“Follow me!” cried Lieutenant Colonel Toan as he leaped from the jeep and dashed southward along the sandy Tan My Peninsula.
Waiting for the navy to arrive, Toan had already realized the worst-case possibility and now counted on it. Even at high tide the landing crafts would have had difficulty getting past the sandbars. At low tide, as it was now, the trek was impossible for them.
To make their escape, Toan concluded, would require his Marines scuttling their vehicles and heavy arms, abandoning nearly everything on the beach. Then they would have to wade and swim the several hundred yards to the boats.
In the best case, with no enemy fire, many men would no doubt drown. Under heavy enemy fire, he knew that the attempt would net an unfathomable death toll, and few could actually make the escape. Witnessing the brigade commander and the unfortunate Marines who followed him, and who now died in the surf by the hundreds, proved his estimation correct.
Toan knew that a small fishing village lay far to the south and that he and his men could possibly find boats there too. In boats, they could sail under darkness to Da Nang.
“Follow me!” Toan again shouted to his men. “Hurry, and keep together!”
The North Vietnamese forces saw the string of 450 Viet Marines running southward and then shift their flight on an angle that led away from the beach, obviously seeking cover behind the tree line on the strand’s western side, well south of the approaching North Vietnamese Army’s lower flank. With more than two thousand other Vietnamese Marines still before them, some fighting from small dunes while others ran hopelessly into the surf to drown, the string of a few hundred Marines seemed insignificant in comparison, and thus the Communists let them go. Their nets already sagged full with the catch they had before them.
UNITED STATES CONSULATE, DA NANG
“SERGEANT ARRIOLA!” Staff Sergeant Walter Sparks barked, entering the door to the security detachment office. “Get ready to initiate the evacuation plans. We’ve got to get our shit together. Charlie is on the front porch. Time to get out of Dodge.”
Lazaro Arriola sat at the sergeant-of-the-guard desk, pecking at the keys of a pale green electric typewriter, when Sparks bounded through the doorway. “No big surprise,” he said, pulling the fresh duty roster for April from the machine and handing it to the staff sergeant.
“Forget this,” Sparks said and handed the paper back to the sergeant. “The balloon just went up. Everyone is now on duty until I say otherwise.”
“I guess you saw the messages then, about Tam Ky and Quang Ngai, and it looks like Chu Lai too,” Arriola said.
“I just got out of a hot meeting with Mr. Francis, and that ain’t the half of it, pal,” Sparks said, pulling open the drawer of the file cabinet and yanking out a two-page operations order, which the CIA logistician had condensed from the thirty-six-page original evacuation plan drafted by the consulate security boss.
“How can it be any worse?” the sergeant said, allowing Sparks to take the seat behind the desk.
“Add Hue to that list,” Sparks said. “The whole fucking Vietnamese Marine Corps up there got wiped out on the beach this morning, and the rest of the ARVN has either turned tail or turned cowboy and gone on the rampage.”
“Hue fell?” the sergeant asked.
“Not quite yet, but with what little they have left to fight with up there,” Sparks said in a sad tone, “it might as well be over. The NVA have the highway south of us cut, and now north of us too. It will take a few days to mop up Hue, Tam Ky, Quang Ngai, and Chu Lai, but rest assured, when that gets done, they’re a coming to our door.”
“How are we supposed to get out then?” Arriola said.
“The skipper has got a line on a fleet of Air America planes and helicopters,” Sparks said. “We’re going to fly out. The rest of the folks here, well, that’s another story.”
“What do we have, ten thousand Americans here?” the sergeant said.
“That’s just the legal ones,” Sparks replied. “Then you have to considerthe deserters and other American shit-birds gone native in Dog-patch who want to go home with us now too. Also, we have the Brits, the Aussies, the Koreans, and who knows what other brand of Luke the gook from Europe, here legal and illegal, but needs to get out. So according to Mr. Francis, he and our I Spy boss have laid on a fleet of barges that will ferry all these people, and whatever South Vietnamese friendlies we decide to take, out to a convoy of United States Maritime Service merchant ships, headed our way as we speak.”
