Part 9 (1/2)

Privates Fulcher and Fletcher of Charlie Two were best friends. They were redheaded country boys who could have pa.s.sed for brothers. Fulcher was from Iowa, and Fletcher from Arkansas. They were both draftees, and both were awarded the BSMv for their actions at Nhi Ha. When the word was pa.s.sed to pull back with their wounded, Fulcher looked at his buddy and said, ”Doug, I'm not leaving Rich out there.”

Private First Cla.s.s Richard M. Gallery was dead, but Fletcher knew just what his buddy was feeling. ”Let's go get him,” he replied.

Rich Gallery was lying about twenty-five meters from the cover of their three-sided hootch. He had apparently been hit in the opening moments of the ambush. He was lying on his back, propped up by his rucksack. His helmet had been knocked off and his right arm was flung across his chest. Fulcher and Fletcher squatted down to cover themselves with a couple of M16 bursts, then they rushed to Gallery. Fletcher handed his M16 to Fulcher and knelt down to unstrap Gallery's pack so they wouldn't have to carry that, too. Gallery had been shot right below the hollow in his throat.

Just as Fletcher got the dead man's pack off, the NVA opened fire on them. Both of the M16s in Fulcher's hands were set on automatic and, firing them at the same time, he squeezed off both magazines. He then reached down to grab Gallery's right arm and help Fletcher hustle him back-and was shocked to realize how stiff the arm was. It was frozen in position across Gallery's chest. It was Fulcher's first experience with rigor mortis, and he thought with horrified wonderment that if he'd had the strength he could carry Gallery's body like a bucket, using the arm as a handle.

When the crater full of Charlie Two survivors finally made it to safety, it was time for everyone to pull out. The level of NVA fire had decreased, but Staff Sergeant Goad and Sergeant Starr of Charlie Three kept blasting away to cover the men around them who were moving back one at a time. Johnny Miller and George Cruse were sprawled in the open in front of the mound, and Sergeant Coulthard argued with Goad. ”We can't go-John and George are still out there!” Coulthard felt like a coward for not trying to get them. Goad said they were dead, and when Coulthard asked if he was sure, Goad glared at him and snapped, ”G.o.dd.a.m.nit, they are are dead-and we're pullin' out! Move out!” dead-and we're pullin' out! Move out!”

In case everyone had not gotten the word, Goad, the de facto platoon leader, bellowed one more time that they were pulling back. The senior NCO who was the platoon leader on paper suddenly appeared, jumping over some bushes with several other grunts. They were lucky they did not get shot in the confusion. No one at the mound had heard any fire all afternoon from the position on the left where it turned out the sergeant had gone to ground. Goad had a.s.sumed he was dead. The platoon was unexcited about his resurrection, given that the sergeant was an overweight, disagreeable, pa.s.sed-over lifer who was always talking about how much tougher Korea had been than this little war. The sergeant seemed to be just going through the motions until he could retire, and the grunts never forgot that during an earlier supply shortage in the bush he had refused to share his rations.

After taking cover in the depression behind the mound, the sergeant barked at Sp4 Thomas J. Bradford, one of the men who'd come back with him, ”Where the h.e.l.l's your rucksack?”

”I left it when we pulled back,” said Bradford.

”Well, G.o.dd.a.m.nit, go back and get it!”

The NVA had ceased firing, but when Bradford got up, they cut loose, hitting him in the chest. Killed instantly, he fell backward almost atop the men in the depression. ”It was so sad,” recalled Coulthard. ”It was so stupid, so stupid Bradford getting killed.” Coulthard was dumbstruck and enraged that the sergeant had ordered the kid on such a fool's errand. ”What the h.e.l.l? He didn't give a s.h.i.+t about the ruck or anything else. He just said it to act like he was in charge again, like there was some semblance of something going on.”

Private First Cla.s.s Wayne Crist moved out with Bradford's body, and Goad shouldered Pierre Sullivan's body as they leapfrogged back toward Charlie One. Starr was the last to pull back from the mound after covering Goad with his M60. Starr got out of there at a run. Joining the tail end of the Charlie Tiger column, Lieutenant Jaquez requested max artillery fire on Nhi Ha when they cleared the ville. The FO was worried about an NY A counterattack as they straggled away. Enemy artillery was firing again, but no one was. .h.i.t as they loaded the wounded and dead into the Otters that had come up behind them.

