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Главная Hell on a Hill Top: America's Last Major Battle in Vietnam
Hell on a Hill Top: America's Last Major Battle in VietnamBenjamin L Harrison
Instead of backing away from the fight, the North Vietnamese mortar, recoilless rifle, heavy machine gun, sapper and regular infantry attacks increased. The last offensive around Ripcord was starting to look like the last stand. Unwilling to keep American soldiers at high risk at this stage of the war; Ripcord was evacuated on 23 July. The battle went unnoticed for 30 years until Keith Nolan's book, RIPCORD, was published. As powerful and gripping as was the story of great leadership and courageous fighting by our soldiers, the magnitude of the enemy force still remained unknown. The author, the 3rd Brigade commander during the siege and evacuation, made trips to Vietnam in 2001 and 2004 and interviewed the 324B Division Commander whose first-ever division sole mission, was to destroy Firebase Ripcord. The full story is now told.
17 May 2019 (06:02)
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Hell On A Hill Top Hell On A Hill Top America's Last Major Battle In Vietnam On The East Flank Of The A Shau Valley March–July 1970 The 324B Division Surrounds The 101st Airborne's Currahee Battalion Major General Benjamin L. Harrison US Army, Retired iUniverse, Inc. New York Lincoln Shanghai Hell On A Hill Top America's Last Major Battle In Vietnam All Rights Reserved © 2004 by Ben L. Harrison No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping, or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher. iUniverse, Inc. For information address: iUniverse, Inc. 2021 Pine Lake Road, Suite 100 Lincoln, NE 68512 www.iuniverse.com ISBN: 0-595-77536-5 Printed in the United States of America For the soldiers who fought at Ripcord. For my beautiful, loving and incredibly supportive wife, Carolyn. For our children, Ben and Laura, our grandchildren Sean, Mark, Michelle, Katie, Madelaine and Christian, and our great grandchildren Hayden, Dylan and Madison. Contents Preface. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Map: 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division Area of Operations . . . . . . . . . x Glossary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . xi Prologue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 Part I The Vietnam War in 1970 CHAPTER 1 Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord In 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19 CHAPTER 2 Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34 Part II The NVA Defend Their Base Area CHAPTER 3 Operation TEXAS STAR Is Slow To Rise . . . . . . . . .47 CHAPTER 4 The Fighting Spreads And Intensifies. . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 Part III The North Vietnamese Attack CHAPTER 5 Ripcord Comes Under Siege . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .70 CHAPTER 6 Workman's D Co Gets Battered . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .88 Part IV Time to Leave Fire Support Base Ripcord? CHAPTER 7 Intelligence from the Battlefield . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .112 v Contents CHAPTER 8 Time to go!! . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .115 CHAPTER 9 The Siege of FSB O'Reilly . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .123 Part V Hanoi's View of the Battlefield CHAPTER 10 Hanoi's Military Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .134 CHAPTER 11 Interviewing North Vietnamese Army Officers. . . . . .149 CHAPTER 12 Hanoi's Strategy Changes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .168 CHAPTER 13 Hanoi's Allies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .174 CHAPTER 14 Hanoi's Distortions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .186 CHAPTER 15 Operations of the 308 and 325 Divisions . . . . . . . . . .198 Epilogue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .203 Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .214 APPENDIX A The Ripcord Association Reunion in October 2000. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .219 APPENDIX B Proposed Itinerary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .223 APPENDIX C Vietnam Visit 1–11 June 2001. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .227 APPENDIX D Vietnam Visit 17 May-6 June 2004. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .231 APPENDIX E Cubans In Vietnam During The Vietnam War . . . . .242 Notes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .244 Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .252 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .257 About the Author . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .262 vi Preface Ripcord: THE LAST OFFENSIVE "I still had one battalion left. I had used only two battalions from my 3rd Regiment. One battalion had been operating east of the Bo River," responded Major General Chu Phuong Doi, whose entire 324B Division had been committed since 19 May 1970 to "concentrate its main forces to attack and destroy Operating Base 935." After three hours of questioning, General Doi had been asked by the author while visiting Doi in Cao Bang, Vietnam 26 May 2004, "What would you have done if we had not evacuated Firebase Ripcord on 23 July?" His response seemed like a most uncharacteristic admission that his division, which had once consisted of nine infantry battalions, had been ground down to only one fully combat capable battalion. In the Vietnamese spring of 1970 the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division—the "Screaming Eagles"—prepared for America's last offensive of the Vietnam War. While the dwindling number of the remaining American forces deployed in Vietnam withdrew from the battlefield and stood down awaiting formal movement orders to return to their home shores, the 101st Airborne Division made war plans to mount a major offensive in the enemy's bastion of strength, the infamous A Shau Valley and the rugged mountains of the Annamite Chain in Northern I Corps of Vietnam which formed the wedge between the countries of South Vietnam, Laos and North Vietnam. Only the US Army's 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) in Quang Tri and the 1st Infantry Division, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) stood with the 101st in this large, hotly contested battle area. Just within the past 12-months American forces in northern I Corps plummeted in numbers: two Marine Corps divisions, the 3rd Marine Division which had long held the bloody Demilitarized Zone on the 17th Parallel and the 1st vii Preface viii Marine Division in southern I Corps withdrew, leaving a vacuum of vast proportions. Simultaneously, as the American forces withdrew, the North Vietnamese reinforced their two crack infantry divisions and regional Communist\Viet Cong forces in this strategically critical area with two additional regular People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) divisions. Charged with destroying all enemy forces that sought to enter their sanctuaries of the Annamite Mountains and disrupt their build-up, the NVA were ready to fight anyone and pay any price in the lives of its soldiers in the fulfillment of this vital mission. General Creighton Abrams, Commander U.S. Military Assistance Command (COMUSMACV), charged the 101st Airborne Division with undertaking offensive operations in this hornet's nest of the enemy as a means to buy time to allow the military forces of South Vietnam to develop into more effective fighting units, as well as to shield the overall process of Vietnamization. Richard M. Nixon campaigning in 1968, and as President in 1969, promised to strengthen the South Vietnamese military and weaken the forces of North Vietnam. The 101st Airborne Division's mission called for the Screaming Eagles to enter NVA sanctuaries, conduct spoiling attacks, and to disrupt enemy lines of communication and supply. The 101st Airborne Division, already spread perilously thin by tripling the size of their Area of Operations (AO), made plans to send the Division's 3rd Brigade into the northern highlands. The 3rd Brigade planned to combat air assault into a series of locations, establish fire support bases, and seek out and destroy an enemy whose strength intelligence estimates at the time, had grossly underestimated. In sharp contrast to Korea, "The Forgotten War," the war in Vietnam seems destined never to be forgotten. Thousands of books have been written about the ten-year Vietnam War; actually, more books written than the number of major battles fought during the entire war. Only one book, Keith Nolan's superb RIPCORD Screaming Eagles Under Siege Vietnam, 1970, has been written about the last major battle fought by US ground forces in Vietnam; and it published thirty years after the battle. Until now, no English language book addressed North Vietnamese Army accounts of its last major battle with American ground forces. Drawn from books and documents published in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, in the Vietnamese language, and interviews conducted by the author with officers of the North Vietnamese Army/People's Army of Vietnam (NVA/PAVN), the "other side of the story" can now be included. Preface ix This is the story of the brave and courageous American infantrymen, airmen, and artillerymen who invaded the enemy's rear areas along the Ho Chi Minh Trail in March-July 1970 against a vastly larger, determined, dedicated and disciplined enemy force, engaged in some of the bloodiest combat of the entire war. The battle for Ripcord involved twenty-six different US Army units in either direct combat or supporting roles, but always the principal combatant unit remained the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry—the "Currahees." Currahee is a Cherokee Indian word for "Stand Alone." The 506th Infantry Currahees of World War II became well known in books and film as the "Band of Brothers." This story tells of the Vietnam generation Currahee Band of Brothers and the enemy opposing them during America's last major ground offensive of the Vietnam War. Northern Part of South Vietnam Including 3rd Brigade Area of Operations x Glossary Chinook nickname for the CH47 transport helicopter CO commanding officer Cobra nickname for the AH-1G helicopter gunship COSVN Central Office for South Vietnam for Communist operations in the RVN CP command post CS tear gas DEROS date eligible for return from overseas DISCOM Division Support Command div arty division artillery DMZ demilitarized zone DOW died of wounds EOD explosive ordnance disposal El pay grade for recruit private E2 pay grade for private E3 pay grade for private first class E4 pay grade for corporal or specialist fourth class E5 pay grade for sergeant or specialist fifth class E6 pay grade for staff sergeant or specialist sixth class E7 pay grade for sergeant first class AA antiaircraft fire ADC assistant division commander AlT advanced individual training AKA aka also known as AK-47 standard communist 7.62mm auto-matic rifle; a version with a folding metal stock was known as an AK-50 AO area of operations ARA aerial rocket artillery Arc Light bombing mission by B-52 Stratofortresses arty artillery ARVN Army of the Republic of Vietnam ASP ammunition supply point blivet rubberized bag used for transporting and storing fuel and water CA combat assault C&C command-and-control helicopter CAR15 shortened, all-metal version of the M16 5.56mm automatic rifle C4 plastic explosives CG commanding general Chalk designation by number of a lift helicopter in flight sequence xi Glossary E8 pay grade for first sergeant or master sergeant E9 pay grade for sergeant major or command sergeant major FA field artillery FAC forward air controller FDC fire direction center FO forward observer Front North Vietnamese name for area of military operations FSB fire-support base G1 personnel officer at division or higher level G2 intelligence officer at division or higher level G3 operations officer at division or higher level G4 logistics officer at division or higher level HE high explosive H&I harassing and interdicting artillery and mortar fires HHC Headquarters & Headquarters Company Huey nickname for the UH-1 helicopter Intruder nickname for the A6 allweather Navy/Marine fighterbomber JP4 aviation fuel KIA killed in action Kit Carson Scout former NVA or Viet Cong soldier who came to the ARVN side and worked with US forces kIick kilometer LAW light antitank weapon LNO liaison officer xii LOH light observation helicopter LP listening post LRRP long-range reconnaissance patrol LZ landing zone MA mechanical ambush MACV Military Assistance Command Vietnam Mic radio microphone MG machine gun MIA missing in action MR Military Region, usually one or more Provinces M16 standard U.S. 5.56mm automatic rifle M60 standard U.S. 7.62mm light machine gun M79 standard U.S. 40mm grenade launcher M203 M16 rifle