“When do we leave?” the sergeant asked. “Not that I am afraid or anything, but just wondering how much time we have to get this all done.”
“That’s up to Charlie,” Sparks said, now pulling out a lined tablet and beginning to write. “I suppose that we may have a few days, maybe a week, but once the NVA have Hue and Chu Lai under wraps, they are coming for us here, and in a hurry.”
The staff sergeant studied the short list of names he had just written, listing himself at the top, then Sergeant Venoy L. Rogers, and Sergeant Arriola, and Sergeant William S. Spruce next, and then two corporals, Leonard A. Forseth and Ronald W. Anderson last. Below that, based on a priority-driven agenda of slug lines from the two-page operations order, he began to write a more elaborate and detailed series of tasks that he and his five subordinate Marines must perform before the Communists came to town.
FARMLANDS SOUTH OF TAN MY
LIEUTENANT COLONEL TRAN Ngoc Toan lay behind a manure pile in the gray evening light, waiting for full darkness. Near him, all in similar hiding places, his 450 survivors of today’s disaster waited and silently watched with their commander. They could still smell the smoke from the day’s battle and thought of their comrades that they had left lying dead on the beach or captured by the enemy.
Toan had stopped at the tree line when his Marines first entered it from the angry, fire-swept beach, watching his men dash past him, counting souls, and ensuring that the last man made it safely to the cover. As his men scurried by him, the lieutenant colonel could see the other battalions still on the beach, fighting and fleeing to their deaths in the sea. Their commanders, his friends, valiantly stood their ground, right to the bitter end. He felt heartsick as he saw them throw down their rifles and put up their hands.
The green-clad NVA soldiers, with their helmets shaped like turtle shells, seemed to swarm the surrendered leaders like a gang of hungry dogs after a meaty bone. His soul ached for those men, his friends. However, these 450 Marines who had followed him from the beach were also his friends and comrades. While he grieved for the loss of so many and ached at the capture of his colleagues, he knew that these Marines now with him had entrusted their lives to his leadership. He owed them his best, not his regrets.
Lying on the manure heap, the lieutenant colonel closed his eyes and finally allowed himself to doze. The thunder of battle still raged close enough to shake the ground, but his years of experience told him that the fire pointed well away from this small Vietnamese fishing village on the southern tip of the Tan My Peninsula. He finally felt safe from the shelling and slept quietly.
“Sir,” a whisper came to the lieutenant colonel’s ear, and a hand gently nudged his shoulder. “Night has long since come.”
Toan opened his eyes and looked to see his operations officer lying next to him. Without a word, the battalion commander gave the major a pat on the shoulder and then stood, dusting the manure from his tiger-stripe camouflage uniform. He took his black beret from the cargo pocket on the side of his trousers and tucked it on his head. Then quietly, he walked alone to the house at the edge of the village, upon whose manure he had slept.
A dim light shown from the open doorway, coming from a kerosene lamp set on a small table in the center of the room and a cooking fire burning inside the open hearth of an old cast-iron stove. Flames licked through small cracks surrounding the cook plate on top and lapped at the sides of a clay crock filled with boiling water, rice, a few vegetables, and fish. The aroma of the food drifted o
ut the door and tied Tran Ngoc Toan’s stomach into a hungry knot.
The Marine commander stepped quietly in the darkness, hoping that the family dog, who lay just inside the doorway, did not notice him. In the nighttime shadows, Toan looked inside the house and saw an old man and a young woman with two small girls seated on stools by the table. The family spoke to each other in low voices. On the wall, above a small side table with two unlit candles and a photograph of a younger man, a wooden crucifix hung.
“Catholics,” Toan said to himself. “There must be others here too. They will surely help us.”
The dog never barked, but raised his head with his ears perked when the Marine approached the open door. As the old man came to him, Tran Ngoc Toan politely took off his beret and bowed his head.
“Sir, Colonel, sir,” the old man said, smiling at the sight of the Marine officer, “please come inside, quickly.”
Just as the Marine stepped through the door, the old man pulled down a black drape, closing the entry.
“No one saw you come here?” the old man said hopefully. “VC roam everywhere these days.”
