who seemed have their stuff together and could get on them quickly with fires. For that reason, I always tried to get artillery and air on them as soon as they hit.
But that was clearly not happening here. “Why?” I asked myself.
The bad guys could certainly see that they were facing a good company that was well dug in. But they were not getting pounded. There were no helicopters, observer aircraft, or jet fighters up there, and no artillery slamming in. And when they realized that, they said, “These guys don’t have it together, or else maybe they don’t have access to their heavy stuff. And we have enough forces in position to take them on. Let’s do it.”
The company had dug in at a deserted hamlet. Because they were surrounded on three sides, the only clear route in was from the west. So we had to carefully work our way around to that side and then slowly close on the company position. The young lieutenant platoon commander handled this tricky move extremely well. We could have easily run into the VC or (just as bad) been mistaken for them and drawn friendly fire, but his coordination and deft handling of our patrol were superb.
When we finally entered the company lines, the scene was intense. Marines were firing from cover at the attacking and ever-probing enemy. The fighting was at close quarters; the enemy were everywhere. (What I didn’t realize then was that the fighting had also been going on for quite some time. This fact came back to bite me.)
As I made my way through the mud huts to the company command post, the lieutenant broke off to join his platoon. They could use him… and I had a sudden wish that he was the company commander.
At the command group, several Marines were chattering away on radios propped up against the mud walls of the huts. From what I could tell, the company commander was talking to his platoon commanders and seemed to have the defense under control. Yet I still couldn’t figure out why he hadn’t reported the contact or requested fire support. The fighting was heavy and the VC were obviously working to encircle him.
About the time I was approaching the command group, the company commander decided to call in artillery. But typically for him, it was an afterthought. He hadn’t given any specific direction to the forward artillery observer, who was — as it happened — confused about our coordinates. As it also happened, I had just checked the coordinates of our position, and when I heard the Vietnamese artillery forward observer calling in the fire mission, it dawned on me that he was giving our location and not the enemy’s.
I grabbed my radio handset and called a “check fire” back to our U.S. artillery adviser, but was too late. The “shot out” return call indicated rounds were on the way. “Get down!” I yelled, as two rounds whistled in and exploded behind us. Remarkably, they hit in the open to our rear, and the Marines, under cover, were not hurt.
At this point, the U.S. Marine artillery adviser, our battalion senior adviser, and the task force senior adviser were all screaming on my radio, trying to find out what was going on; and from the activity on their radios, the Vietnamese chain of command was equally energized. I tried giving my command a quick explanation, asking them for time to sort this mess out, but they were not having it. Since they were hearing about the problem from me, I had to be the problem. But at least they trusted me enough to listen to my requests for help, and I managed to get control of things enough to have them bring in an Air Force spotter plane over our position and cancel the artillery mission until I was ready for it.
Since the company seemed well organized in their defense, I was confident there wasn’t an immediate problem with the maneuver units.
I then grabbed the company commander and asked him for a heads-up.
“We’ve been hit three or four times,” he said. “Each time has been harder and from more directions than the last.” Though he had, as I had thought, concentrated on the fight and maneuvering of his units without also reporting his situation or calling in fire support or air observers, I felt I could get these last under control when he hit me with an “Oh, by the way”: “My men are very low on ammunition.”
At first I wondered when he intended to do something about this (that should have been done long before I showed up), but it was quickly obvious he was dumping the problem on me.
“How low?” I asked.
“A few rounds per man,” he answered.
“Great!” I thought.
Fortunately, the VC fire was dying off just then. They seemed to be regrouping.
I immediately put in an emergency request for ammo, which drew more yelling from the rear echelon, who were still on my ass for what was happening.
“What kind of ammo do you need and how much?” They asked after they’d calmed down a little. But they were still thinking that this should be a “by the book” request. I didn’t have time for that.
“Thirty caliber, forty-five… just get anything you can out here.” The Marines of course had a grab bag of old weapons, and no M-16s. “I can’t give you an ammo request. This is an emergency. We’re down to three or four rounds per man and we’re getting hit hard.”
This was just minutes after they’d become aware of our fight. So it didn’t sound right to them. You don’t normally get in so much trouble so fast. “Where the hell’s this coming from?” they were asking. It was clear that the seriousness of our situation was not sinking in back there and they thought they had an overly excited lieutenant on their hands. The fact was none of the guys in the rear had enough true combat time to understand the situation; I had more trigger time by then than any of them.
Meanwhile, I told the company commander to get on his radio and give his battalion a full situation report, and to be accurate and detailed on his ammo status.
Just then the U.S. Air Force 0–1 Birddog light observation plane came on scene. They were called “Herbies” after their call sign, and we loved these guys. I can’t praise them enough.
“Thank God for the Herbies,” I thought. I gave him our position and the direction the last enemy contacts had come from, and asked him to check those areas.
A few minutes later, he came back up on the net: “You have enemy massing on three sides of you,” he said. “You’ve also got VC on foot, bicycle, and motorbikes all heading your way. I’ll work up an air strike, but you need to get ready for a big hit soon. They may get to you before I can bring in our air.”
He was right. The VC hit us before the air strike hit them. When they saw the Birddog, I’m sure they knew they had to attack before fire was rained on them.
When they closed in, the fighting was fierce, but the Marines were careful with their shots. They had to be. During the close-quarters fighting, a few VC broke through. A red hand flare signaled that we had an enemy penetration of our lines.
At that moment I was concentrating on the Herbie, who was feeding me coordinates for an artillery mission on the enemy positions. My head was pressed against a wall of one of the huts, with a finger plugging one ear and the radio headset over the other. The firing and yelling made hearing difficult. But before I could complete the fire mission, I was spun around by my radio operator, trying to warn me down.
As I turned, I saw an old man in khaki shirt and shorts with a Thompson submachine gun firing directly at me from about twenty yards away. Fortunately, his rounds were smacking into the mud wall just above my head. But then when I reached for my.45 caliber pistol, my holster was empty. My radio operator already had it and was firing at the old man. So was my cowboy. Everybody was “spraying and praying”; but no one was hit.
A moment later, the old man’s magazine was empty, and as he tried to put in a new one from the magazine belt around his shoulder, my radio operator and cowboy bolted over and tackled him. They whacked him around a bit, then dragged him over to the wall.
“Great!” I thought. “Now we have a POW to deal with along with all the problems I’m trying to sort out.”
As my guys were tying up our prisoner, I noticed the fire dying away. We had beaten back another attack — the fourth. That was the good news.