modified with 40mm grenade launcher under barrel NCO noncommissioned officer (pay grades E4 to E9) NDP night defensive position NLF National Liberation Front NVA North Vietnamese Army OBE overtaken by events OCS Officer Candidate School OP observation post Op or ops operations OPCON Operational Control, usually a temporary tasking PAVN People's Army of Vietnam, same as NVA Phantom nickname for the F-4 jet fighter-bomber Pink Team one scout helicopter (from the white platoon) and one Glossary Cobra gunship (from the red platoon). POL petroleum-oil-lubricant PRC 25 standard infantry radio PSDF Province Security Defense Force PSP pierced steel planking R&R rest-and-recreation leave REMF rear-echelon motherfucker RF/PF Regional Force/Popular Force local forces of RVN RIF reconnaissance in force ROTC Reserve Officer Training Corps. RPG rocket-propelled grenade RPD standard communist 7.62mm machine gun RTO radiotelephone operator RVN Republic of Vietnam SAM Surface to air missile Shake and Bake nickname for graduates of the Noncommissioned Officer Candidate School S1 personnel officer at battalion or brigade level xiii S2 intelligence officer at battalion or brigade level S3 operations officer at battalion or brigade level S4 logistics officer at battalion or brigade level SITREP situation report Six the commander of the unit SOI signal operating instructions SSI special signal intercept SVN South Vietnam, same as RVN Tri-Thien-Hue Theater The PAVN designation for military operations in Quang Tri Province, Thua Thein Province and Hue City TOC tactical operations center USAF United States Air Force USARV United States Army Vietnam USMA United States Military Academy at West Point, New York VC Viet Cong WIA wounded in action WP white phosphorus X0 executive officer Glossary xiv Unit Map Symbols D Co, 2nd Bn, 501st Inf Enemy, in this instance, Peoples Army of Viet Nam (PAVN) are shown as double lines or broken lines. In color, enemy is red and friendly blue. 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry Regiment. US infantry bns had four rifle companies, each with a field strength of 90 to 120 men. Each bn had a 81mm mortar platoon with 6 tubes and a bn reconnaissance platoon of about 25 men. Location of the Command Posts of the 324B Division and 803rd Infantry Regiment, PAVN. Each of the three regts of the 324B had about 1800 men and a division total of about 7800. 6th Regional Force Regiment, originally Viet Cong, but after Tet 1968, mostly North Vietnamese Peoples Army regulars. The 6th Regt had three to eight infantry bns. B Co, 2nd Bn, 506th Inf Glossary 29th Inf Regt (minus), PAVN. For the Ripcord battle, the 29th had one bn operating a few kms east along the Bo River. The 7th Sapper Bn was a large, specially trained, strongly supported, PAVN Military District (Corps) force attached to the 324 Division for the Ripcord battle. xv Each PAVN bn had a machine gun co. Each co has six tubes of mortars equivalent to US 4.2 in mortars. Gen Doi said he had four companies of 120mm mortars at Ripcord. Each PAVN inf bn had a platoon of six 82mm mortars. 16th Anti-Aircraft Bn had three companies with .51 caliber anti-aircraft machine guns. 17th Engineer Co of the 324B Div. Prologue The primary sources for the North Vietnamese Army's story, the view from Hanoi, of Hell On A Hill Top consist of unit histories, books, official documents and interviews with officers of the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). The People's Army Publishing House and Institute of Military History printed most of the available books and documents. Both agencies operate under the Ministry of Defense in Hanoi, as government owned and controlled enterprises. The books and documents were normally printed in small numbers with limited distribution. The ability to identify what had been published and then to obtain copies proved both challenging and formidable, which developed into a frustrating two-year research effort. To more fully comprehend the strategy (national policy and military doctrine) and tactics (the method of employing forces in combat) of the People's Army of Vietnam, one must review, not only the history of the Vietnamese Communist Party (the La Dong Party), but also the cultural and military history of the Vietnamese people, as well as, the organization and command structure of the military forces of North Vietnam. How the PAVN developed their national strategy, or more accurately, how the Communist Party Politburo dictated that national strategy to the military commanders, how foreign countries influenced the development of that strategy, and how the strategy evolved over time, all must be appreciated to understand the execution of PAVN strategy and tactics on the battlefield. The 1970 battle for Fire Support Base Ripcord witnessed a dramatic shift in both PAVN strategy and tactics. Normally, PAVN forces avoided decisive engagement with US forces. Their strategy attempted to wear down the enemy over time, hit and withdraw, favoring the tactical shock and surprise of the ambush. However, the battle for Ripcord saw a significant shift in these timeworn tactics. Why did the PAVN choose to attack the 101st Airborne Division, the only remaining full strength US division in South Vietnam in 1970? Why did 1 Prologue 2 the PAVN risk costly defeat when it was obvious the US forces were in the process of withdrawing from the conflict? How much were they willing to risk in terms of both men and material resources? More critically, how do we find the answers to these questions? Requests for Information from the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington— Having read the splendid book, We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, by Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore, Retired, and Joseph L. Galloway (later made into a hit movie), I recalled that the authors sought the views of the North Vietnamese Army commanders who fought against them. They achieved this during two trips made to Vietnam. When I got the great news that Keith Nolan would be writing of the story of the battle for Fire Support Base Ripcord, I immediately thought of Moore and Galloway who included the enemy side of their battle. Early in my discussions with Keith Nolan, I suggested that the North Vietnamese side of the battle for Ripcord should be included in his upcoming book. Keith informed me that his publisher would not finance the research and that he simply could not do it. Chuck Hawkins, a Ripcord Association stalwart, lived in the Washington, DC area, so I asked him if he could help Nolan find the enemy story of Ripcord. Chuck had already discussed this issue with Keith Nolan. In May 1998, Chuck wrote the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington requesting information related to the Ripcord battle. The Embassy promptly replied that they had forwarded his request to the Veterans Association of Vietnam (VAV) for help. Chuck never heard from the VAV. In February 1999, I wrote Vietnamese Ambassador Le Van Bang in Washington with specific requests to which I received no response at all. I asked a senior officer living in the Washington, DC area for help. He responded that he would be happy to help, but he did not want to go to the Vietnamese Embassy. Next, I went to a Ripcord veteran serving on the staff of an important United States Senator who said that his current position made asking the Vietnamese Embassy for help was both sensitive and unattractive. Strike-three on the home field of Washington. A newsletter produced by the Texas Tech University Vietnam Center contained an article which noted that Senior Colonel Vo Dinh Quang, Defense Attaché, Embassy of Vietnam visited the Texas Tech University Vietnam Center in June 1999. I wrote in August 1999 to the Defense Attaché requesting help in conducting research for Nolan's book, which failed to illicit a Prologue 3 response from Senior Colonel Quang. With great reluctance, I concluded that maybe that hill is just too steep to climb and maybe Nolan doesn't really need the enemy side of Ripcord for his book. Besides, the book was due to be published in less than a year. The Great Ripcord Association Reunion in October 2000— Enthusiasm for the Ripcord Association reunion, scheduled for Shreveport, Louisiana in October 2000, greatly surged with the July 2000 publication of RIPCORD Screaming Eagles Under Siege Vietnam 1970. Over twice the number of regular attendees registered for this celebration. Coordinated locally by Jim Campbell and his wife Mary, and with the assistance of many members and friends of the Association, the reunion was a spectacular success. Jim was a platoon leader in C Co, 2/506th during the Ripcord battle. Now a successful practicing attorney in Shreveport, he started in the fall of 1999 to make the 30-year anniversary reunion of the Ripcord battle a celebration of all American veterans who have served their country. Jim especially wanted to have a proper welcome home for the Vietnam veterans; something that most of them had never experienced. With the help and sometimes guidance of Fred Spaulding, who had planned, coordinated, and managed the previous four reunions, Jim marched out with full speed and purpose. Early on he involved the civic leaders of Shreveport and Bossier City. Jim gained financial backing from friends and several civic organizations. Many members of Jim's law firm along with their families and friends eagerly helped him. The print and local television news media provided excellent coverage prior to and each day of the reunion. Jim Campbell was a friend and admirer of First Lieutenant J. Robert Kalsu who was killed in action during the Ripcord battle. Bob was the only NFL player killed in Vietnam. (Bob was actually the only professional athlete to give his life for his country in Vietnam.) As the Buffalo Bills' Rookie of the Year in 1969, Kalsu knew he could have avoided Vietnam, but he chose to honor his commissioning oath and serve his country. Campbell knew that National Football League great Rocky Bleier who played for the Pittsburg Steelers organization, was also a wounded Vietnam veteran and holder of four Super Bowl champion rings. At Jim's invitation, Rocky changed his travel schedule and spoke in moving tribute to First Lieutenant J. Robert Kalsu. Bob had been on Ripcord for several weeks and took command of A Battery, 2nd Prologue 4 Battalion, 11th Field Artillery on 21 July, just two days prior to his death and four days before the birth of his only son. Even after thirty years, Bob's widow, Jan, still shied away from the public eye and did not attend the reunion, but Bob's son and daughter attended with appropriate honors. Mrs. Wilma Knight provided another moving highlight during the reunion when, on behalf of all Gold Star Mothers, she placed a wreath at the memorial plaque to honor her son, Private First Class Wieland Norris. Norris was killed in the Ripcord fight right after he volunteered to walk point for an A Co, 2/ 506th patrol. Wieland's brother, the famous Chuck Norris, also attended and became quite emotional after briefly talking with the media. For many, this reunion both inspired us and evoked many emotions. The questions and concerns of our soldiers who fought the Ripcord battle about what really happened on the enemy side of the fight, multiplied by Nolan's book, strongly reinforced the need for the view from Hanoi. We fought for a just and honorable cause and we wanted to know more. Vietnam veteran Ken Mullholland wrote in the Wall Street Journal May 23, 1997, that the thousands of Americans who died in the 40 years of the Cold War did not die in vain. He said, "Our involvement in places like Korea and Vietnam should be recorded as the most honorable and unselfish sacrifice any great power has undertaken." Mullholland believed that our willingness to fight convinced the Soviets that a move to seize Central Europe would have been met with resolve by Americans. He said, "Those who died in the named and unnamed battles of the Cold War, made the supreme sacrifice for a cause every bit as just as the ones fought for at Valley Forge, Gettysburg and Omaha Beach." (Appendix A) A New Ray of Hope for Getting the North Vietnamese Side of the Battle— A chance meeting in April 2000 in Fort Worth at the annual national convention of the Army Aviation Association of America with Lieutenant General Teddy Allen, Retired, brought a sparkling new ray of hope for our quest for the North Vietnamese view. Teddy said he was doing business in Vietnam and had been there several times. I told him of our research predicament and he said he would try and help. Two weeks later I received an email from Major General Greg Gile, Retired, an associate of Teddy Allen's currently working in Vietnam. Greg advised that Colonel Nguyen Ba Van, Retired, and living in Cu Chi fought in Prologue 5 the Ripcord area in 1970 as a soldier in the North Vietnamese Army and is now working with General Allen's company in Vietnam and is eager to try and help with my research. Gen Gile stated for Colonel Van to approach the Vietnamese government, he needs a letter from me requesting Colonel Van do the following: 1. Obtain permission from the Ministry of Defense to open the files and documents of the battles in and around Doc Mieu and US Fire Support Base Ripcord from March 1970 through December 1970. 