt instigated by Cohen. When we got back to shore he was smirking and I said nothing about his silly little game. I’d like to have told him he would have made the ideal enemy soldier, childish, immature and unstable, an easy target for a trained foe, but I let it be.
We got back to the airfield with the familiar roar of aircraft taking off and landing, the long flightlines of USAF fighters, the bulky shapes of cargo aircraft hastily being loaded and unloaded, the whole place was in chaos. ARVN soldiers and American marines patrolled constantly on foot and in jeeps and armoured personnel carriers. Huey troop carrying helicopters constantly took off and headed for the nearby hills, there were also half a dozen of the new Cobra attack helicopters mounting operations. It was an impressive display of military might and gave us the impression that any increase in Viet Cong activity would be quickly suppressed.
But the communists were not about to give up. Sporadic mortar fire peppered the airbase throughout the rest of the day causing small numbers of casualties in both people and equipment. Several aircraft lay at drunken angles pushed to the edges of the tarmac to keep the runway clear. The tarmac itself was patched where shells had struck, making it unsafe for flight operations until the combat engineers hurried out to repair it. Strike operations were conducted by F4 Phantoms of the 366th Tactical Fighter Wing constantly hunting out, and harassing the enemy wherever they could be found. Which was not very often. The three of us, with long and bitter experience of Viet Minh and Viet Cong tactics, knew they were probably hiding in tunnels which they had started to dig during the French war in Indochina. It was a difficult tactic to counter, they would suddenly pop up and shoot, then disappear like ghosts. Yet their tactics in Saigon had been different, I recalled, they had conducted a series of frontal attacks, they’d also attacked here. Would they chance it again, against a heavily fortified and well equipped airbase now fully alerted? I doubted it, but in view of the way things were in Saigon, I hoped the military were allowing for the possibility.
We were made welcome in the officers’ mess and drank soft drinks and chatted through the evening, alcohol was not permitted due to the risk of a VC attack, we could be required to make an emergency take-off, but everything was quiet. We bunked down in a spare room with some mattresses they brought in and put on the floor. I slept badly, worrying about my family in Saigon. Would Helene be alive? Of course she would, trained doctors were in short supply in t
he ranks of the Viet Cong and she would be valued and well guarded. Probably! But would they ever let her go? They’d have to, I’d decided that I would make them let her go, whatever it took. Then in the early dawn the enemy brought the war to a new crescendo with an all out frontal attack.
Like many large scale attacks it all happened all at once, the sound of explosions, the crackle of small arms fire, lights suddenly blazing bright, sirens sounding, voices shouting. We were scrambling to get dressed when the door was flung open and a wild-eyed private stood there.
“You’re to take cover in the bunker and stand by to take off on the General’s order.”
“Thank you, Private,” I replied. He rushed away and I turned to my companions.
“It looks like the communists are interrupting our breakfast, my friends.”
They both laughed. “Not for the first time,” Paul said.
“What wouldn’t I give for the chance to fly off one of those F4s?” Ritter said. “Do you think they may be short of fighter pilots?”
Paul and I laughed. There weren’t many certainties in this world, but one was that no way would our friend ever be allowed near one of their advanced supersonic fighter aircraft. We finished dressing and went out to find what was required of us. General Wilkes was snapping out orders and men were running to and fro. The flightline was a hive of activity as fighter aircraft spooled up and roared off the runway. Captain Vincent spotted us and came over to speak.
“When the flightline is clear we want you to get those C-130s off the ground, would you stand by to move quickly?”
“We’re ready, Captain,” Ritter said, “Just give the word.”
“Good. The ground crews are out pre-flighting them right now, they’re putting on fuel too.”
“You mean they weren’t refuelled yesterday when we came in?” he asked the officer incredulously.
“Er, no, they weren’t, it was overlooked.”
