By CHARLES BLACK
Enquirer Military Writer
AN KHE, Viet Nam - Lt. John
Tower is a handsome young paratrooper serving with the brigade of the
101st
Airborne Division. He has the worry
lines a man in the public information officer slot get in this country.
He came into the press tent
and Maj. Chuck Siler, an old paratrooper
who is public information officer for the 1st Cavalry Division,
introduced him and said Lt. Tower had an interesting operation,
probably the
last one the brigade would engage in around this area and the largest
it had
made in Viet Nam.
Lt. Col. Wilford Smith of
the Screaming Eagles was taking a battalion of the tough troopers on an
assault
landing the next morning in the valley which Maj. Billy Cole had told
me was a
major training ground and supply point for two hard-core Viet Cong
battalions,
the 95th and the 96th.
The chopper force, Second
Battalion (Airborne), 502nd Infantry, would be brought in by the 52nd
Aviation
Co. and a group of H34 Marine choppers to a landing zone about 8,000
meters
from a village called Ah Min 2. (The
hamlets along the valleys often have the same names and are
differentiated on
maps by numbers.)
Task Force Hansen, a
composite group of cavalry type commanded by Maj. Marcus Hansen of
Second
Battalion 17th Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division, would drive to the
Song Con
River, with three Marine tanks and gun jeeps clearing the trail, ford
the river
on foot at a village called Van Than 3, secure hamlets Van Than 1-2-5,
move up
a steep mountainside into a pass and lay in wait to kill Viet Cong
swept ahead
by the helicopter-borne assault. The
First Battalion, 327th Infantry, would swing around in a hook and block
another
pass march.
So far as physical comfort
was concerned, Task Force Hansen, which would take off at 3:30 a.m.,
was the
least inviting prospect. But as Lt.
Tower explained the original plan to two photographers and myself (who
had
decided to go on the mission at the outset instead of waiting to be
lifted in
by helicopter), it was obvious that Hansen would be the force where the
fighting would be seen.
Or it seemed that way at 10
the night before when I got into a jeep for yet another ride over that
risky
mountain pass to join Task Force Hansen in the dismal abandoned rice
paddy they
use for headquarters area at the foot of the mountain.
Lt. Tower was riding with
PFC Steve Van Meter, 19, Wheeling, W. Va., a paratrooper-photographer
with the
brigade PIO, driving. We stopped at a
sign saying “Swift CP” and PFC Van Meter continued an argument with Lt.
Tower
as the two photographers got out to join the helicopter-lifted group. PFC Van Meter thought the same as I and most
of the other people concerned did.
“They’re going in 8,000
meters off, Sir. All the action is
going to be Task Force Hansen. I’ve
been on too many operations where you don’t see anything, where you
just walk
forever. I’d rather climb that mountain
and get to take some action shots,” he said.
He lost the argument. He
looked disappointed when I saw him in a
dripping tent at the operations shop at Maj. Hansen’s headquarters.
At 3:30 a.m. I joined up
with a machine gun jeep driven through the mud by PFC James Willis and
loaded
up with Sgt. Willie Sampson, Sgt. George Long and Sp4 Leonard Loftus. The jeep went up to the point where Lt.
William (Willie) Wilson, the troop commander, was.
(The task force is organized from the Second Battalion, 17th
Cavalry, 101st Airborne Division; the reconnaissance platoons from the
First
Infantry Division; a Scout Dog section; a radio research section, for
tracking
down Viet Cong communications sites; an MP platoon; a platoon of combat
engineers, three Marine tank crews and officers assigned to the
thus-created
cavalry squadron from many different sources.)
I saw some men I knew at
once up at the front of the column as soon as it got daylight, about
6:15 a.m.,
when we stopped and I went with a patrol screening a village ahead of
us. We had to drive around Viet Cong road
cuts,
ditches and holes dug in the trail, and search out each likely ambush
spot
during the four hour vehicle ride to the river bank.
Lt. Daniel Isacowitz, Troop
D, First Ninth Cavalry, the first platoon leader in this outfit from
Lt. Col.
John D. Stockton’s unit, called hello to me from a perch on the lead
tank. He told me a contingent from the 1st
Cavalry
Division’s “Real cavalry” squadron was with the task force in order to
get
“on-the-job training.” I saw S-Sgt. Harold
B. Campbell, S-Sgt. Joseph N. Falabella and a couple of old maneuver
buddies,
Capt. W. P. Gillette III, D Troop commander, and Sgt. Don F. Ritter, as
I
walked up the line of vehicles with the patrol going through the
village.
The people were frightened
in this town. Old men put their hands
together and bowed, women clutched children close to them and the kids
either
looked at us with wide, solemn eyes or bowed in formal imitation of the
old
men. It was a stark contrast to the
areas which have grown familiar with the sight of the big, heavily
armed
Americans, where crowds of children salute and shout “Hello” or “O.K.”
and ask
for candy or cigarettes. (Little bitty
guys always ask for smokes first and candy second in An Khe and
surrounding
villages.)
The road was lined with
spider holes, little round foxholes with reed and mud lids propped up
with
sticks. Each of these was searched out
by wary riflemen. A huge bomb crater
was directly in the center of the village.
PFC Pedro Canals looked at
it and said:
“Mr. Black, what in the
world dropped anything that big in here?
That hole is six feet deep and 25 feet wide!”
We got through the village
without incident and found a hulking metal cone lying on its side in a
creek
near a small bridge which the villagers had repaired with planks after
it had
been cut by the Viet Cong with explosives.