2. Collect all information and details reasonably available on the battles to include maps, documents, strategies and battle results. 3. Find and identify participants during the requested period and set up meetings and interviews with former commanders and participants to obtain a clear and accurate description of how the battle was fought and the results. 4. Support a visit to the site by Keith Nolan and or myself should that be deemed appropriate. This was indeed good news. Even better, General Allen returned from Vietnam saying he had met with Col Van who told him that there was a lot of information about Ripcord at the War Information Center in Quang Tri. Van could escort me to Quang Tri and then he would arrange a meeting in Hanoi with Senior General Van Tien Dung who was in command of all North Vietnamese forces in the Ripcord battle and who, later, succeeded Senior General Vo Nguyen Giap as commander of all the North Vietnamese Army. It sounded too good to be true—and it was. Col Van advised through Teddy's interpreter, Nguyen Ba Bang, that assistance would not be forthcoming from the Ministry of Defense unless the US Ambassador requested it from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I made the appropriate request to the American Embassy in Hanoi. General Allen checked with the American Embassy in Hanoi and they had not received my 15 September 2000 letter. Teddy faxed a copy to the Embassy. He also stated that he was planning to return to Vietnam on 1 December 2000 and invited me to join him. General Allen wisely cautioned, "I don't think you can accomplish all you want to do, with just one trip." He told Col Van that I would pay his expenses—Van did not expect any pay from Prologue 6 me. (General Allen had learned from his interpreter that Col Van had already accumulated expenses of $700. I gave a check to Teddy and he had it delivered to Van. While interviewing Van on 4 June 2001, I verified that all his expenses had been fully reimbursed by the $700, which made him very happy.) With these fresh and encouraging contacts, now seemed to be a most propitious time to try and make the trip while Teddy and his interpreter would be available to help me. I told Teddy that I would meet him in Ho Chi Minh City on 1 December 2000. This meant leaving Texas on 29 November 2000. Teddy made hotel and transportation arrangements for my arrival into Ho Chi Minh City at 9:20 pm on 1 December 2000. Additionally, I sent another letter by fax and air mail to Ambassador Douglas B. (Pete) Peterson on 19 November 2000 once again asking for his endorsement of my visit and to request assistance from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. About this time, at the behest of my friend Lieutenant General John H. Cushman, Retired, I was contacted by Courtney Frobenius. Courtney had worked for Jack as an advisor in Vietnam's IV Corps area. He had also commanded a rifle platoon and company on an earlier tour in the 9th Infantry Division. Courtney lived in Vietnam three years, 1995–1998. He is semi-fluent in the language and is a highly respected expert on Vietnam, the people, culture, government, and military. Leaving in ten days for a Communist country half way around the world presented me with a challenge. Thanks to the Vietnamese Embassy web site and FedEx, I obtained a visa for my 29 November 2000 departure. As our car arrived at the curb at the Killeen Airport on 29 November 2000, my wife, Carolyn, had a transient ischemic attack (TIA). A horrible shock and scare for us both. I later learned that the minor stroke was over prior to her arrival at the Scott and White Hospital Emergency Room. The CT Scan showed no apparent damage. Doctors considered this a fortunate warning sign and prescribed a blood thinner in hope of preventing a stroke in the future. After some adjustment to her medications, she fully recovered and continues to do quite well. A happy ending, but nonetheless a painful blow to both of us. Unfortunately, my call to General Allen in Ho Chi Minh City did not get to him in his hotel until about the time my transportation arrived at the Ton Son Nhut Airport. I rescheduled my Vietnam visit for March 2001, or so I thought. Prologue 7 Rescheduling of the Visit— On 5 December I received the following email from US Ambassador to Vietnam Peterson: I hope we have not let your request slip through the cracks. Upon your initial request, I asked my staff to work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to facilitate your trip. As far as I know we have had no word from them. My Military Attaché is out of pocket at the moment so I can't give you a good update. I'll check with the Ministry again myself to see if they have any response for us. It may be OBE for you now as I see you are to be in HCMC on or about the 30th of November. I regret we have not followed up with this closely. Let me know if everything is alright or if we need to pursue this further. I responded to Ambassador Peterson: Thank you for your interest, vital support and personal follow-up. No, my request did not drop through the cracks. Your staff has been right on top of it and very helpful. Ms Lavay Miller advised me that you had asked Deputy Chief of Mission, Dennis G. Harter, to personally pass my letters sent to you on to Ambassador Bang in Hanoi. She also advised that Ambassador Bang said he'd talk with Nugyen Manh Hung of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Americas Department. I responded to Ambassador Peterson by email, explaining Carolyn's TIA and my rescheduling for March 2001. Rescheduling of the Visit Number Two— Now that I knew the name and position of the Vietnamese official who might help us, I thought it appropriate to try and make direct contact. I sent a detailed letter and an autographed copy of Keith Nolan's RIPCORD, Screaming Eagles Under Siege Vietnam 1970 to Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, Director, Americas Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Happily, I received a letter from Director Hung dated 18 January 2001 that acknowledged receipt of the book and welcomed my visit. Unhappily, he suggested that I reschedule the visit for the latter part of April and contact Mr. Luong Thanh Nghi, Deputy Director, Vietnam Foreign Press Center, for assistance. I called Mr. Luong Thanh Nghi by telephone on 5 February 2001. Following this introductory conversation, I faxed Nghi a proposed detailed itinerary using their dates of 15–25 April 2001. (Appendix B) Encouraged by Col Van's earlier proposal that interviews and discussions could be arranged with Prologue 8 Senior General Van Tien Dung and his division, regimental and battalion commanders, I sent a list of 23 questions dealing with the battle for Ripcord. These questions were translated into Vietnamese by General Allen's interpreter and provided to Col Van. The questions were never answered. On 23 February, Tran Le Tien of the Foreign Press Center, Ministry of Foreign Affairs sent an email saying that my 5 February letter and proposed itinerary had been received and that he, Tien, would be "the instrument of Mr. Luong Thanh Nghi" and "We are starting to coordinate with other sides for the visit." Rescheduling of the Visit For the Third Time— I thought the trip was finally set for 15 April until 28 March, two weeks before departure. On that date, Tien informed me by email, that the dates they had suggested were no longer acceptable. Tien said: "Your message has arrived and unfortunately I would like to inform that the timing of your trip from 15-to-25 April seems to be inconvenient for us as you know we all will be getting stuck with some other big events from mid April till early of May. So please plan your visit a little bit later." Tien did not mention it, but I learned later that the National Party Congress coincided with the dates of my scheduled visit. A third visa request to the Vietnamese Embassy in Washington proposed a 1–10 June 2001 visit. Very fortunately for me, this timing allowed Lieutenant Colonel Fred Spaulding, Retired, to accompany me. Fred was the 3rd Brigade S-3 Air as a captain in 1970. An experienced combat soldier and officer, Fred had been a sergeant first class in the Rangers prior to attending Officer Candidate School at Fort Benning. He was on his third tour in Vietnam and had commanded five infantry rifle companies before joining the 3rd Brigade staff at Camp Evans. He spent a great deal of time in the brigade scout helicopters flying in the Ripcord area. Fred knew the AO and he knew the brigade. A key officer to the Brigade, Fred proved critical in the planning and execution of the evacuation of FSB Ripcord on 23 July 1970—a talented professional and very courageous soldier. Mr. Tien informed me by email that Senior General Tien Van Dung probably would not have time for me and that they were having difficulty locating commanders who had fought in the battle for Ripcord. I again suggested that they get in touch with Col Nguyen Ba Van. I also noted the fact that the People's Army of Vietnam was well known for its accurate record keeping and the Prologue 9 participants of the Ripcord battle should be relatively easy to identify. Also, at this time, I again appealed to Mr. Nguyen Manh Hung, Director, Americas Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, for help, stating that the time for my rescheduled visit was fast approaching. Mr. Luong Thanh Nghi responded that they had located Major General Chu Phuong Doi, former commander of the 324B Division, living in Cao Bang several hundred miles north of Hanoi near the border with China. Nghi said that was about a ten-hour automobile drive from Hanoi. I responded that I would pay General Doi's expenses and a consulting fee if he would meet me in Hanoi. Nghi said that Doi was 80 years old and did not want to travel. As no airline serviced Cao Bang and considering that a road trip would take at least two days of our limited time to visit General Doi not knowing if it would be at all productive in any event, we abandoned that lead. Frustrations Continue— By now serious doubts crossed my mind about whether or not the effort and expense of a trip back to Vietnam was really worth it. On 29 May from out of the electronic blue came an email from John Lally, St. Paul, Minnesota, that brought me back to focus on the purpose of my quest. Lally's email follows: I just came across the Currahees website after three decades of being out of contact with old comrades from my 1970 tour of duty. I was delighted to find your e-mail address listed, because I've been waiting 30 years to apologize to you. You won't remember the incident, but I certainly do. In 1970–71, I was a buck sergeant squad leader in Alpha, 1/506th, a former college history teacher sorely out of place and very resentful that my education was going to waste. You were, I believe, fairly new as commander of 3rd Brigade and flew your Huey out to hump the boonies with our platoon. When our company commander, Captain Bauer, sent me out from our night defensive position to fetch you, I made the decision that our journey back from the LZ would test your commitment to the men in the field. I directed my point man to take us through the toughest part of the jungle back to the NDP [night defensive position], and he certainly did. That night and the next day, you showed us what real leadership was by how you behaved and the things you taught us. When my squad escorted you back to the LZ for pickup, you again impressed me with your intelligence and humanity. We sat on the LZ for 30 minutes or so and talked education, politics and many other topics. Sergeant and Colonel…man to man. I felt ashamed for having made the journey so difficult, but didn't have the nerve to apologize then. Prologue 10 Our paths crossed again a few months later at Camp Evans. I'd been hurt during an air assault and was just getting out of the hospital and walking back to the company area, dressed in my still-muddy fatigues, no helmet, boots un-bloused because of my bandages. A Military Police second lieutenant—the only one I saw in RVN with a gold metal bar [insignia of a second lieutenant]—stopped me to chew me out for being so grubby. As I stood at attention in the hot sun waiting to tell him why I was in that condition, you came along, called me by name after so much time, and inquired about my health. After a brief conversation, you sent me on my way and, according to friends who were nearby, helped the lieutenant understand the responsibilities of being a leader. Of course, this only made