Alpha Two and Three pulled back on the right flank.

Charlie Tiger conducted a tense, under-fire retrograde through Delta One and Three, which had come up behind them, then the Otters rolled back to the battalion aid station in Mai Xa Chanh East. Medevacs landed there, their blades kicking up sandstorms. In addition to Barracuda's one dead and six wounded, Charlie Tiger had eleven dead and eight wounded. It had been a bad day, made no better by the official claim of only fifteen enemy kills. What really hurt was that the bodies of Guthrie, Cruse, and Miller had been left behind.

Meanwhile, Delta One had secured a laager site approximately six hundred meters east of Nhi Ha in what had once been a hamlet. The site was elevated two to three feet above the surrounding rice paddies, so the fields of fire were excellent. By 1800, Alpha Annihilator and the remnants of Charlie Tiger joined up there to form a joint perimeter with Black Death. Barracuda consolidated in the vicinity of Lam Xuan West. Artillery continued to pound Nhi Ha, and Lieutenant Smith of Alpha Two commented that everyone dug deep holes because ”they figured it was going to be a wild night. The guys were very much on their toes. They knew exactly where the next hole was, and they knew where their lines of fire were because we went over them three times. I strategically placed my M60 and interlocked our fires, and I paced off our positions. If I had to crawl somewhere in the pitch black I wanted to know exactly where it was.”

”We couldn't believe what had happened,” recalled Sergeant Coulthard. ”We were worn out, just flat worn out. Scared to death. I wanted Captain Leach there bad. The feeling among us was that if he had been there, this wouldn't have happened.”

Captain Leach, on his way to Australia on R and R, was back at the battalion rear in the main Americal Division base camp at Chu Lai. He was in a transient barracks when a trooper came from the orderly room to wake him. The trooper said that Charlie Tiger had been in heavy contact at a place called Nhi Ha.

”What the f.u.c.k are you talking about?” Leach exclaimed as he sprang up.

”Sir, they just got the s.h.i.+t kicked out of them.”

Captain Leach found the battalion's acting sergeant major, who was his former first sergeant. ”Jesus Christ, what happened?” he asked. When the former Charlie Tiger topkick told Leach about Lieutenant Guthrie, which was a real blow, the two of them went off and had four or five beers together. Then Leach got his gear organized and radioed ahead to inform the battalion commander that he was canceling his R and R and would come out on the first available helicopter in the morning.

Magnificent b.a.s.t.a.r.ds

LIEUTENANT C COLONEL W WEISE, CO, BLT 2/4: ”AT NO TIME during the period 30 April through 2 May was the 320th NVA Division blocked from the north. BLT 2/4 was not reinforced during the battle, but the enemy continued to reinforce his units and to replace his casualties. Thus, the enemy became stronger while BLT 2/4 became weaker from casualties and exhaustion.” during the period 30 April through 2 May was the 320th NVA Division blocked from the north. BLT 2/4 was not reinforced during the battle, but the enemy continued to reinforce his units and to replace his casualties. Thus, the enemy became stronger while BLT 2/4 became weaker from casualties and exhaustion.”

Less than ninety minutes after E and H BLT 2/4 had been forced back from Dinh To with heavy casualties on 2 May 1968, F and G BLT 2/4 were advancing from Dai Do for the next a.s.sault. The order had come from Colonel Hull, CO, 3d Marines, who was himself responding to instructions from division. BLT 2/4 was to seize Dinh To and then Thuong Do, which sat on the eastern bank of the tributary that drained into the Bo Dieu River. An ARVN mechanized infantry battalion in position near Dong Lai, opposite Dai Do, was to simultaneously advance up the western bank of the creek to seize Thuong Nghia, which was opposite Thuong Do. The tributary was to serve as the boundary between BLT 2/4 and the ARVN. It was a simple, straightforward plan, but an unrealistic one. The number of NVA on the battlefield was simply overwhelming.

