CHAPTER 11
By late afternoon the Marines had effectively encircled the objective area. The coastline (see map) runs from northwest to southeast. The northwest was blocked by Mike Company, 3/3, and Golf Company, 2/4. Echo Company, 2/4 stood fast in the west; Hotel Company, 2/4, was struggling to control its sector in the southwest; and India and Kilo companies, 3/3 and Lima Company, 3/7, were sweepng the area from the southeast. The fiercest fighting of the day had taken place in a few thousand square meters around the villages of An Cuong 2 and Nam Yen 3 and the ambushed supply column that lay between the two.
A DOG NAMED COMBAT
Toward the end of the day, during a lull in the fighting, a Kilo, 3/3, Marine found a tiny emaciated puppy in one of the villages. As would many American boys, he scooped the little guy up and carried him along. Later that night when he went out on a listening post he gave the pup to LCpl Ed Nicholls, who cared for him for months afterward. Combat, as he was called, became a real Marine’s dog, growing fat on C-rations and generally behaving as friendly dogs do. Articles about Combat appeared in newspapers throughout the United States, and he frequently received fan mail from school children. Combat went through several masters as they rotated out of country at the end of their tours and, eventually, he died a Marine’s death; he was killed by a booby trap placed by the enemy.
INDIA COMPANY, 3/3. LATE AFTERNOON
India Company, 3/3, continued its search for the supply column. As it approached An Cuong 2, the company halted when it was fired on and called in an air strike. Marine jets dropped several 250-pound bombs on the target area. The VC in the village were either killed, or had fled, and there was no more firing. West of the village were fields bordered with the ubiquitous hedgerows. They were not the usual rice fields; potatoes or something else was growing in them.
Except for the platoon that was still back with Major Comer, India Company was 2,000 to 2,500 meters from the rest of the battalion. It still had not located the supply column.
India Company pushed eight hundred meters or more past An Cuong 2 village as it got dark. When Lt Richard Purnell radioed back a request for instructions, he was told to return to the battalion position. India Company, 3/3, never did find out where the supply train was that night.
The Marines decided to light up the area with illumination rounds from artillery and naval gunfire throughout the night. While this would make it more difficult for the VC to withdraw and easier for the supply column to defend itself, it also made it hard on India Company, 3/3. On its return to the 3/3 CP area the troops had to hit the deck every few steps and wait for the parachutes from which the illumination rounds were suspended to sway slowly to earth. Otherwise they would have become well-lighted targets for the VC still active in the area.
India Company, 3/3, was about halfway back when once again it took fire, now from five or six VC in a hedgerow. The VC were just twenty-five or thirty meters away, but the India Marines were on the deck, avoiding the light from illumination rounds. One Marine was killed and another was wounded. The Marines moved reflexively into a flanking movement and poured a flood of return fire at the enemy. When the firing ceased, one platoon checked out the hedgerow but found nothing.
At another pause along the long march, Purnell’s rear-guard machine gunner spotted five VC with weapons who were carrying one of their wounded. The Marine lay alongside the trail, well concealed by the bushes, and the VC would step on him if he did not act. He got them in his sights, opened fire, and killed them all. A little after that the Marine point man, who was moving down a trenchline, came around a bend and ran face-to-face with a VC, whom he killed.
Lieutenant Purnell asked for an emergency medevac for the wounded and dead. Major Comer got in contact with a helicopter whose pilot said he would come down if it was a real emergency. It was. The pilot then asked if there was any way India Company could show him where it was. The only night signal devices available were flashlights. When the Marines on the ground said they would turn one on, the pilot reported seeing flashlights all over the place. The Marines were certain that the VC were monitoring their radio transmissions.
They finally got a blanket, covered up the flashlight, pointed it up, and blinked it on and off. The helicopter came right down. It was a much admired bit of flying; the pilot came right in with no lights at all and dropped right into the zone. The H-34 was quickly loaded and lifted off with the wounded, a dead Marine, and a man with severe asthma.
Between the fire fights, the helicopter evacuation, and the dangerous illumination, it took India Company just about all night to reach its objective. The unit got back to the battalion at approximately 0430.
3/3 AT DUSK
Colonel Peatross visited the 3/3 commander, LtCol Joe Muir, around sundown. After he left, Muir turned his two remaining companies a bit further north to a good night defensive position. He found a hill that he wanted to set in on but was determined to make sure it was free of VC before he moved on it. As Muir looked up at the hill, he said,” I’m not going to lose another Marine unnecessarily,” and put on one of the finest exhibitions of calling in combat arms that Lt Dave Steel ever saw. Muir continuously raked the hill with artillery, air, naval gunfire, and his mortars. Steel simply marveled at what Muir could do with supporting arms, either simultaneously or in sequence.
The 3/3 main body had just started its advance when Lima Company, 3/7, called to request water and advise Muir that it couldn’t move. Muir turned to Capt Dave Ramsey, the 3/3 S3, and said, “I am going over there”. By the time he got to Lima, 3/7, too many heat-casualty medevacs, including that of the company commander, were taking place.
In the struggle to get up the hill, Dave Steel lost his college ring when it slipped off his finger. He saw it roll down the hill, paused for a moment, looked up at the top of the hill, said, “Fuck it,” and continued on up the hill.
When 3/3 reached the top and set in, Lima Company, 3/7, was still at the bottom of the hill. It was nearly dark, so the leader of the platoon of India Company that was not with Purnell, SSgt Bill Wright, went down and guided the 3/7 company to the top of the hill.
