and accurate every day, and it was obviously coming from more and more firing positions.
Through this new intelligence source, we learned that the gun crews coming into the area were being instructed to 'shoot at the Texas flag.'
Only one flag flew in the whole brigade base area. Sure enough, it was the Texas flag — flying on a twenty- foot pole above the sandbagged tent where the forward air controller slept (he was a lieutenant colonel from Texas). The tent was directly above and slightly behind the brigade tactical operations center, and provided a perfect aiming point. The lieutenant colonel was awfully proud of his flag, but it had to come down. It remained inside his sandbagged tent for the rest of his tour.
From this new intelligence we also learned (almost daily) which units they planned to engage with fire, the coordinates of their firing positions, and how many rounds they planned to fire. Accordingly, we planned our counterfires to impact their locations about two minutes before their scheduled firing times.
We also pieced together that Dak Pek and Ben Hct were both targets for major ground attacks, which would most likely be supported by armor. It was likely that Dak Pek would be hit in early April. Once it was taken out, follow-on units could move through the mountains to our north and take positions near Dak To and to our rear. From Dak Pek, they could also head south toward Kontum and on to Pleiku.
Ben Hct was to be knocked off in early May. Dak To would follow.
Though we didn't know it at the time, this plan of attack would turn out to be supportive of the major attacks of the 1968 Tet campaign — a long-planned and prepared-for NVA and Viet Cong offensive throughout South Vietnam, designed to inflict heavy casualties and damage and thus achieve a major setback for the South Vietnamese government and a worldwide propaganda victory. Tet accomplished those aims — even though the Communists actually lost Tet militarily. Afterward the Viet Cong were practically destroyed as an effective fighting force, and the NVA also took a huge hit. The first recognizable Tet attacks took place at the end of January, but the campaign continued for some months after that.
What we did know was that unless we prevented the fall of Dak Pek and Ben Het, we at Dak To would be cut off and fighting in both directions.
While day-and-night air strikes continued to pound both NVA road-construction operations, in early April the 5th SF Group decided to bring in a MIKE Force (composed of Vietnamese Rangers) to attack the road builders and their security battalion near Dak Pek.[15] Once that was accomplished, they would reinforce Dak Pek defenses.
The Rangers were lifted into Dak To by C-123 aircraft, then air-assaulted into the Dak Pek area by helicopters with gunship support. When they reached the area, they were almost immediately engaged by a superior NVA force. Two of their accompanying twelve-man advisory team (an Australian captain and a U.S. SF NCO) were killed during the first few minutes.
Faced with overwhelming firepower, the losses of key advisers, and heavy losses of their own, the Mike Force broke off the engagement, leaving the remainder of the advisory team there. We were able to extract that team before dark, together with the bodies of those KIA (the defenders of Dak Pek were not involved in the action, and remained in place at the camp).
It took three days for the disorganized and retreating remnants of the Mike unit to be assembled at Dak To and flown out.
It was obvious that the NVA would eventually lay siege to Dak Pek and was willing to pay a high price for the camp. As air strikes continued, Dak Pek was reinforced with an infantry battalion from the 1st Brigade, together with thirty preplanned Arc Lights (a total of ninety B-52 bombers), which would be employed when the attack came.
The attack came in early April — by an estimated NVA regiment supportedby tanks — but was unsuccessful. Our preparations had paid off. The few surviving NVA withdrew back to the sanctuary from which they had come.
Ben Het would come next, and we expected the same-perhaps even more, because this infiltration route had greater strategic value. If Ben Het could be knocked off, it was a straight shot over a major road network to Dak To, on to An Khe (the division base for 1st Cav), and then to the coast and Da Nang.
Two major pieces of key terrain dominated Ben Het: a hill to the west, and another to the east — each within supporting fires distance of the other. It would be awfully tough to take Ben I let without controlling both hills. The 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry (reinforced), was given the mission to occupy these hills and defend Ben Het. The plan called for air strikes on the western hill summit to clear a landing zone, followed by an artillery prep, and then by the landing of two companies. Once this hill was occupied, the rest of the battalion would occupy the hill to the east.
When the first flight, carrying a rifle platoon, touched down, they immediately came under fire from an NVA force that had already occupied the hill. Artillery fire was shifted to the hill's western back side, while the remainder of the two companies were landed at its eastern base. By nightfall they had fought their way up the hill, driven off the NVA force, and linked up with the platoon at the summit. The eastern hill was occupied without incident.
For the next two days, the two hills would be developed into defensive positions, completely bracketed by the fires of five supporting artillery battalions.
Meanwhile, the 7th/17th Air Cav conducted daily screens to the west of Ben Het to detect infiltration. When it was detected, the plan was to stop it with artillery and air strikes. But things did not quite work out that way. In spite of thousands of rounds of artillery, 846 close-air-support sorties, and 99 Arc Lights — all during a three-week period in May 1968—Ben Het and the two hills were hit by three regiment-size NVA attacks.
At first light on the mornings after each of these attacks, the 7th/17th Cav would pursue and engage the attackers all the way to the border. As one Cav commander reported back, 'The foot trails through the dust of the bomb craters are three, four feet wide, and many are covered with blood and dragged body trails.'
The NVA never succeeded in taking Ben Het, and their casualties must have been enormous. Yet after each attack they withdrew to their sanctuary to refit and come again.
During this same period, several smaller NVA units were also discovered in the hills only a thousand meters north of the Dak To airstrip, and Arc Light strikes had to be brought in danger-close (within 350 meters of friendly positions) to neutralize them. Somehow, at least a battalion-size unit had managed to get through, because on the night of the main Tet Offensive, this unit attacked the South Vietnamese province headquarters located in the village of Tan Can one kilometer cast of the Dak To base complex. Supported by an Air Force gunship, the SF- trained CIDG defenders acquitted themselves well. At least 125 NVA bodies littered the clearing around the village.
During the Tet campaign, practically every unit in the 1st Brigade area of operations was attacked, yet not a single unit's defenses were penetrated, and the NVA suffered heavy casualties.
In retrospect, we can assume that the heavy fighting during the November-December '67 battle for Dak To and in the April — May '68 fight for Dak Pek and Ben Het had significantly reduced the 2nd NVA Division's capability to accomplish their part of the Tet campaign.
Though the NVA and Viet Cong suffered heavily during Tet, that did not break their will or change their designs on the Central Highlands. Nightly bombing did little to stop the convoys rolling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Both the glow of headlights and the green tracers from NVA antiaircraft weapons were clearly visible from the firebases our battalions occupied.
During the next two months of my tour, hardly a day passed without significant contact with at least a company-size NVA unit, and there were two or three battalion-size attacks against our battalion firebases as well.
Twice a week, a resupply convoy — usually fifty to a hundred trucks escorted by military police, helo gunships, and tanks — would run from Pleiku to Kontum, and then on to Dak To. Even though the jungle had been cleared 100–200 meters on each side of the road, the convoy was often ambushed by at least a company-size force. Sometimes the fighting was so intense that the tanks would fire on each other with beehive rounds (flechette) to clear off the NVA.
I rotated from Vietnam in July 1968. While I was there, the 1st Brigade, together with the Special Forces