Lieutenant Colonel Weise, CO, BLT 2/4: ”We were in no condition for another a.s.sault, and I had so informed Colonel Hull. When the a.s.sault commenced, I moved close to the forward elements to let my exhausted Marines know I would be with them when the bullets started to fly. I tried to encourage them and talk to them. I told them I was very proud of what they were doing.”

Disaster

AT 1538 1538 ON ON 2 M 2 MAY 1968, 1968, AN AERIAL OBSERVER IN A LIGHT AN AERIAL OBSERVER IN A LIGHT-weight, single-engine Birddog reported movement in the clearing between Dinh To and Thuong Do. The aerial observer spoke with Lieutenant Hilton, the forward air controller on the ground with BLT 2/4. Hilton confirmed that there were no Marine elements that far north (”... anything running across that clearing is fair game”). As the aerial observer marked targets for air strikes with white phosphorus rockets, his adrenaline was up. ”We got lots of 'Em in there,” the observer shouted excitedly. ”There's a beaucoup bunch of people moving out of Dinh To. They're moving across to the north and northeast. There's maybe hundreds of 'Em!”

The aerial observer also reported seeing litter teams with casualties. Lieutenant Hilton relayed the information to Weise. The battalion commander was excited, too: ”Okay, okay, we got 'Em on the run! We got 'Em on the run!”

Colonel Weise smells blood, thought Hilton. Weise and his command group were at the forward edge of Dai Do with Golf Company. Weise, in fact, had just been briefing Captain Vargas, the company commander, about their upcoming a.s.sault when the aerial observer came up on the net. They too could see figures in the open fields, as well as the Phantoms and Skyhawks dropping napalm and bombs onto them. The aerial observer reported that those NVA not being chopped up in the open were cut off in the northwestern edge of Dinh To. Artillery blocked their escape routes. Some of the NVA coming out of Dinh To were within range of Golf Company in Dai Do. Weise later wrote that the most forward Marines ”had the morale boosting experience of squeezing off carefully aimed shots and watching the enemy drop. I bet the reenlistment rate in the 320th NVA Division dropped after Dai Do.”

Weise instructed Major Warren, his S3, to remain in Dai Do and take charge of the perimeter manned by the remnants of E and H Companies. Their other decimated company, B/1/ 3, was to remain in An Lac to secure the medevac and resupply points on the Bo Dieu River. The only elements still capable of mounting the a.s.sault were F and G Companies, and Weise planned to use both. Weise planned to accompany Golf Company. There were fifty-four Marines left in Golf, and as Weise saddled up with them he noted that, with the exception of grenadiers and machine gunners, almost all were carrying AK-47s. Weise saw only one M16; it was carried by Captain Vargas. The only other functioning M16 was carried by Weise himself. Nevertheless, Weise later wrote that this undermanned, badly equipped company went into the a.s.sault as ”a viable, spirited fighting outfit despite its two-day ordeal. Captain Vargas knew his men well, and they knew and respected him for his outstanding competence as a combat leader and his compa.s.sion. I knew that I could depend on him and Golf Company.”

Weise did not place the same trust in Captain Butler, whose Foxtrot Company, with about eighty men, was the most able-bodied in the battalion. Foxtrot had been rejoined about thirty minutes before the air strikes by its executive officer, weapons platoon, and one of its three rifle platoons. These elements had previously been outposted to My Loc on the Cua Viet River. Finally released from regimental control, they had been brought forward by amtracs to the company position in Dong Huan, at which time Foxtrot moved out for Dai Do. Upon reaching the hamlet, Foxtrot joined Golf for the a.s.sault on Dinh To.

The a.s.sault was a complete and b.l.o.o.d.y failure. Weise blamed both higher headquarters and Butler for the debacle. Golf Company, Weise explained, was to have led the attack and Foxtrot was to follow closely behind in reserve. When Golf ran up against the NVA who the aerial observer said were still in Dinh To, the stronger Foxtrot was to move forward, pa.s.s through Golf, and press the attack. Weise wrote that he chose to place his command group directly behind Vargas and ahead of Foxtrot ”because I wanted to be in position to decide exactly when to commit Foxtrot, and because my presence up front seemed to boost the morale of my exhausted battalion.”