me feel worse about my indiscretion earlier. I know you won't remember these incidents, but both are among my most vivid memories of Vietnam. I'm happy to hear you earned your stars, because you demonstrated for me dimensions of leadership I'd never seen demonstrated, and which I've tried to emulate in my management roles since then. Sir, I hope you are well and enjoying a well-deserved retirement. It was an honor to serve under you. In a follow-on email, John Lally said: Thanks for asking about what's happened since 1970. My career goals changed after Vietnam. I returned to school to work on a PhD and taught college for three years, but found the classroom—and frankly, academic attitudes towards Vietnam vets—very confining. For the last 20 years or so I've been an executive in state government, currently as Chief Information Officer (computer geek!) for the Minnesota Department of Human Services and formerly as Deputy Commissioner for the Department of Revenue—cultures as dissimilar as the Army and higher education! I live in a suburb of St. Paul, have been married to a teacher for nearly 28 years, and will have two kids in college next year. About your trip: I've read some of Nolan's writings, and applaud your attempts to get a 360-degree perspective on the war—I used to teach the British viewpoint on the American Revolution, which was eye-opening to some students who grew up on the cherry tree and Boston Tea Party diet of patriotic conventions. Back On Target— By chance, another bit of encouraging news came from the US Army Command and General Staff College's January/February 2001 Military Review. It contained an article by Merle L. Pribbenow, a former CIA officer who had been stationed in Saigon. The article, "The Fog of War: The Vietnamese View of the Ia Drang Battle," included several references to the People's Army Prologue 11 Publishing House in Hanoi which provided welcome hope that some published North Vietnamese account of the battle for Ripcord might exist. Courtney Frobenius, who sensed my growing frustration, suggested another possible approach. While living in Vietnam, Courtney became acquainted with Colonel Pham Van Dinh. Dinh, as a Lieutenant Colonel in the South Vietnamese Army, commanded the 56th Infantry Regiment and Camp Carroll in 1972, keys to defense against an enemy attack across the northern border, the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The North Vietnamese attacked in what became known as the Easter Offensive of 1972. Supported by tanks and self-propelled artillery, the NVA attack focused on Camp Carroll. After fighting off several enemy assaults and receiving massive incoming fire, Lieutenant Colonel Dinh and his officers chose to surrender the 56th Regiment and Camp Carroll with its 21 artillery pieces. His soldiers were taken prisoner and the North Vietnamese flew Dinh to Hanoi. The North Vietnamese, recognizing the political impact of Lt Col Dinh's surrender, made him a colonel in the People's Army of Vietnam and proclaimed him a national hero of North Vietnam. Following his surrender, Colonel Dinh encouraged other South Vietnamese officers "to get in touch with the NLF forces and return to the people," Courtney suggested that Dinh might be of significant help to me on my visit. Dinh, currently residing in Hue, enjoyed a unique position with the current communist government and he was now living in Hue. Colonel Dinh spoke English and proved thoroughly familiar with military terms and the conduct of the war. Now, counting heavily on finding pertinent documents at the People's Army Publishing House and the War Information Center in Quang Tri just north of Hue, I immediately agreed to hire Dinh. The fact that I had known Dinh in 1971 when I was the Senior Advisor to the 1st Infantry Division, ARVN, during Operation Lam Son 719 and Dinh was the executive officer of the 54th Infantry Regiment also helped. At the time, Trang Frobenius, Courtney's wife, was in Hanoi escorting a group of students from the University of Southern Mississippi. Courtney contacted her and asked her to make arrangements with Colonel Dinh when she visited Hue. Mrs. Frobenius gave advanced pay and travel money to Colonel Dinh on my behalf. Dinh met Fred and myself at the airport in Ho Chi Minh City on 3 June 2001 and traveled with us to Hanoi and back to Hue. Still trying to work the system, the American Ambassador personally endorsed my trip and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs officially sanctioned me as a welcome visitor. In April, I again suggested to Mr. Luong Thanh Nghi Prologue 12 that he contact Col Nguyen Ba Van as Van had already been working on my visit. To my surprise, Nghi said, "We already talked with Colonel Nguyen Ba Van, but he could not give any feasible information for the search." Unhappily disturbed by this, I asked Courtney if he could use the telephone numbers supplied by General Allen to try and get in touch with Col Van. Courtney's wife, Trang, called and spoke with Van. She sent me the following email: "1. Col Van sent you a letter via surface mail 1/2 month ago to advise you of the general status of the trip. [I never received the letter.] "2. Col Van has already visited Quang Tri for sightseeing and research. "3. Col Van went to Hanoi 2-times. "4. Col Van has called Mr. Nghi but was informed that Mr. Nghi has already moved. (This made no sense as I was still in touch with Nghi.) Col Van concluded saying, "Truthfully, the request from Mr. Harrison too big and too difficult to be done because some of the things relate to national secrets.'' Apparently the Ministry of Foreign Affairs told Col Van to butt out! More bad news. On 31 May, the day before our departure, Nghi emailed me that Senior General Dung's recent hospitalization precluded my visiting him. Nghi also said they had not been able locate anyone for me to interview other than Col Van in Cu Chi. Of course, General Teddy Allen's business contact in Vietnam and not the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had been the one who located and put me in contact with Col Van. Discouraged, but not yet defeated, we pressed on for our visit to Vietnam in June 2001 in search of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) or People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) side of the battle for Ripcord. Telling the Whole Story— Our trip to Vietnam turned out quite productive to our pleasant surprise. Since the trip, a significant number of PAVN and other North Vietnamese documents have been gathered and translated. As revealing as the documents are, serious inconsistencies with the dates and sequence of events in the battle for Ripcord remain when compared with US documents and my personal experiences during the battle. And there are certain significant differences that exist in the reports of battle outcomes with respect to losses in men and materiel. Commenting on his reporting of the battle for Ripcord, Keith Nolan said, Prologue 13 "I have never encountered a Vietnam battle as dramatic, tragic, convoluted and bewildering as Ripcord."1 To facilitate the readers chronologically understanding the Ripcord battle from both sides, the author cites translated official North Vietnamese documents and interview interpretations and provides parenthetical comments. In addition to Hanoi's view, the author includes US reports of actions, personal observations made both during and after the battle, and add some aviation after-action reports, which were not available to Keith Nolan in the writing of his book. After preparing the manuscript and readying it for publication, a pressstopping opportunity presented itself. Another Chance to Interview Major General Chu Phuong Doi— In November 2003, Professors Andrew Wiest and Brian O'Neil asked me to accompany their University of Southern Mississippi Vietnam War Studies Program as a war veteran-guest lecturer for three weeks in the late spring of 2004. Flattered, but still having fresh memories of a grueling eleven-day visit to Vietnam in 2001, I agreed with the caveat that General Doi is still alive and that there is a fair chance that I can interview him. This launched a search by Courtney Frobenius's Vietnam-IndoChina Tours Company. Fortuitously, Bui Cao Son (Sonny) of the HaiVan Travel Company of Hanoi sought a business relationship with Courtney and eagerly to accepted the challenge. Sonny established that Doi, alive at age 83 resided in his home in a very remote area ten kilometers west of Cao Bang, three hundred kilometers north of Hanoi near the border with China. Doi is a retired brigadier general in the People's Army of Vietnam. His rank is equivalent to major general in the US Army. Respectfully, I have chosen to call him major general. I provided Sonny with an introductory letter and a set of questions to be translated but not to be given to Gen Doi until I could present them. Sonny responded that going to A35 (their secret police contact) of the Ministry of the Interior, as they normally did, did not work in this case. Gen Doi told Sonny that he required permission from the Ministry of Defense for the interview with me. Sonny then advised me that he could not accompany me, but would provide Vu Binh Hau as my guide/interpreter. Courtney Frobenius cautioned me that "Binh is police or a puppet for them." Prologue 14 On 9 May, Sonny sent the following email (verbatim as he sent it): Dear Sir, After going around, we came back to our normal way: directly contact related offices and get their permission (we had a Ministry of Defense official to let Gen Doi know that it's no need for him requiring MoD's permission since he's retired now). We have permission for you to Cao Bang now after sending official dispatch to: 1. Tourism and Commerce Department of Cao Bang: Dispatch No: 21/ TMHV and got agreement by Dispatch No 188/TMDL (Mr. Do Trong Banh—Vice Director) 2. Immigration Department of Cao Bang: Dispatch No: 20/TMHV 3. Veteran Association of Cao Bang. Dispatch No: 22/TMHV. I have talked to Gen Doi and following is his ideas: If you arrive early evening of 25th May (between 7.00 PM—7.30 PM), you could go directly to Gen Doi's home (6 miles away from hotel) for short meeting (Gen Doi politely refused dinner invitation on 25th May). And next morning he (not with family or friend) could meet in Bang Giang hotel and may have lunch with you if the talk lasts to lunchtime. If you arrive late, then the meeting should be arrange next morning. (I will contact Gen Doi and our guide to see if they can arrive in town in time early enough for the meeting). Gen Doi also reminded us to bring our own water bottles for self use at his home. After Sonny's message, Courtney observed 13 May: Everyone is in the loop now. The Ministry of the Interior (MI) chief-eye has a meeting today with the University of Southern Mississippi tour operator about this "Mr. Harrison" and what he is doing by going to Cao Bang to meet General Doi. We are advised that this will insure that USM will be put on the watch list with them keeping a good eyeball on you. At last ready to join the USM study program we departed the States on schedule, 17 May. Notwithstanding my eagerness to get on up to Hanoi and Cao Bang, we had a most interesting and productive visit to the Ho Chi Minh City and Mekong Delta areas. Appendix D contains the names of the participants and a brief report of the university study group trip. On Tuesday, 25 May, I had a 4 AM get-up for a 6:20 flight for Hanoi, while the students left on a 10:30 flight. I arrived in Hanoi at 8:30, and was met by Vu Binh Hau, translator/guide and driver, Teo, in a stick shift Toyota. Prologue 15 We left from the airport on the north side of Hanoi for Cao Bang—one of the most remote provinces in VN. No airport, only a 300 kilometer, frequently washed out, very narrow rough road through beautiful mountains with narrow valleys filled with lush crops of rice, corn and sugar cane. Our party arrived at Cao Bang at 5 PM, having made good time, or so they said. Hau called Gen Doi and he invited us to his home, located ten kilometers west of Cao Bang near the Bang River. I remained apprehensive since he turned down my invitation to host his family for dinner in Cao Bang. I was certain that he was going to check me out and then decide if he would meet with me Wed morning. To my most pleasant surprise, our critical meeting proved quite warm and cordial from the very start. His wife, 77, and brother, 75, daughter and granddaughter all gathered there. It is customary in Vietnam to ask one's age when first introduced. Mrs. Doi, Guide Vu Binh Hau, Major General Chu Phuong Doi, Author Prologue 16 Following a customary sharing of tea, I presented him with Hennessey Cognac, Johnny Walker Black Label Scotch, Nolan's book, RIPCORD, my Ripcord coin, my picture autographed to him, a nicely wrapped gift for his wife and one for his daughter. After drinking the customary tea, he said he could no longer drink Cognac and