“No one, except my battalion, who hides in the woods near here,” Toan said.
“Your battalion?” the old man said, fully surprised. “I thought everyone died up there today, or were captured. A full battalion escaped?”
“There are perhaps 450 of us, not my full battalion,” Toan said. “Many of the men are from my battalion, but others come from our sister battalions too, all of whom were decimated today.”
“Such a horror,” the old man said. “My son died last year, not far from here, killed by the VC. They murdered him as he pushed his bicycle home from Hue. They took everything and left him dead on the roadside. These are his daughters and his widow. You are the enemy of his killers, so you are our friend.”
“We need boats,” Toan said as the old man ushered him to the table and offered him the seat facing toward the door.
“We have no boats here today, nor tomorrow,” the old man said. “Not nearly enough of them at any rate to accommodate 450 men. Such a resource, sir, will take much time and effort to acquire.”
“Can you help us find these boats?” Toan asked. “Will others in this village help us?”
“Yes, sir,” the old man said and smiled, “without question. However, this will take great care, and small steps, so that we do not draw attention. Perhaps a week, or more.”
“We must get to Da Nang,” Toan said.
“I know this, but we have the VC very near us daily, and they always inspect this village because we are Catholics and have our loyalties to God, not Ho Chi Minh,” the old man said. “We must gather the boats and spirit you and your battalion away, all under the watchful eye of our tormentors.”
“Of course, we can understand if this presents too much risk for your village,” Toan offered. “We can very likely slip through the forests along the coastline and get to Da Nang that way.”
“I think not,” the old man said. “We take our boats along the coast each day, fishing and such, and we see the massive numbers of VC and NVA moving about there. You must hide in the forest, far away from the trails. I will show you a place tonight. You cannot make a fire or talk. You and your men must wait there until I come for you. I am the village elder, here, and my word has power. I must organize this on my own, quietly. In one week, perhaps a day or two more, we can perhaps gather enough boats and reliable friends so that we can smuggle you past our enemy to Da Nang.”
The lieutenant colonel bowed his head and held his hands to his forehead in a prayerlike gesture, paying homage to the old man.
“Now, sir,” the old man said, “please eat.”
The woman, who had stood quietly with her two daughters, walked to the stove and took a bowl from a shelf on the wall behind it. She began to dip the stew from the pot, and the Marine’s stomach growled in hungry response.
Then Tran Ngoc Toan stood and bowed politely to the old man.
“Sir, I cannot take your food,” he said. “I cannot eat what little you have, nor can I eat while my men do not.”
The old man started to argue with the obviously hungry Marine, but then nodded his head. As the village elder, he understood the importance of leadership and living the example.
“Then, we should go now,” the old man said, taking a conical straw hat from a mat on the floor, where he made his bed, and tying it to his head. “This place to hide has water, and you may find things to eat there too. In the morning, I will return there with one or two trusted friends, and we will bring you what food that we can gather. It will not be much, so you must hunt and gather most of what you eat. However, you must not build any fires nor make any sounds. The VC here will surely find you otherwise.”
As the two men slipped out of the small house, disappearing into the pitch darkness, the dog remained behind, quietly guarding the doorway.
“My men are well trained,” Toan assured the old man. “We can forage for ourselves and live without fires. We will be fine, I promise you.”
HQ, FOURTH MARINE REGIMENT, CAMP HANSON, OKINAWA
“SKIPPER,” a young lance corporal called into the Quonset hut headquarters of Company D, First Battalion, Fourth Marine Regiment, located at Camp Hanson, Okinawa. “Colonel Gray issued a commander’s call, ASAP.”
Captain Walter Wood stood from behind his desk, tucked on his utility cap, and jogged out the doorway to the Fourth Marine Regiment’s headquarters where Alfred M. Gray, a future Commandant of the Marine Corps waited.
The Company D commander joined the flow of other Marines entering the room where Lieutenant Colonel Charles E. Hester, the young captain’s battalion commander, sat to the left of Colonel Gray at the head of a long table. Quickly the First Battalion’s staff officers, company commanders, platoon leaders, and a score of senior staff noncommissioned officers also took their seats.