In actuality, when the a.s.sault made contact with the NVA, Foxtrot was not behind Golf in Dinh To, but in the open fields east of the hamlet. A map that Weise later prepared to explain the situation shows Foxtrot straying out of Dinh To and into the open, and then bogging down there under fire while Golf continued forward unaware that it had no reserve and no rear security. The map shows Golf encountering the NVA far in advance of Foxtrot. But the map is inaccurate. Foxtrot never strayed out of position behind Golf because Foxtrot was never behind Golf to begin with. Golf and Foxtrot went into the a.s.sault on line, with Golf in the hamlet and Foxtrot in the open, and they were still side by side when the shooting started. Foxtrot was abreast of Golf and not in reserve, as Weise said it should have been, because that was what Foxtrot understood its mission to be. Lieutenant McAdams of Foxtrot One later wrote that before the attack: Captain Butler called the platoon commanders together to issue his order. Butler said that Foxtrot was to move parallel with Golf in a line formation. We were to keep just outside the village and when Golf made contact Foxtrot was to wheel in a counterclockwise motion just beyond Golf's point of contact and envelop the enemy. We did not move in trace of Golf and the orders I received did not hint of that maneuver being part of Foxtrot's role. After we were through Dai Do and somewhere along Dinh To or Thuong Do, and very much out in the open on Golf's right flank, the NVA opened up with very heavy fire. The ground seemed to be dancing with bullets and explosions.

Captain Butler, whose military career did not survive this incident, later contended (without visible bitterness) that he was following Weise's orders when he advanced with Foxtrot through the fields east of Dinh To. Such an explanation suggests that Weise wanted Foxtrot to prevent Golf from being outflanked in Dinh To (as E and H Companies had been in the previous attack), or that Weise had overestimated the damage done to the NVA in the preattack turkey shoot, and had spread his companies out so as to roll up as many of the supposedly disorganized foe as possible. As Hilton said, Weise was smelling blood.

Weise rejected Butler's explanation. The scheme of maneuver suggested by Butler's version of his orders would have left Weise no reserve and thus no flexibility. He said he would never have placed any Marines east of Dinh To because they had already learned the hard way that the area was under enemy observation and subject to preplanned machine-gun, mortar, and artillery fire. Weise explained instead that Butler had completely misunderstood his orders.1 Furthermore, Weise wrote, ”I had lost confidence in Butler's ability to control his company in a firefight because of his previous performance.” After Dinh To, Weise said he concluded that no matter how intelligent and motivated Butler was, the amiable young captain ultimately lacked self-confidence and was ”overawed-by difficult a.s.signments. Close combat is a terrible, shocking experience. No one knows how he will react until it happens, and I fully expected to have to command Butler's company myself when the s.h.i.+t hit the fan in Dinh To.” Furthermore, Weise wrote, ”I had lost confidence in Butler's ability to control his company in a firefight because of his previous performance.” After Dinh To, Weise said he concluded that no matter how intelligent and motivated Butler was, the amiable young captain ultimately lacked self-confidence and was ”overawed-by difficult a.s.signments. Close combat is a terrible, shocking experience. No one knows how he will react until it happens, and I fully expected to have to command Butler's company myself when the s.h.i.+t hit the fan in Dinh To.”

The attack kicked off at 1550. The hedgerows and surviving vegetation in Dinh To were thicker and more concealing than was thoroughly blown-away, wide-open Dai Do. As Golf Company started across the clearing between the two hamlets, the Marines reconned by fire with automatic weapons and M79s. Foxtrot did the same as it advanced on the burial mounds in the open fields on Golf's right flank. Both companies were moving fast, and Lieutenant Hilton commented that, to psyche themselves up, they went in ”yelling and screaming, like, 'Go, go, go! Get 'Em! Uh-rah!' I mean it sounded like a football stadium. It was ma.s.sive. It rumbled. We knew we'd got 'Em. We were going to finish 'Em off. We were going to roll 'Em up. But it was a trap. They set a trap and they let us get into it.”