offered beer instead. (He might just sell that bottle of Cognac—$60 in the duty-free store.) He said he was most appreciative of my coming to Cao Bang. A very, very modest home, it was and is, the home of his family. His son, still in the People's Army, has a nicer, newer house next door. For some time, we generally discussed both the French War and the American War. I gave him a translation of my questions and the two maps Courtney had prepared for me relative to the French War in his area in 1950 and '52. He put on different glasses stating he had lost the sight in his left eye and that he had gone to Moscow for surgery on his right eye. He smiled saying it was a very nice gift from the Russians. (This is the only time I have ever heard any Vietnamese give credit to the Russians for anything. Notwithstanding the 55,000 Soviets actually in North Vietnam facilitating the war, and billons of dollars provided in supplies and equipment, no papers or books published in the Socialist Republic of Vietnam have ever given any credit to the Russians for their absolutely vital support.) Doi's wife was smiling and happy to join in the conversation. Several times Gen Doi told me how pleased he was to have me come visit him in his home. He emphasized this with a story of an American veterans group that a few years ago, wanted him to come to Hanoi for talks. He said with a bit of arrogance, "I told them if they wanted to talk to me, they must come to Cao Bang!" I told him that it was I who made that request in 2001. He sat back and smiled broadly and proclaiming he was most happy that I had come to his home this time. He announced he would come to my hotel in the morning. I asked what time and he requested the driver to come at 6 AM. We left in good cheer. After freshening up at the hotel, Hau, Teo, and I walked around town to find a place for Internet connections, but could not locate one. We had an okay dinner and then went to bed early. The Bang Giang Hotel, considered as the best in town, had air-conditioned rooms only after you closed the windows and turned on the air. However, the lobby and dining areas lacked air-conditioning. I noted several mosquitoes in my room, but did not elect to deploy the mosquito net stored in a cabinet over the head of the bed. The best hotel in town did not take credit cards, did not convert dollars to Dong (Vietnamese Prologue 17 currency), or take payment in dollars. Fortunately, the HaiVan travel company paid for all room charges on my behalf. Waking up early presented no problem as my second-story room overlooked the street market right under my window where vendors sold live ducks and geese beginning at about 5 AM. Gen Doi promptly arrived at the hotel at 7 AM and immediately announced he could work for only two hours. He enthusiastically talked about his joining Ho Chi Minh 19 Dec 1946 at the age of 24. Ho Chi Minh had returned to Vietnam in 1940 and lived in the Pac Bo caves near Cao Bang. By the time of the battle of Dong Khe, led personally by Ho Chi Minh, Doi rose to the rank of battalion commander in the Viet Minh. (In all of our discussions, Gen Doi always referred to his army as the Viet Minh, not PAVN or People's Army. He was, and is, hard core, dedicated to the Viet Minh purpose of freeing his country from foreign powers. (The Viet Minh owed its birth and growth to support given Ho Chi Minh by the Chinese Communist Party.) Gen Doi provided details of the very significant defeat of LePaige in 1950. Doi was next a battalion commander with the Pathet Lao between 1952 and 1954. He said that Ho Chi Minh personally placed him in command of the 209th Regiment at the battle of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. He presented me with a picture made of himself in uniform at the just observed 50th Anniversary of their great victory of Dien Bien Phu. (The cropped picture is on the back of the dust cover.) Doi remained in the Dien Bien Phu area as a regimental commander until given command of the 324B Division in 1965. He said his mission in 1967 and 1968 was to draw the American Marines into battle along Route 9, in the highlands, to relieve the pressure on the Viet Cong forces operating in the highly populated coastal areas. This Hanoi directed strategy evolved into the famous hill fights of 1967 and eventually into the prolonged siege of Khe Sanh in 1968. He then went on to my questions that he had studied the night before. He cleared up some of the confusion of the official PAVN history of the 324B Division. When I asked a question about what the 1992 published history book said in obvious error, he would reply, "I was not there when they wrote this." I will provide Gen Doi's recollections as the battle for Ripcord unfolds. I The Vietnam War in 1970 US Army and Marine ground forces accelerate withdrawal from the battlefield as Hanoi pushes major People's Army reinforcements into South Vietnam. 1 Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord The overarching strategy for US forces in the Vietnam War in 1970 was "Vietnamization" of the war. This meant turning over the war to the South Vietnamese government and its military forces. For this strategy to succeed, the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) had to become stronger and the US forces could best buy time for this strategy by weakening the North Vietnamese forces. US forces could do this by restricting the flow of men and materials from North Vietnam into South Vietnam, destroying enemy base areas and defeating North Vietnamese forces on the field of battle. US and ARVN forces struck a long overdue blow across the border into North Vietnamese base areas in Cambodia on 29 April 1970. American public outrage and Congressional pressure caused President Richard M. Nixon to shut down the operation and order the withdrawal of US forces from Cambodia by 30 June 1970. Concurrently, the Nixon administration accelerated the withdrawal schedule of US forces from Vietnam. Nonetheless, the imperative for US forces to help the Republic of Vietnam in Vietnamization did not change. The only offensive campaign for all of Vietnam planned by the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (USMACV) for the summer of 1970 called for the 101st Airborne Division with the support of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 1st Infantry Division, to conduct operations in the A Shau Valley, the North Vietnamese "warehouse area" and against the branches of the Ho Chi Minh Trail coming into South Vietnam in both Quang Tri and Thua Thien Provinces. 19 Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 20 Available intelligence about North Vietnamese forces in this area lacked sufficient detail. With the Paris Peace Talks under way for a year, the North Vietnamese sought to strengthen their negotiating position by "liberating" more areas in South Vietnam. Their strategy would not include withdrawal or slackening of operations. An integral part of the US plan required allied forces operating in the mountains northeast of the A Shau Valley to locate and destroy the logistic facilities and interdict lines of communication of the 803d and 29th NVA Regiments. Fire Support Base Ripcord scheduled to be re-opened in March 1970, became the key forward operational base in the division's summer offensive plan. Mutually supporting firebases were to be opened at Bradley, Airborne, and Kathryn to support operations in the enemy's rear service areas. Neither Bradley, a mountaintop southwest of Ripcord, very near the A Shau Valley, nor Airborne, well to the south of Ripcord, were opened. Kathryn, although opened, remained too far to the rear to support operations in or around Ripcord. So much for the grand plan. The Division Commander, noting the enemy's fierce resistance to the opening of Ripcord, simply did not want to pick any more fights by reopening more fire support bases near the A Shau with a Division whose assets were already too thinly spread out. Major General John M. Wright, the Commanding General of the 101st Airborne Division, ordered the 3rd Brigade to initiate the USMACV offensive named TEXAS STAR, on 1 April 1970 in coordination with the 1st Infantry Division, ARVN. Reconnaissance and patrol action began in early March. To the eyes of the American commanders, the tactical AO defined the first line of defense between the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) base areas spreading across the Laotian border into Vietnam and the famous Ho Chi Minh Trail through northwest South Vietnam and just across the border into Laos. (None of the old fire support bases west and north of Carroll, Barnett, O'Reilly, Gladiator, Ripcord and Rakkasan were occupied in 1970.) The Government of the Republic of Vietnam (RVN) controlled areas along the thin ribbon of coastal littoral lying astride Highway 1 along the South China Sea. The Brigade's mission was to engage the enemy and destroy his offensive capabilities against the ARVN controlled populated areas. To the troopers in the boonies, the AO looked thick, hot, steaming in the day, cold and wet at night, triple canopy, insect filled jungle with an occasional view of back-breaking hills to climb in wet boots with a 70 to 80 pound ruck- Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 21 sack on their back, grenades and ammo magazines on their chest and a rifle welded to their hand. To the grunt on the ground the land mass appeared as a vast and barely permeable array of single, double and triple canopy jungle interlaced with sheer mountains and steep basaltic cliffs. To those fortunate enough to view it from a helicopter, the AO looked like a lush green carpet of jungle vegetation, broken only by the occasional cleared hilltop of currently occupied or more likely, abandoned fire support bases, and pockmarked by giant holes created by bombs dropped from Goliath B-52's in the course of the war over a span of years. On the western horizon, stood the picturesque but imposing set of high ridgelines outlining the A Shau Valley. The surreal beauty of the green mountains fades as the grunt all too quickly recalls how brief his helicopter ride will be. Over flying the AO as the brigade commander, the beauty of the passing countryside only briefly held my attention as I considered the awesome brigade mission as part of the division's Operation TEXAS STAR. The mission "to counter the threat presented by the enemy's eastward thrust out of the A Shau Valley and toward the populated lowlands" required troops on the ground to follow up on intelligence leads and deny the enemy free reign in this rugged and remote area where he sought to create and re-supply forward base facilities. To order young soldiers into this coliseum of death, where they would meet young soldiers of our enemy, each seeking to kill the other, weighed heavily as an awesome burden of command. Because of the withdrawal of both US Marine Divisions and the redeployment of the 1st Cavalry Division out of the northern provinces of South Vietnam, the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division in 1970 had a very large piece of the Vietnam War. The math is easy. Where once three US divisions were fully engaged, now there is one division, and more enemy. The 3rd Brigade's Area of Operations (AO) spanned from the former US Marine combat bases at Khe Sanh and Fire Support Base (FSB) Shepard, both facing north towards the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) at the 17th parallel in the far northwest corner of South Vietnam in Quang Tri Province. The AO extended in a southerly direction past FSB Barnett and FSB O'Reilly where American troops were stationed in supporting roles to the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) 1st Infantry Division, past FSB Gladiator, down to FSB Ripcord in Thua Thien Province at the northeastern mouth of the A Shau Valley. From here, the AO went east to FSB Rakkasan and Camp Evans, the base camp of the 3rd Brigade, just northwest of the ancient Imperial Citadel Hue. From Camp Evans the AO followed a northerly course to the 3rd Brigade's Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 22 alternate Command Post at Camp Carroll immediately south of the Cam Lo River in the southern DMZ area. The 3rd Brigade Area of Operations was about 1300 square kilometers or 800 square miles. Interestingly, this approximated the size of the AO for the entire 1st Cavalry Division when America launched its first ground force offensive in the Ia Drang Valley in OctoberNovember 1965. Conventionally organized, the primary fighting force of the 101st Airborne Division consisted of three infantry brigades, each with three infantry battalions. Not so conventionally, these infantry forces were airmobile and moved about the battlefield on the rotary wings of the three helicopter battalions of the 101st Aviation Group. In 1968, the 3rd Battalion, 506th Infantry was detached from the division and assigned to II Field Force