The bomb was rusty round its nose and Sp4 Billy I. Howard
answered PFC
Canal’s question for me.
“That thing is a 500-pound
bomb! Man, the whole convoy will drive
within 20 feet of it. I’d rather not
think about it,” he said.
We made a cautious search
for wires which might have been rigged to detonate the dud bomb and
wondered
all through the rest of the operation about what two bombs of this size
were
doing over a remote area such as this.
The dud bomb and the crater just didn’t seem to be part of the
step-by-step, hole-by-hold, bush-by-bush method we were using in
passing
through the little hamlets.
“We’ve criss-crossed this
area with patrols and operations but it is still no-man’s land so far
as
security is concerned. These people are
living right on the edge of a firefight at any second if the V.C. come
back to
use these positions and we find out about it and come after them,”
M-Sgt. Roy
Rodriguez, the top NCO of the platoon I was with and a man I came to
regard
with great affection during the next four days, told me.
About 6:30 a.m. we cleared
the last of about five such villages and pulled into a clearing beside
a wide,
fast-moving river, just below a rapids formed by knife-sharp granite
rocks. It looked like a poor place to ford
a river, but this was the plan.
The tanks and jeeps would
stop here. The mountain we had to climb
after the river crossing was almost straight up and it had
vicious-looking
jungle on its ground just beyond the river bank. I
decided to leave my rucksack and simply rolled a light sleeping
bag in a poncho and took my belt and two canteens and other minimum
gear. I tossed the pack to Marine Lt.
Arthur
Johnson, who shouted from his tank turret:
“Good luck. You
guys keep your tails down. We’ll see to it
you get your pack.”
The tanks and gun jeeps
suddenly cut loose with a deafening burst of 90 mm., 106 recoilless
rifle and
machine-gun fire, lacing the river bank and brush between the village
and river
and then arching explosions in the area beyond the village. Three lines of men ran from the tank, about
50 years apart, and into the river. I
was chest deep at two of the lines below the one I was with.
I saw the most vulnerable
man of us all in such straits disappear just as the water -
astonishingly cold
for a tropical river - surged around my shoulders and that feeling of
swift
fright a strong current give a man walking in it with a weight on his
back. The man I watched, PFC Bobby W.
Sykes, was
carrying a radio and a rifle. He edged
around one the rocks and a solid ridge of water where the current split
hit
him. He disappeared. M-Sgt.
Rodriguez lunged for him and went
under then.
Lt. Wilson turned - he was
in the lead here - and half-swam downstream, pulling Sykes out as the
soldier
came up for the first time 20 feet away.
Wilson is about
six-feet-three and the water was neck deep to him.
Rodriguez came up near him and he was actually laughing.
Sykes was in a bad way, his
feet weren’t touching bottom and his helmet and weapon were gone in the
river. He had been rolled along the
bottom.
Men edged down,
holding hands, taller ones
ahead, short ones like me anchoring ourselves as close to the channel
as we
could and providing a pivot point until Sp4 Billy I. Howard and PFC
Anthony P.
Garcia got down to aid Lt. Wilson, who face showed no concern. Sykes was gagging up water and his face was
very white as the big lieutenant and the burly, and still-laughing
M-Sgt.
Rodriguez held him between them.
The tanks opened fire again
over our heads and everybody wondered if they had spotted trouble or
were
simply “sterilizing” the far bank, while we worked out our troubles in
the
middle of the stream here. They were
just being careful.
The downstream platoons made
it over and some of those men slashed at bamboo poles and then waded
out from
the far bank. I got hold of one held by
PFC Raymond W. Holland and Sp4 Jerry Large and floundered across the 10
feet of
swimming water which had trapped the radioman and the platoon sergeant.
When I finally got up the
bank I found that my poncho roll had opened.
My sleeping bag and $10 I had carefully tucked inside of its
folds (the
only American money I had handy for PX purchases back at An Khe) had
been
claimed by the Song Con.
A plastic bag had saved
cigarettes and some other articles from wetting, but I missed that
sleeping bag
before the trip was over. M-Sgt.
Rodriguez had lost even his poncho so I was better off than he. PFC Sykes, shaky but mad, was arguing that
he had to go back and get his rifle from the river.
Somebody loaned him a .45 belt and some grenades, the radio was
tested and found to be broken by its trip down the river bottom on
Sykes’ back
and it was sent back over one of the easier fords to be exchanged.
We picked up three young men
cowering in spider holes. They were
checked carefully, and detained. A few
minutes later the other platoons came in with three more.
A woman followed, wailing and screaming and
pointing at one of them. The boy, about
19, was expressionless. His black
pajamas were mud-stained and he was panting as if he had tried to run.
I never got details on these
men (a helicopter came for them), but they were fighting age and in
Viet Cong
territory. If they were neutrals, they
would be released. If Viet Cong, they
would be questioned, detained and treated as prisoners of war and
turned over
to the province chief at An Khe. It
isn’t the way to win friends, but at this edgy stage of things I was
willing to
sacrifice for the practicality of eliminating a possible spy or sniper. Others can discuss the practice at leisure.
We came out on a trial,
lined with the inevitable spider holes, above the village, tired,
wet-heavy,
dreading the long climb ahead of us.
Lt. Wilson was on his radio and he looked very concerned. It was about 8 a.m. then.
“All bets are off! We’re
heading on a forced march that makes
that mountain there look like a picnic.
Lt. Col. Smith just radioed that ‘I’ve hit a buzzsaw here.’ He’s needing help. The
Five-Oh-Deuce has really got into it over there,” he said.
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