The gra.s.s that the Foxtrot Company Marines advanced through was above their knees, and dead NVA lay in it. One of the first to see the live NVA was HM2 Roger D. Pittman, a corpsman, who noticed them as they moved off a little elevated island in the fields about two hundred meters ahead on the right flank. There was a paG.o.da on the island, which was dense with vegetation and trees. For an instant Pittman thought that the figures were Marines, but he quickly realized that they wore neither helmets nor flak jackets. Their fatigues were khaki-colored. The seven or eight NVA were running east along a dike at the base of the island. Pittman stopped in his tracks and shouted, ”What is that? Look at that, look at that! Get 'Em, get 'Em!” get 'Em!”

The a.s.sault was moving fast, and no one paid attention to him. Doc Pittman, suited up in helmet and flak jacket, humped a lot of canteens and medical gear, but his only weapon was an Ml carbine, and he carried only a few straight clips and three or four more banana clips with tracers. The NVA were moving out of the carbine's range, so he backed up into the tree line at the edge of Dai Do and pa.s.sed the word that a sniper team was needed. In a few moments a sniper came up and Pittman pointed out the NVA, who by then had reached an elevated trail and were running north on it, away from the Marines. They were totally exposed.

As the sniper took aim, they were shocked by a sudden and sustained blaze of NVA fire from the little island and the burial mounds in the gra.s.s. Doc Pittman scrambled into a bombed-out house that had no roof, no south wall, and only remnants of the other walls. There was a broken-up table on the floor with him. There was a doorway in the east wall, and a Marine charged through it, desperately looking for cover. ”His eyes were as big as eggs,” recalled Pittman. The Marine accidentally discharged his M16 as he ran in, and a long burst kicked up dirt across the floor. The last round impacted with a blur right in front of Pittman's face. The Marine threw himself down behind the south foundation of the house. Orders were being shouted to keep the a.s.sault going, and Pittman rose up just as five Marines rushed into the field from the tree line directly in front of him. His eyes stayed on those men. ”There were five, then there were two-then there were none. They fell like rag dolls. I didn't want to believe what I'd seen. I was near panic. The cracking noise of AK-47s was constant and deafening, and dirt, stucco, and dust filled the air around me. I hugged the floor, holding my breath and waiting to die.”

Moving forward with his M79 at the ready, Pfc. Doug ”Digger” Light of Foxtrot Two also spotted NVA a moment before the shooting began. There were maybe fifteen of them standing in the tall gra.s.s, and in the instant that the a.s.sault line got close enough for the Marines and NVA to recognize each other, Light could have sworn that one of them smiled at them. He wondered if the NVA were sh.e.l.l-shocked or on opium. The enemy troops dropped down in the gra.s.s, and AK-47 fire seemed to erupt from every direction. The Marines fired back even as they sought cover, and Light got off his first grenade round before jumping behind a burial mound. The enemy were only forty meters away.

The firefight began at 1600, and in the initial shock wave what sounded like a round from a captured M79 landed directly to the right of Lieutenant McAdams of Foxtrot One. His platoon was forward on the left flank, with Foxtrot Two on the right. Foxtrot Three was in reserve. McAdams accidentally dropped his .45 as he ducked behind a burial mound on his left. The enemy soldier had him in his sights. There was another explosion almost on top of where McAdams had gone down, and when he rolled left to another spot of cover, he heard yet another explosion to his right. He moved left again. McAdams didn't realize it yet, but he'd been superficially wounded in his right shoulder, right s.h.i.+n, and left elbow.

Lieutenant McAdams's radioman, Mongoose Tyrell, was also wounded immediately by either RPG fragments or the same captured M79 that got the lieutenant. Tyrell never knew exactly what happened. He never heard the explosion that nailed him. One moment he'd been walking forward, and the next thing he knew he was drifting back from a warm, floating euphoria. He realized then that he was on the ground and that the whole world seemed to be firing at them. He was not in any pain, although he was wounded in his legs, arms, and face. He was simply numb. He couldn't open his right eye, and blood was rus.h.i.+ng out as if from bad razor cuts. The corpsman who crawled up to bandage his worst wound, which was in his right calf, told him to get back to the medevac point. Tyrell unshouldered his radio and gave it to a Marine named Bing-ham with instructions to stick with the lieutenant. Tyrell started back without a weapon: A good-sized chunk of metal had hit the b.u.t.t of his M16 and caused it to jam.