and employed in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam. In 1970, three infantry battalions were assigned to the 1st Brigade and employed in the southern portion of Thua Thien Province with one of these battalions normally committed to be the Division Reserve as a Rapid Reaction Force. Two infantry battalions were assigned to the 2nd Brigade and conducted pacification operations in the populated coastal area of Thua Thien Province. The remaining three infantry battalions were assigned to the 3rd Brigade and fought in the northern and western portions of the Division AO. During part of the June-August 1970 period, the 3rd Brigade had operational control of six of the eight airmobile infantry battalions in the division (frequently, as many as four infantry battalions at the same time) as well as a brief period of control of the division air cavalry squadron—all of whom were engaged in bitter contact with the regular army forces of North Vietnam. The 3rd Brigade AO fought a conventional war against regular army units of North Vietnam who were equipped with long-range mortars and rockets, recoilless rifles, heavy machine guns and antiaircraft weapons. The overall mission of US Forces in Vietnam focused on counterinsurgency, but in the Third Brigade AO, we were trying to repel or destroy a formidable, conventional, invading army. The 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry and the 2nd Squadron, 17th Cavalry conducted operations in the Khe Sanh-FSB Shepard area. The 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry occupied and conducted operations in the FSB Kathryn area and later, in the FSB Rakkasan area. The 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry opened and conducted operations in the FSB Gladiator area. The 2nd Battalion, 501st Infantry, from time to time, operated north, west and south of FSB Ripcord and conducted a coordinated battalion attack on Hill 1000. The 2nd Battal- Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 23 ion, 506th Infantry Currahees on and around FSB Ripcord, conducted the most intense and sustained combat operations. After the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry evacuated FSB Ripcord and was placed in Reserve on 23 July, the 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry opened and conducted operations in the FSB Jack area. The 1st and 2nd Regiments of the 1st Infantry Division, Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) and the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) also conducted operations in parts of this AO, mostly in the lowlands to the north and to the east. An armor/mechanized infantry battalion task force from the 1st Brigade, 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) was briefly under the operational control of the 3rd Brigade. The 3rd Brigade AO was quite large and quite busy throughout the summer of 1970. My notes show that between 23 June and 31 August, during my first 69 days in command, the 3rd Brigade conducted the following operations: • 16 Battalion sized combat air assaults to multiple Landing Zones. • 15 Battalion sized extractions from multiple Pick-Up Zones. • 4 Fire Support Bases were opened. • 6 Fire Support Bases were closed. The units and fire support bases of the 3rd Brigade during this very intense period of operations, June—August 1970, can be seen in the sketch below: Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 24 The former Republic of South Vietnam was made up of 44 provinces. The province that claimed the most Americans killed was Quang Tri, which bordered on both North Vietnam and Laos. Fifty-four percent of all Americans killed in Vietnam died in the four northernmost provinces, which in addition to Quang Tri were Thua Thien, Quang Nam and Quang Tin. All of them shared borders with Laos. An additional six provinces accounted for another twenty-five percent of the Americans killed in action (KIA). Those six also shared borders with either Laos or Cambodia or had contiguous borders with provinces that did. The remaining 34 provinces accounted for just twenty-one percent of US KIA. These numbers should dispel the notion that South Vietnam was some kind of flaming inferno of violent revolutionary dissent. The overwhelming majority of Americans killed, died in border battles against regular NVA units. The policies established by President Lyndon B. Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara did not allow the American soldiers to cross those borders and destroy America's enemy forces. Expressed in WW II terms; this is the functional equivalent of having sent the American Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 25 soldiers to fight in Europe during WW II, but restricting them to Italy, France, Belgium, and Holland, and not letting them cross the borders into Germany, the source of the problem. General Curtis LeMay aptly defined Johnson's war policy in South Vietnam by saying that "We are swatting flies in the South when we should be going after the manure pile in Hanoi."2 After the fiasco of the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, President John F. Kennedy confided to James Reston of The New York Times, "Now we have a problem in making our power credible, and Vietnam is the place,"3 President Kennedy increased the advisory and support effort from a few hundred to twelve thousand in 1962. Attention was focused on Vietnam and a high priority of effort was established. President Lyndon B. Johnson continued the policy of increasing the advisory and support efforts and then, in 1965, ordered Marine and Army infantry combat troops deployed to Vietnam and authorized a buildup in South Vietnam of a half a million Americans. Five years later, in 1970, the US military in Vietnam was into the second year of President Richard Nixon's ordered unilateral withdrawals. The 1968 Tet offensive, by the Viet Cong and NVA that turned the entire South Vietnamese countryside into a combat zone, seemed to us in 1970 like another war from another era. The whole world knew that the United States was getting out of Vietnam. Yet, here we were, in daily contact with a fierce and determined enemy, but no one except those in the 101st Airborne Division seemed to know about it. There were reasons. The Brigade AO was 500 miles north of Saigon, Headquarters for the US Military Assistance Command Vietnam (USMACV) and the concentration point for US and world news media representatives. Even more cogent, on 29 April1970, USMACV launched Operation Toan Thang (Vietnamese meaning Total Victory) 43 into the supposedly neutral, off-limits territory of Cambodia. World news media immediately focused on this operation. Also, the fact that the same 3rd Bde, 101st Airborne was taking significant casualties in an area near the previous and costly battle for Hamburger Hill (10–20 May 1969) was not something that USMACV wanted to call to the attention of the news media. Operation Toan Thang 43 into Cambodia was led by then Brigadier General Robert M. Shoemaker with major elements of the 1st Cavalry Division. The 25th Infantry Division provided both an armored and a mechanized infantry battalion. The US 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the ARVN 1st Armored Cavalry Regiment provided the reconnaissance and first assault force. The ARVN 3rd Airborne Brigade provided the initial reserve for the attack. The total force of assault troops was about ten thousand US and five Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 26 thousand ARVN. At the peak of operations in Cambodia, the South Vietnamese had about twenty-nine thousand and the US had about nineteen thousand troops in the operation. War protestors focused on Cambodia. On 10 May 1970, over 80,000 people attended an anti-war demonstration in Washington, DC. The demonstrators also protested the tragic deaths of four students at Kent State University in Ohio and two students at the predominantly black Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi. Unrest in the United States was widespread and provoked powerful emotions. While the Cambodian incursion grabbed the attention of the entire world, another battle of significant impact took place at Fire Support Base Ripcord and was virtually ignored. Neither USMACV nor the 101st Airborne Division called attention to it. It was a very long way from Saigon. Travel to 101st Airborne Division Headquarters was difficult. Travel to Ripcord was dangerous and impossible without military assistance, to include helicopters. All military commanders in 1970 were well aware of growing disenchantment with the Vietnam War. American public support of their military fell in a steep decline. It was exacerbated by the Viet Cong/North Vietnamese Army Tet 1968 general offensive throughout the countryside and in the principal cities that many in the media wrongly interpreted as a major US military setback. The May-June 1970 Cambodia 'incursion' failed in its political purpose. The November 1969 revelations of the March 1968 My Lai massacre and the deaths of students at Kent State and Jackson State in May 1970 were repugnant to the American public. Nothing, however, was more prominent in the minds of US commanders in the field in 1970, than the Battle of Hamburger Hill in May 1969. In May 1969, just one year before Ripcord, Major General Melvin Zais, Commanding General, 101st Airborne Division directed the 3rd Brigade to conduct Operation APACHE SNOW on the high ground on the far-western side of the A Shau Valley to deny the enemy a sanctuary/warehouse area in this highly important part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Colonel Joseph Conmy, then 3rd Brigade Commander, ordered Lieutenant Colonel Weldon "Tiger" Honeycutt's 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry to assault Dong Ap Bia, Hill 937. The 29th Regiment of the PAVN defended the steep slopes of the hill from well dug-in and fortified bunkers. A time-tested battlefield rule of thumb requires a minimum of a three-to-one favorable force ratio to go on the offensive. Here, the ratio was reversed; one battalion attacked three enemy battalions that held the well-fortified high ground. Dedicated and disciplined American soldiers followed their brave leaders in seven separate assaults up the Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 27 rain soaked, slippery hill. Three more US/ARVN battalions joined the fight before the 3/187th finally reached the peak of Dong Ap Bia. The cost in lives for the US soldiers was 56 dead and over 400 wounded. The high cost in US casualties proved especially grievous by the repeated "friendly fire" incidents involving helicopter gunships firing on US troops in conditions of raininduced poor visibility. To the astonishment and some bitterness of the exhausted soldiers on the hill, Dong Ap Bia was abandoned as the 101st Airborne Division withdrew from the A Shau Valley. General Westmoreland declared the Dong Ap Bia battle a tactical victory with a body count of over 10 enemy KIA for each American soldier lost. The US high command had maintained that if we kill ten of the enemy for every single friendly loss, we are bound to win. Seeds of doubt were cast on the battlefield. Even though a tactical victory, as was Tet one year earlier, the attrition theory of war as applied to Hanoi, no longer seemed appropriate. For the first time in US history, an American Army battle victory was denounced on the floor of the United States Senate. This was the real world of 1970 in which our brave and dedicated soldiers fought the battle of Ripcord. The Infamous "Body Count"— Much has been said about "body count" in the Vietnam War. Many have criticized commanders for "demanding" body count as a way of showing higher headquarters that their unit was doing well in the fighting. The accuracy of body count varied significantly throughout this long war depending on which unit, in what part of Vietnam, and who the senior commander was at the time. There was, undoubtedly, some distortion, exaggeration, and out-and-out fabrication. In the better units, and the 101st Airborne Division was certainly one of the best, body count generally was fairly accurate. This was because the senior commanders, at the least the ones I observed first hand, did not put a premium on body count. The troops understood that reporting estimated number of enemy killed would not be accepted without tangible evidence of bodies, weapons, and other equipment recovered from the battlefield. It is also understandable that the body count might be distorted a bit for morale purposes of the fighting grunts. In 1966, I observed my 10th Combat Aviation Battalion gunships killing enemy soldiers that I verified myself by low and slow flight over the engagement area. At the next briefing at the 101st Command Post, I heard that such and such rifle company killed "X" number Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 28 of NVA in that exact same