None of us said a word, but he could see in our faces how unimpressed we were with such a singular example of military sloppiness. We left the building and ran across to the ramp where the C-130s were being prepared. The runway was alive with activity, dozens of aircraft queued to take off. Around the perimeter a number of attacks were in progress, the inevitable mortar shells landed around us, rifle and machine gun fire spat across the airfield and the clatter of helicopter rotors added to the din. Eight Hueys took off, laden with troops, two more Hueys were equipped as gunships and they flew on the flanks of the formation. Almost at once enemy machine gun fire reached up to hit them, one of the Hueys shook as it was hit and it started to go down, trailing smoke. It landed hard, but the troops managed to scramble out largely unscathed. One of the gunships banked away to find the machine gun and seconds later we heard the sound of their minigun sending its enormous quantity of bullets down onto the enemy position. The machine gun stopped abruptly and the gunship rejoined the formation.
Four two and a half ton trucks roared through the gates, the famous ‘deuce and a half’ that had transported troops to and from the battlefield for many years in the service of the U.S. military. They were filled with troops of the First Marine Division that had hurried to shore to reinforce the base defences. Incredibly, after their long guerrilla campaign it seemed that the Viet Cong were mounting an all out attack. Giap, the North Vietnamese commander, was reported as being opposed to meeting the forces of the well-equipped ARVN with their formidable allies, the Americans of MACV. It now seemed he had had a change of heart, what we were all seeing was a major assault, not just a local action as had been initially supposed in Saigon. General Westmoreland’s entire strategy had been based around bringing the enemy into set-piece battles, I wondered would he be pleased with the result now that it has actually happened.
While we sheltered in a slit trench covered with sandbags and a corrugated iron roof we watched the battle rage around us. We saw our first NVA troops when the regulars of the North Vietnamese Army launched a direct attack on the marine helicopter pad nearby and the whole area exploded in sheets of fire. The marines headed to reinforce the helipad defenders and the firefight spread. Nearer to where we sheltered, a furious action started when a force of more NVA regulars stormed the wire and broke through onto the base. The casualties they took were enormous. The last time I had seen that kind of callous disregard for the lives of troops was on the Eastern Front. I wondered if these troops had a similar incentive to fight, the commissars waiting behind the lines to shoot them if they faltered or refused to press the attack.
They were being slaughtered by the massed machine gun fire of M60s, truck mounted Quad-50 M2 .50 cal. machine guns, hundreds of M16s being fired on full automatic by the U.S. and ARVN defenders, a few with grenade launchers for when the enemy came near enough and soon an infantry team opened up with their mortars, increasing the devastation.
The communist attacks eventually began to peter out, they must have suffered fifty percent casualties in their first wave of attacks if not more. The infantry and marines moved to secure the base and apart from the endless activity on the flightline, everything went quiet. We climbed out of the trench and walked over to inspect the C-130s we had ferried to Da Nang, I suppose we felt we had a certain interest in their welfare after going to so much trouble to get them here.
“I wonder if they’ll want us to fly them back,” Paul said.
He spoke for all of us, if the military decided that they were more at risk in Da Nang than at Tan Son Nhat, maybe they would ask us to return them. On the other hand, of course, they could ask us to fly them somewhere else that they deemed safe. Wherever that may be, it seemed that the whole of South Vietnam was a battlefield. All I needed was to get back to Saigon, to my daughter Sophie and to start the hunt for Helene. We walked back to the headquarters building which was seething with activity, soldiers running to and fro, radios crackling, telephones ringing and over it all, the bellow of orders being given from the senior officers. We found Captain Vincent and I asked him about getting back to Saigon. He looked harried, pale and shaken by the sudden onslaught.
He shook his head. “I’m not certain the General will agree to letting you go, gentlemen. Pilots are an even more precious commodity right now, especially if we need to evacuate the aircraft in a hurry, but I’ll do what I can.”
He went away and we found a coffee machine and helped ourselves.
“What are you planning to do?” Ritter asked me.