The acting platoon sergeant, LCpl. Ronald J. Dean-who had thumbed a ride to the front in an Otter the day before despite the jungle rot on his feet that had gotten him a light-duty vacation in the battalion rear-was also dropped in the opening volley. Dean was. .h.i.t so hard that it felt as though he did a backward flip. It was as though a sledgehammer had been swung between his legs. He had, in fact, caught sh.e.l.l fragments in his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es and across his stomach. When he caught his breath, Dean turned to the grunt lying beside him and said, ”I got a little peter anyway-what's it look like now?” The Marine just shook his head, and Dean's stomach dropped.

Lance Corporal Dean, age twenty-two, was from Newnan, Georgia, where his father worked in a cotton mill. Having served with C/1/3 near Da Nang in 1965-66, he volunteered for a second tour because he was tinkering with the idea of a military career. He was a natural-born rifleman, but he was still only a lance corporal because of numerous reductions in rank. He drank too much in the rear, and was a hothead who loved to fight.

”We got into a big fistfight when he first got there,” recalled Tyrell. ”Dean was a wild man, but a wonderful guy.”

Dean was bleeding badly, but there was no time to bandage his wounds. Adrenaline masked the pain. He got to his feet. The only way to survive was to close with the NVA and kill them. Dean began firing his M14 toward the burial mounds ahead of them and to their left. He grabbed Marines who were lying p.r.o.ne behind cover and shouted, ”Let's go! If we sit out in the open, h.e.l.l, everybody's going to die!”

Lance Corporal Dean was running forward when another explosion knocked him down, peppering his legs with fragments. Dean got back up and kept moving forward. Lieutenant McAdams was also back on his feet, directing the platoon's wheeling maneuver into the tree line running along the left flank. Golf Company was on the other side of the trees. McAdams and Dean reached the cover there with about fifteen other Marines, including a machine gunner and grenadier, and they took up firing positions that faced the open field they had just left. At a range of about a hundred meters, they could see NVA bobbing up from behind burial mounds to fire on Foxtrot Two on the far right flank. They opened up on those NVA, but when they fired a LAW the backblast marked them, and still more enemy soldiers blazed away at them from the left flank.

Golf Two advanced through Dinh To on the right and Golf One on the left. Golf Three was in reserve. By the time Foxtrot became engaged, Lieutenant Morgan of Golf Two had experienced four jams with his M16 as they reconned by fire through the thickly vegetated hamlet. He had discarded his fouled-up M16 and was going forward with .45 pistol in hand when Foxtrot One, on the other side of the trees to his right, began hollering for help with recovering casualties.

The momentum of Golf Company's a.s.sault died then and there as Lieutenant Morgan sent his machine-gun team and several riflemen to help Foxtrot. One of the riflemen was Lance Corporal Parkins, who had picked up an M16, a weapon he hated, to replace the M14 for which he had run out of ammo. Parkins was moving when several NVA with AK-47s popped into view in the brush in front of him. They were not looking in Parkins's direction, and he fired at them from the hip. The M16 jammed after the first shot. When Parkins looked down to pull back the bolt, he was knocked off his feet as at least one of the enemy soldiers turned toward him and returned the fire. It felt as though a red-hot poker had been rammed into his left s.h.i.+n. The bone was shattered. Parkins, lying p.r.o.ne, quickly pulled out the .45 he had scrounged up that morning along with two clips, and screamed for a corpsman.

The Marines in the machine-gun team were also wounded, and as the casualties were dragged rearward, things got chaotic. The NVA opened fire from the hedgerows to the front, and when Marines with AK-47s returned the fire, other Marines who couldn't see who was doing the shooting got pretty shook up. It sounded as though the enemy was right there in the bushes with them. Lieutenant Morgan ushered the ten survivors from his platoon into a crater on the left. It was a big crater, probably the result of a five-hundred-pound bomb. They were joined there by Staff Sergeant Wade and Golf One, which had pulled in from the left flank. The NVA fire got heavier, and the Marines expended a great volume of M60 and M79 ammunition in return, without visible effect, while those men who still had M16s kept their heads down and tried to clear jams.