fight without any credit given to the gunships. I raised no objections. Sometimes infantry battalion commanders, like Frank "Gunslinger" Dietrich, admitted after the briefing that they knew it was our gunships that were responsible for the enemy KIAs, but the troops needed credit for the kills to boost morale. The news media from the very start, focused on body count. Body count was used by some, to measure "success" in the war and, fairly frequently, the media used it to deride commanders for the way they were conducting the war. The media alleged that commanders pushed their troops unnecessarily or improperly to generate high body count. In rare and exceptional cases, this may have indeed been true. It is interesting to note how "body count" got started. It was not by selfserving commanders in the field nor the statistics mesmerized "whiz kids" of Secretary Robert McNamara, but the practice was directed from the highest National Military Command Authority. The demand came directly from the White House from President Lyndon Johnson. On April 8, 1965 President Johnson asked Gen Earle Wheeler, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, "How many Viet Cong have we killed since you were here last time?" Later the President wanted to know "how many Viet Cong have been killed since the 1st of Jan and how many Vietnamese have been killed by the Viet Cong and how many Americans?"4 From that date forward, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was provided daily with friendly and enemy losses, which came to be known as "body count." Body Count continues— In 2003 and 2004, the news media announced body count in Iraq several times a day. The Isolation of the Ripcord Battle— In addition to the significant distance from Saigon to Ripcord, the difficulty of travel, the personal danger, and competing newsworthy stories, news media personnel were not welcomed in the 101st Airborne Division AO. A lesson was learned at Dong Ap Bia—Hamburger Hill that taking heavy casualties and providing that unpleasant news, especially at this time of the war-winddown, to the American public, brought down sharp criticism and scrutiny on the already unfortunate unit. Captain Fred Spaulding, the Brigade S-3 Air during the battle for Ripcord, recalls that a team of reporters and photogra- Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 29 phers from NBC reached Camp Evans in early July 1970, but 101st Airborne Division Headquarters would not allow them to visit FSB Ripcord. Even Army combat photographers and reporter soldiers were not permitted to visit Ripcord. One Army team made it out to Ripcord sneaking aboard a helicopter, but were quickly ordered out of the area when detected. This was indeed extraordinary censorship in a here-to-fore uncensored war. Lam Son 719—The South Vietnamese Thrust Into Laos— The North Vietnamese counterattacked in the wake of Cambodia with pressure from Laos towards the coastal littoral cities in Military Region 1. The natural route from the Ho Chi Minh Trail diverted into South Vietnam through the A Shau Valley of Thua Thien Province.5 The attack axis was from the vicinity of Hamburger Hill right into the heart of the 3rd Brigade AO. The decision by the President of the Republic of Vietnam to launch a major South Vietnamese Army and Marine offensive from Khe Sanh along Route 9 into Laos to seal off the Ho Chi Minh Trail was a bold initiative of the Saigon government. If successful, it not only would disrupt the Ho Chi Minh Trail, but also prove with high visibility that the process of Vietnamization of the war was working. The decision was of immediate tactical and strategic significance to the 3rd Brigade. We generally did not know this in the brigade, even as classified information, until January 1971 just before Lam Son 719 began on 8 Feb 1971. The operation called for the establishment of a series of fire support bases along Route 9 to Tchepone, Laos. Apparently the North Vietnamese intelligence was much better than our brigade intelligence. Senior South Vietnamese officials began to discuss the plan for operations into Laos well before any participation of top-level US personnel. Security leaks in the RVN government were large and legend. General Creighton Abrams, (COMUSMACV) conducted the first reported meeting to discuss countermeasures against the NVA buildup in Laos on 8 December 1970. Classified Top Secret, only six invited senior US general officers attended. The NVA in Hanoi knew or anticipated this major offensive and planned "The Southern Laos—Route 9 Counter-Offensive Campaign" and started taking action six-months earlier in June 1970. This was a "Secret Document for PAVN Internal Distribution." The PAVN high command began to rein- Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 30 force the 968th Division for its mission of security for the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Central and Southern Laos near Khe Sanh and the A Shau Valley, bordering and into the 3rd Brigade AO.6 These reinforcements for the 968th Division strengthened the re-supply lines and base areas of the PAVN units operating against the 3rd Brigade. The increase in late June and early July 1970 of PAVN air defense weapons and 120mm mortars around the Ripcord area were a manifestation of this strategic move by Hanoi, and completely unknown to the 3rd Brigade until we found ourselves on the receiving end of the increased firepower. There is still speculation on who knew what and when and what were the real intentions of the NVA in this strategic area, now more important than ever, because of the closure of the port at Sihanoukville, Cambodia as the primary entry point for supplies to the Viet Cong and NVA in southern South Vietnam. Whether the NVA were planning offensive or defensive operations, this portion of the Ho Chi Minh Trail was absolutely vital to North Vietnam. Major combat continued in the Ripcord area in 1970 as we gave little thought to the fact that parties to the Paris Peace Talks would meet on 21 January 1971 for the one-hundredth time. Fire Support Base Ripcord June 1970. Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 31 The fire support base may look small in the above picture, but it was a fairly large base, about the size of four football fields and "home" to a battalion headquarters (for a short time also an ARVN battalion headquarters), a battalion medical aid station, one battery of six-105mm howitzers, one battery of six-155mm howitzers, the 2/506th Recon Plat, a quad 50mm machine gun section, three platoons (twelve tubes total) of 81mm mortars, two 90mm recoilless rifles, a platoon of engineers, and three helicopter landing pads controlled by a team of Pathfinders. The two pictures below were taken in July 1996 by the JTF-FA team in Vietnam working on the case of the missing bodies of Staff Sgt Lewis Howard, Jr. and PFC Charles E. Beals, D Co, 2/506th Inf. Sgt Gary Radford, the soldiers' platoon sergeant when they were wounded and presumed dead on 7 July 1970 on Hill 1000, accompanied the JTF-FA team on the July 1996 search effort. Unfortunately, no bodies were found. FSB Ripcord taken from Hill 1000 July 1996. Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 32 The above picture of FSB Ripcord was taken from Hill 1000 in July 1996. The hill is still bare of vegetation 26 years after the battle. The picture below from the vicinity of Ripcord shows the two critical peaks of Hill 1000. Hill 1000 taken from the vicinity of FSB Ripcord July 1996. Units Assigned to 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division, with their rear base at Camp Evans, and normally under the Operational Control of the 3rd Brigade: 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry "Rakkasans" 1st Battalion, 506th Infantry "Currahees" 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry "Currahees" 3rd Brigade Reconnaissance and Security Platoon 3rd Brigade Aviation Section Units sometimes placed temporarily under the Operational Control of the 3rd Brigade On Order of the Division Commander: 1st Battalion, 501st Infantry "Geronimo" 2nd Battalion, 501st infantry "Drive On" 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry "Strike Force" 2nd Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry Strategic Setting of Fire Support Base Ripcord 33 A Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry "Assault" B Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry "Banshee" C Troop, 2nd Squadron, 17th Air Cavalry "Condor" Units in support of the 3rd Brigade: 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion (all companies based at Camp Evans.) C Company, 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion "Phoenix" in Direct Support A Company, 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion "Ghostriders" B Company, 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion "Lancers" D Company, 158th Assault Helicopter Battalion "Redskins" 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion A Company, 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion "Comancheros" B Company, 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion "Kingsmen" C Company, 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion "Black Widows" D Company, 101st Assault Helicopter Battalion "Hawks" 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion "Liftmasters" A Company, 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion "Pachyderms" B Company, 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion "Varsity" C Company, 159th Assault Support Helicopter Battalion "Playtex" 2nd Battalion, 319th Field Artillery 105mm in Direct Support C Company, 4th Battalion, 77th Aerial Rocket Artillery "Griffins" in General Support Reinforcing 2/319th Arty (Based at Camp Evans.) A Battery, 2nd Battalion, 11th Artillery in General Support Reinforcing 2/319th Arty A Battery, 1st Battalion, 39th Artillery in General Support Reinforcing Division Arty A Battery, 2nd battalion 94th Artillery in General Support XXIVth Corps 3rd Forward Supply and Support Element, 101st Division Support Command in Direct Support Support Team, 501st Signal Battalion in Direct Support Support Team, 101st Military Intelligence Detachment 3rd Detachment, 265th Radio Research Unit 58th Infantry Platoon (Scout Dog) Unite States Air Force Tactical Air Control Party, 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron 2 Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 The Central Party Committee of the Lao Dong has always dictated the military strategy of North Vietnam. The strategy has been influenced by the history and culture of the Vietnamese people and by foreign Communist countries. The strategy has changed over time, as has the influence of certain foreign countries. How this complex process has evolved is covered later in the book, but first, we will cut to Hanoi's military strategic setting in the 3rd Brigade's AO in 1970. The Quang Tri Province and Thua Thien Province Theater— Hanoi's People's Army of Vietnam referred to the Quang Tri Province and Thua Thien Province Theater of operations as the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater or sometimes, the Tri-Thien Theater. It was known as the B4 Front. B5 Front was also in Quang Tri Province in the north running between the DMZ and Highway 9. The two provinces in the Tri-Thien Theater included all of the 3rd Brigade's Area of Operations. In 1985 the Thuan Hoa Publishers in Hue City, under the editorial supervision of The Committee for the Final Report on the War in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater, Chief Editor: Kieu Tam Nguyen, produced a report covering three periods. We will look at a portion of the Second Period, from the beginning of 1970 until the end of 1971. Robert J. Destatte translated this document. 