I knew exactly what he meant. We had all been through endless battles during the Eastern Front in Russia, the Indochina war and now Vietnam. One way or the other I would get back to Saigon, with or without the General’s permission, and we all knew it.
“I’ll give them until midday, after that, all bets are off and I’m getting out of here and back to Saigon. If necessary I’ll get hold of a car.”
They both nodded. ‘If necessary’ covered a multitude of options, including theft and worse.
“Enough of the ‘I’ Jurgen, we’re all in this together. If one goes, we all go,” Paul said.
“For sure,” Ritter said vehemently. “We’re like the Three Musketeers,” he grinned. “All for one and one for all.”
I thanked them. They were good comrades to have with you in a fix, veterans of countless actions against the communists on countless battlefields. Just then there was a spurt of activity and General Wilkes stormed into the office, complete with helmet, M16 and an anxious entourage similarly attired for war.
“Captain Vincent has informed me of your request to get back to Saigon. I’ve received orders to hold the C-130s here, we stand and fight at Da Nang, no more aircraft to be shuttled around the country so your services are no longer needed. I have a Lockheed C-141 Starlifter leaving this afternoon to make the trip back to Saigon with our casualties, you’re welcome to have a seat.”
My spirits lifted, at last the search for Helene could begin. “Thank you, General, that’s much appreciated.”
He nodded. “No problem, thanks
for the help and I wish you luck with locating your wife. I gather she was kidnapped by the VC?”
“She’s a doctor, she was tending a wounded Viet Cong officer in Cholon and they took her with them when they evacuated the area.”
One of the aides, a Vietnamese ARVN liaison officer looked up sharply. “Excuse me, Sir, but if that is the case I would suggest that you consider looking in area of Cu Chi, that’s where the VC often send their wounded, especially VIPs.”
“Why Cu Chi?” I asked him sharply. “What’s so special about that place?”
He shrugged. “ARVN intelligence reports suggest that increasing numbers of communists are infiltrating that area, many are hidden in tunnels although we have not had much luck in finding them. It’s rumoured that they have an entire headquarters there with an underground hospital, I don’t know. It’s just that we’ve had a lot of pointers towards Cu Chi, so I’d keep it in mind.”
“Tunnels? You think they have some kind of underground complex in the area?”
“We’re not sure, but probably, yes. It’s only thirty miles from Saigon and we’ve had countless brushes with the VC, they always seem to disappear in that general area, no matter how thoroughly we search we can’t locate their bases.”
It wasn’t news to me about the tunnels at Cu Chi. During the French occupation of Vietnam there were a great number of anecdotes and rumours about that area. Several missions had been mounted to seek out the VC in their underground lairs with no result. The U.S. military had conducted the Iron Triangle operation with a similar lack of success. I was slightly dubious about the ARVN officer’s report about an extensive and well equipped complex there, but I thanked him and made a mental note to follow it up when we got back.
We managed to grab a lunch in the base PX, and then went out to board the Starlifter. There was a queue formed at the rear of the aircraft ready to climb the ramp into the huge cabin. Loading was similar to the C-130 but of course the aircraft was much larger and powered by four jet engines. It was much faster too, with a top speed in excess of five hundred and fifty miles an hour which would make short work of the trip to Saigon. The stretcher bearers went first, carrying their gurneys of wounded to be placed on the floor near the cockpit. We joined a throng of soldiers who boarded next, some walking wounded, their bandages and sticks evidence of the brief action at Da Nang. Last to load, rather ominously, were a dozen black, rubberised bags, all zipped closed. Body bags. We kept a little distance from them, as if to be near the dead would be a bad omen. The ramp closed with a whine of hydraulics and the engines started to spool up. We strapped in, each of us took one of the line of seats along each side of the fuselage as the aircraft began to taxi out to the runway. This being a military flight, there was of course no flight attendant to give us a safety talk and demonstration, there was just a scream of jet engines and the Lockheed surged along the runway and took to the air.