“Gentlemen,” Al Gray began, “as we speak, Hue City has surrendered to the Communists. Nearly four thousand South Vietnamese warriors, most of whom were Viet Marines, have fallen in that battle.”
A no-shit mumble rose like a tidal wave and crashed against the walls of the small room as the shocked Marines heard the report. Rumors had told that the NVA had launched a surprise offensive and had taken a few small “villes,” but the news of Hue stung these Vietnam War veterans deeply.
“Chu Lai won’t last another day,” Gray added, and more mumbles greeted his words. “We have a warning order issued today. We’re heading for Da Nang.”
Gunnery Sergeant Russ Thurman sat among the group of staff NCOs with Staff Sergeant Sonny Bice, the Fourth Marine Regiment’s correspondent. His junior assistant, Lance Corporal Eric Carlson, had already deployed several weeks ago with Colonel John F. Roche III and the Thirty-first Marine Amphibious Unit, with the Second Battalion, Fourth Marines “Magnificent Bastards” as its battalion landing team. Carlson relished the idea of being a Magnificent Bastard.
Colonel Roche and the Bastards had deployed to the Gulf of Thailand, anticipating the second shoe to drop in the long-awaited fall of Phnom Penh and the 31st MAU’s execution of the op plan, Operation Eagle Pull, the evacuation of the Cambodian capital.
“Joe Carr will throw more furniture,” Gunnery Sergeant Thurman told Sonny Bice as he listened to the Fourth Marines’s operations officer describe the latest intelligence reports from Da Nang.
At this point all the Marines had in hand was a warning order from Major General Carl W. Hoffman, the III Marine Amphibious Force commanding general, issued via Major General Kenneth J. Houghton, the Third Marine Division’s commander. Because Second Battalion, Fourth Marines now sailed off Cambodia and First Battalion had just completed its deployment training in preparation for pulling the next pump, they picked up the ticket for the immediate departure to Da Nang.
Russ Thurman barely had time to report news of the emergency deployment to his boss, Captain Jerry Shelton, and then hurriedly stuffed a seabag. After drawing 782 gear
from supply and a pistol from the armory, he raced by speeding jeep, with Lance Corporal Don Tompkins at the wheel, across Okinawa to White Beach, where Colonel Gray, Captain Wood, and Company D from the First Battalion had already begun embarking their weaponry and boarding Rear Admiral Donald E. Whitmire’s Task Force 76 flagship, the amphibious command vessel USS Blue Ridge (LCC 19).
While Gunny Thurman, Colonel Gray, Captain Wood, and the Delta Company Marines boarded their ship, the remaining three companies of First Battalion, Fourth Marines waited for their transport to arrive, the amphibious transport dock ship, USS Dubuque (LPD 8), which now steamed full tilt boogie from Subic Bay, Philippines, where it and two other ships from Amphibious Ready Group Bravo had put in for repairs. Once they had reached the Vietnam coastal waters, they would rendezvous with the USS Frederick (LST 1184) and the USS Durham (LKA 114), still preparing to get underway at Subic.
No one had truly expected the calamity that now took place in the I Corps region of South Vietnam. Losing the heart of the Central Highlands had been bad enough. The collapse had literally taken the Americans by surprise and left them with their ships and forces out of place.
Two days after Colonel Gray and his first element Marines had embarked the Blue Ridge, Major General Hoffman formally activated the Thirty-third Marine Amphibious Unit, placing it under Gray’s command. He attached the aviation element, Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 165 as the MAU’s air element. However, that presented a new set of problems, adding more frustration to the delays.
While HMM-165 had some aircraft at Marine Corps Air Station, Futima, Okinawa, several of its CH-46 Sea Knight helicopters sat on the tarmac at Cubi Point, Philippines. Furthermore, the ARG-Bravo vessels hosting the 33rd MAU had no amphibious landing platform ship, typically used to support the air arm of the MAU. Not to be deterred, Al Gray and HMM-165 commander Lieutenant Colonel James P. Kizer put their heads together and spread the helicopters among the ships, according to the size of their chopper decks.
Goodnight Saigon Page 21