Just as it got dark, an amtrac appeared out of nowhere. It was Staff Sergeant Bradley, who had simply boarded a supply amtrac on the beach and wandered around until he found the battalion. He had plenty of food, water, and ammunition. Joe Muir walked over to Bradley and said, “Well, I can’t get mad. But you can’t leave until tomorrow.” That was okay with Bradley. He was a supply sergeant, but he wanted to be with the front-line troops.
NIGHT FALLS ON THE BATTLEFIELD
Just at dusk, Kilo Company, 3/3, called in air and naval gunfire on enemy troops moving about two hundred meters to its front. One air strike resulted in several secondary explosions.
MIKE COMPANY, 3/7. MIDNIGHT
During the night Colonel Peatross brought the remainder of BLT 3/7 ashore. India, 3/7, arrived at the regimental CP at 1800 and remained there to provide additional security for the CP. Lieutenant Colonel Bodley and his command group followed shortly.
Just before midnight, Mike Company, 3/7, arrived off the coast aboard the slow USS Talladega. Although most of the day’s fighting was over by that time, there was nevertheless a live sound and light show that was daunting to the Marines aboard ship. They lined the rails and said things like, “Man, oh man, I’m glad we’re not involved in that mess.” They only enjoyed their spectator role for a few minutes before their skipper got a call from Lieutenant Colonel Bodley to prepare to land by boat at midnight. Scuttlebutt said that the enemy was escaping the battlefield in small boats and someone needed to block off their escape route. So Mike, 3/7, offloaded from the Talladega, down the nets just like in the movies, on its way to make the first night amphibious landing of the Vietnam War. The ship’s captain did not want to put his LCVPs into the water at night. He had inadequate charts and, having been told to land the boats where the “rounds were coming together,” he thought it best to go with larger craft. The entire company, about two hundred-strong, climbed down into LCMs for its trip into the beach. The LCMs ran afoul of the same sandbar that had bedeviled the 3/3 command groups the previous morning and got hung up.
When one of the platoon commanders, Lt John Covert, jumped over the side of his LCM to see how deep it was, all but his momentarily floating helmet immediately disappeared from sight. Covert ditched enough of his gear to struggle to the surface and was pulled out of the water. After getting a bit closer to the beach, the boats managed to get their ramps down, and the Marines waded in.
Mike, 3/7, moved only a short distance inland before a sergeant named Tiger stepped on some soft ground that gave way under his weight and collapsed a tunnel through which several Viet Cong were trying to escape. Tiger reached down and pulled one of them out, giving the newly landed Marines their first close-hand view of a living, breathing VC.
With the arrival of his third battalion, Colonel Peatross was able to complete his plans for the next day’s action. The regimental commander’s concept of action remained basically the same: Squeeze the vise around the VC and drive them toward the sea. As a result of the first day’s action against the VC, he readjusted the battalions’ boundaries.
Echo Company, 2/4, about three thousand meters north of Hotel, 2/4, set out an ambush after dark and killed a VC whom, from his armament and equipment, the troops figured to be a mortar forward observer. Some ineffective incoming fire was directed at Echo Company, but other than that, all was quiet.
COLUMN 21. THE ACTION CONTINUES
The VC moved closer to the stalled resupply column. For hours it was a desperate standoff. Staff Sergeant Jack Marino and his crewmen used hand grenades, pistols, rifles, and their one machine gun. The Marines’ job was made a little easier by the VC habit of bunching up in groups of ten to fifteen. But the VC kept coming.
Marino could see four or five Marines in the rice paddies, but he couldn’t tell how many of them were still alive and able to fight. He had nine effectives with him, of whom most were wounded. Of the other vehicles only one had two surviving Marines aboard who were still firing. The remainder were silent.
The fight raged on. Marino estimated that a force of several hundred Viet Cong had closed in on the column. Next to Marino’s tractor was an abandoned amtrac that several VC had boarded via its ramp. One of the VC emerged with a soap dish in his hand. As he turned to show it to another VC, Sergeant Mulloy shot the two of them off the ramp from his position in the paddy. Another tractor, which the VC thought was still occupied by living Marines, was hit once more with an antitank rocket. Its only passenger was dead. Marino’s vehicle took a direct hit from a 57mm round that wounded him and several other Marines. Several of these men had been wounded for the second or third time.
In the tractor whose machine gun had been knocked out early in the fight, one of the survivors was killed trying to fire his rifle from the hatch. The VC also attempted to lob grenades down the open hatch of Marino’s vehicle. When Marino moved to close the hatch a burst of gunfire drove him back. The Marines inside eventually managed to get the tractor buttoned up, but the interior heat soared.
After about three hours the main body of VC left, but a group of around fifty VC in a nearby wooded area was seen at 0100 the next morning.
Staff Sergeant Jack Marino tried to get evacuation choppers in to take out the wounded, but the location of the convoy had yet to be determined. The sergeant asked for air strikes, but, yet again, the airmen were hampered because of Marino’s not being able to give his position coordinates. Lieutenant Colonel Lloyd Childers, commanding officer of HMM-361, had made several low-altitude passes over the area just before dark on August 18, but he had been unable to spot the convoy.
During most of the night Lt Dave Steel kept up his conversation with the lone Marine who had been crying for help. The man kept saying, “I need help. Please come help me.” Steel told him to put as much stuff over himself as possible, including the bodies of his comrades. The man screamed and cried into the radio all night. Steel asked Capt Dave Ramsey, the 3/3 operations officer, if there was any chance of getting to him. Ramsey said no; it was a hard decision, but nothing could be done that night. They weren’t sure of his exact location and the VC were sure to be waiting. They had no way of knowing whether there were other survivors in the column or not. The lone Marine felt that he had been deserted. Not going after him that night was one of the toughest decisions Lieutenant Colonel Muir and Captain Ramsey ever made.