34 Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 35 Second Period of The Tri-Thien-Hue Theater-From the beginning of 1970 to the end of 1970. Editorial Note: The words are those of the 1985 Communist Committee for the Final Report on the War in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater. (I will provide editorial clarification with parenthetical comments in italics. Take note of the integration of military/political/civil imperatives as discussed in Enemy Situation.) General: Defeated in the mountainous regions, the enemy (US and ARVN forces) withdrew to strengthen his lines in the piedmont region while employing all manner of ruthless pacification methods. The enemy foolhardily initiated an operation (in 1971-Lam Son 719) in the Highway 9-Southern Laos region, which was an important test of his strategy to "Vietnamize the war" We continued to attack the enemy, defeated his operations in the mountain forests (at high point 935 (FSB Ripcord), Coc Bai (FSB O'Reilly), Da Ban (FSB Barnett), etc.), step-by-step restored our position and strength in the three strategic regions, and helped defeat the enemy's operation in the Highway 9-Southern Laos region. Thereafter we were able to control the mountain forests, make inroads into the piedmont region, push our movement in the lowlands forward a new step, and prepare for the 1972 strategic (Easter) offensive which achieved a decisive victory. (The 1972 Offensive was a costly defeat for the PAVN and proved that the South Vietnamese could effectively defend their country with appropriate US fire support and re-supply with Advisor presence in ARVN and SVN Marine units.) Enemy (US/ARVN) situation: During the two year period 1970–1971, the American imperialists frantically implemented the Nixon clique's strategy to 'Vietnamize the war:' 1. They made efforts to pacify and control the populace and to transform the lowlands and cities into a large secure rear base area. 2. They engaged in military adventures by expanding the war into Cambodia and striving to disrupt our strategic commo-liaison corridor [i.e., the HCM Trail] in an effort to cut off our supplies from the North, to prevent our regular forces from assembling for large attacks, and to return the South to a state of guerrilla warfare of decreasing intensity. 3. They strove to build the puppet military into a force strong enough to replace American forces. Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 4. They made efforts to build a puppet government that was strong from top to bottom. To carry out these strategic intentions, the Americans engineered a coup against Sihanouk, swept aside Cambodian neutralism, and then opened a large operation (50,000 Americans and 50,000 puppets) (The actual numbers were 19,000 US and 29,000 ARVN.) into Cambodia, hoping to destroy our rear bases and push (North) Vietnamese regular forces back (March 1970). Next, they initiated an operation into the Indochina tri-border area in the vicinity of Attopeu, Laos (west of Dak To). Then in January 1971 (actually initiated 8 February 1971) they opened a large-scale operation in the Highway 9-Southern Laos region. In parallel with the various large operations and new military adventures, the Americans and puppets carried out successive "accelerated pacification," "special pacification," "community self-defense pacification," and "local development" plans with an unprecedented level of violence. After going through two years of continuous enemy counterattacks and ruthless pacification efforts we entered 1970 in the Tri-Thien-Hue Theater with the enemy still trying to pacify the lowland plains, block us in the piedmont areas, and destroy us in the mountain forests. He concentrated his regular forces along Highway 9, strengthened his defensive lines on Highways 9 and 12, and dug in on high points in the intermediate defense line (the mountain forests) (these high points are FSBs Ripcord, O'Reilly and Barnett) in an effort to block our regular forces from attacking and to destroy our strength in the three strategic regions. Friendly (PAVN) situation: In January 1970, the 18th Plenum of the Central Party Committee reviewed the situation since Tet Mau Than 1968, and outlined a new direction requiring that we "step up attacks throughout the three strategic regions, making the rural areas the primary focal point for attack, and correctly employ a strategy based on the principles of protracted struggle to strive for a decisive victory in a relatively short period of time." With regard to fighting, the Central Party Committee clearly set out guidelines that "we must continue to step up conventional fighting by regular forces until there are positive improvements in the local guerrilla warfare movement, and to emphasize the strategic importance of rear service operations…" With regard to political guidance, "While focusing on the three strategic regions we must strengthen the Party's leadership in the urban and rural areas, mobilize popular uprising movements, strive to gain and retain control of the populace, and defeat the enemy's rural pacification plans." The Central Party Committee also laid out concrete guidelines for action in the event the American imperialists took the risk of expanding the war into Laos and Cambodia. Central Party Resolution No. 18 was an extremely sound change of direction in military strategy that dated back to 36 Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 Tet 1968, and established the basis for huge new successes and changes that would increasingly favor us in our Theater during 1970 and 1971. On 18 March 1970, the Region Party Committee studied and implemented Central Party Resolution No. 18 by laying out a general mission that we must 'defeat Vietnamization in the Tri-Thien region, develop new power and strength, carry out combined arms attacks, and bring about big changes.' The Region Party Committee stressed: 'Pacification is the most important scheme in the enemy's strategic doctrine, it is the backbone of his policy of Vietnamization; therefore, 'the defeat of pacification is the crucial central mission of the entire Party, the entire armed forces, and the entire population at the present time.' To carry out this central mission the Region and Military Region Party Committees pronounced that: 'parallel with building up the strength of the revolution, we must step-by-step intensify the movement to disrupt pacification in the lowland rural areas; however, the deciding factor will be for us to concentrate on control of the mountain forests (This "deciding factor" clearly made destruction of Ripcord the PAVN's top priority. While the US was planning a major offensive, the PAVN was also planning a new strategy of going on the offensive.), and from there restore our position in the three strategic regions and develop the combined military and political strength with which to defeat the enemy's pacification program. (Major General Chu Phuong Doi told me during our 26 May 04 discussions, that Lieutenant General Tran Van Quang was given command of Military District 4 and placed in direct control of the offensive against Firebase Ripcord.) To carry out this resolution, the Military (Tri-Thien) Region Party Committee issued the following major guidelines for 1970: • Get a firm grasp of the enemy's operational procedures, take the initiative to defeat his operations in the mountainous regions and our commo-liaison corridors (HCM Trail); and defeat his tactics of occupying high points, leap-frogging with helicopters, and ambushing us in the piedmont region. • Strengthen the regular forces so they will have sufficient strength to initiate campaigns, giving priority to upgrading district armed forces and village guerrillas. • Promote movements to shoot down helicopters and produce foodstuffs (five million manioc tubers). (This is the root of the cassava plant with a thick skin and is boiled like a potato.) Military Region also declared that progress in 1970 must be a high priority and must be solid. Military Region split 1970 into two periods. Phase 37 Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 38 1 (from January to June) primarily would be a period in which we would establish our military posture. Phase 2 (from June forward) would be a period in which we would expand our new posture (The siege and attack to destroy Ripcord began the first day of Phase 2, on 1 July.). The theater operational plan for 1970 was divided into three phases, focused primarily on the mountain forests. Spring phase, from January to March 1970: (The Tri-Thien Theater plan had succeeding phases of April to June and then June to August. Theater forces included in the plan were the 324B Division, 304B Division and the 5th, 6th and 8th Regiments of Regional Forces.) Military Region Headquarters decided to continue the attack and apply strong pressure to the enemy's entire defense line in order to force him to respond in many different locations at the same time. Meanwhile we would gradually move our local force units down to operate in the lowland foothills to provide direct support to our grass-roots movement aimed at disrupting the enemy's pacification campaign. At the same time the Military Region would use its own main force units to attack and shatter a number of the important links in the enemy defensive network in order to cause it to disintegrate and collapse. Building on this foundation we would open a gateway down to the lowlands. Higher authority assigned responsibility for carrying out this mission to two units: • 324Bth Division was responsible for attacking and destroying the enemy's operational base on Hill 935 (FSB Ripcord) in Thua Thien. • 304B Division would attack and destroy the enemy base at Da Ban (FSB Barnett) in Quang Tri. (Footnote: During this period the High Command assigned 304B Division to Military Region Tri-Thien in order to be able to draw on its forces to work the 324B strategic supply line.) (This was a very important factor in how the 324B Division could concentrate its combat forces for operations against Ripcord. The 304B Division would protect the 324B supply and services operations and provide porters for food, ammunition and other supplies and medical support.) (Stepping down from theater one echelon to the division level, we find a significantly more sober appraisal by the 324B Division of the PAVN.) Strategic Setting of the 324B Division in the Ripcord Area— The 324B Division Leadership and Party Current Affairs Committee, Senior Colonel Nguyen Van Tao and Senior Colonel Pham Van Long and authors: Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 39 Lt Col Dao Quang Doi and Captains Nguyen Thong and Vo Viet Hoa provided this history to People's Army Publishing House, Hanoi, for publication in1992. Former CIA Officer Merle Pribbenow has translated it. Comments by Pribbenow are enclosed in [ ], my comments are italics in (). The translated history reads: In addition to directing the defeat of the enemy's (reference here is to the 3rd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division) large operation in the area of Ap Bia Mountain [Hamburger Hill], the 324B Division was also forced to make an arduous effort to overcome unprecedented difficulties, especially in preparing the battlefield, ensuring logistics support, and feeding and caring for its troops. From the end of 1969 onward, the enemy (US/ARVN) was able to control the lowlands and the foothills. (A rare admission of the failure of the 1968 and 1969 Tet Offensives.) He launched a series of operations up into the mountain jungles to destroy our supply caches, savagely attacked Group 559's strategic supply route [the Ho Chi Minh Trail], sent aircraft to spray defoliants to kill the forest, ruin our crops, and kill or contaminate our livestock in order to completely destroy our logistics supply sources and supply stockpiles. In the Tri-Thien area, because of both enemy actions and natural disasters, our people suffered a long period of protracted starvation. The people had to share with one another individual manioc roots, ears of corn, bowls of rice gruel, and jungle vegetables. They burned clumps of grass and ate the ashes in place of salt. Many people died of starvation, and some villages lost one third of their population. If the people were hungry, then the soldiers were even hungrier. The little bit of rice and salt available had to be reserved for our front-line troops and to feed the starving civilian population. Some units ate rice gruel and jungle vegetables instead of rice for months at a time. The enemy tightly sealed off the entrance points from the jungles into the lowlands. Every ton of rice the division obtained from the lowlands cost us the lives of six or seven men. (Another unusual admission. Troops at Division level certainly see the war differently from the staff at Theater level. US and ARVN operations had successfully denied the PAVN access to food stores in the piedmont and coastal populated areas. This is a most rare statement that the PAVN ever had lives lost. Our US Army salt tablets don't seem too bad compared to ashes from clumps of burned grass.) Nature was no kinder to us than the enemy. Torrential rains ruined our manioc and corn crops, which needed sunlight. In addition, the defoliants sprayed by the American imperialists made it impossible for us to count on Strategic Setting of PAVN Forces in the Ripcord Area in 1970 our harvests. (Agent Orange really did work.) With a tradition of steadfast resistance and with their common faith in the revolution and in Uncle Ho, the people of the mountains of Tri-Thien worked with the soldiers of our armed forces to overcome natural disasters and the savage schemes of the enemy to gradually, step by step, regain the initiative on the battlefield. Implementing the resolution of the Tri-Thien Regional Committee on increasing self-sufficiency, the division joined the soldiers and civilians of Tri-Thien in working the fields, planting manioc and corn while keeping one hand on our machetes and the other on our guns. Dozens of b

subset: commoncrawl