This article from Marines 2/7, infantry , Year 1969.
GolfCoHiepDuc1
On August 15th 2/7's area of responsibility was changed. We were to move
south along route 1 and take over the area around the Que Son Mountains.
The next two weeks were probably the defining time in my tour, it was an
extremely hard time. The following pages are taken from an official
history of the Marine Corps in Vietnam. My comments are in red.
Once again they could have told me what was going on. The first I heard
of the move was a day or two before, and this was more of a rumor than
anything else.
The move of the 7th Marines 54 kilometers to the southeast was fraught
with problems from the beginning. This was not to be a short tactical
move, but a permanent one. In addition to men and equipment based at the
regiment's seven cantonments scattered throughout the soon-to-be-vacated
area of operations, all property assigned to the regiment would also be
moved, necessitating use of the division's entire rolling stock. first to
go would be the 2nd Bn. By the morninng of the 15th, Lt. Col. Lugger's
Marines and their equipment were loaded on board 120 trucks at Dai La Pass
and ready to head down Highway 1. "This was," according to Major Peter S.
Beck, Regt. S-4, "the greatest single mistake we could have made, since it
become readily apparent that it was absolutely impossible to control 120
vehicles in one convoy on a narrow dirt road, many sections of which were
only passable one way at a time."
What occurred later in the day on the 15th could only be termed a fiasco.
As Lugger's Marines moved south, without the aid of control vehicles or
military police stationed at obvious choke points, unbeknownst, a
35-truck, 9th Engineer convoy, loaded with wide-angle-bladed Eimco
tractors, was moving north from Chu Lai. They met at the one place on
Route 1 that could have precipitated the worst bottleneck possible: a
one-way, one-vehicle-at-a-time, pontoon bridge. (I remember sitting
alongside the road for a long time, of course nobody told us anything. We
hadn't been there very long when the Coke Kids showed up and started
hustling beer and pop. They had just changed the money and several of us
still had some of the old, no-longer-any-good, MPC. We rolled up some of
the bad money with a nickell or dime on the outside and paid for our
drinks. The kids cried and carried on something fierce when they saw
they'd been had. We thought it a fine joke, though I sort of felt sorry
for them, but not so sorry that I paid them. When we got close to where
we were going we quite doing this, no use making trouble for ourselves.)
Riding in front of the 120-truck convoy was Major Beck, and as he later
reported:
Needless to say, the tractor-trailors going north completely blocked the
road so that
the southbound convoy could not cross and could not pass if they could
cross.
And the northbound convoy, which was the tractor-trailors with the
bulldozers,
completely blocked their portion of the road. Consequently, we had a
four-and-one-half-hour
bottleneck at this bridge, which ate up most of the day, and additionally,
at one point
in the road, concentrated in excess of 150 pieces of large rolling stock
plus all the
equipment that they werecarrying and troops....We finally managed to
unsnarl the
bottleneck, by allowing the northbound convoy,with the wide-load angle
blades, to pass
first because there was no way possible for the southbound convoy to pass.
In doing
this we had to back up the 120 trucks off the right shoulder of the road,
so that
the truck convoy going north could pass. This was an unbelievable task,
since
Marines who can't move in either direction become very fustrated and all
of a
sudden we had 1,000 traffic control personnel: everybody thinking they
knew
exactly what they were doing.
The Marines finally resolved the problem and the convoy continued:
however, it was so late in the day when it arrived at LZ Baldy that it
could not proceed to its final destination, LZ Ross, 16 kilometers inland.
(At this time Baldy was still an Army base. I remember how suprised we
were at the amount of shooting and grenade throwing went on all night. I
don't think anything was going on, they just shot at any real or imagined
cause. The truck I was on spent the night parked next to a supply area.
There were several pallets of stuff stacked up against the wire fence that
surrounded it. I took a couple of guys and went over to see what was
there, and LO AND BEHOLD they were crates of Long Rats. Having once been
a Boy Scout I was ready with my handy knife. It was quick work to cut the
back out of a crate and start pulling out cases. We all grabbed two each
and took off. For the next few weeks we had some welcome additions to our
C-Rats.) Again, this presented an unacceptable tactical situation: 120
trucks and a large proportion of Lugger's Marine's sitting on Baldy's
landing strip - a lucrative mortar target. The battalion convoy was in
fact mortared on the night of the 15th, but fortunately only one Marine
was wounded. The following morning, the convoy traveled the 16 kilometers
along Route 535 to LZ Ross without incident.
With one battalion's move completed, the movement procedures and schedule
of the remaining two had to be revised due to the problems encountered on
the 15th. In discussions which followed the move, division and regimental
planners decided that instead of trucks, CH-53 helicopters would be used
to move,troops, while equipment would be carried by 30-truck convoys
spaced over a period of days, instead of a single, 120 truck vonvoy. In
addition, military police would be assigned to each bridge, choke point,
and curve, and "roadmaster" jeeps would patrol Highway 1, regulating the
flow of traffic. (Even though 2nd Bn. was moved they took several of us
back to Dai La to hold the place, I guess whoever was supposed to take
over for us didn't make it. It was really spooky, there were only about
10-15 of us there. I remember looking around that big area and wondering
what we were supposed to do if they made a effort to take it.) Beginning
on the 17th, men and equipment of the 3rd, and the then the 1st Bn., moved
without incident to LZ Baldy, and by 23 August, the regiment had settled
into its new area of operations, which encompassed a large portion of the
Que Son Valley.
Lying south of the rugged, jungle-covered Que Son Mountains, the fertile
Que Son Valley spread northeastward from its head at Hiep Duc into the
costal plain between Hoi An and Tam Ky. Running through its center, in an
easterly and then northeasterly direction, was the Song Ly Ly which marked
the boundary between Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces, and also the new
areas of responsibility of the 1st Marine and Americal Division.
GolfCoHiepDuc2
As a major enemy thoroughfare, the region had experienced much warfare.
In the Que Son Mountains, ridgelines, ravines, and caves hid enemy base
camps and harboring sites, all within easy striking distance of the
populated coast. The valley, with its many Viet Cong-controlled hamlets,
was a major source of food and manpower. From the war's earliest stages,
Communist main force elements roamed the area, and as a result, it was the
site of one of the Marines's first large-scale operations in 1965. The
Marines returned in 1966 and again in 1967, but as north Vietnamese
pressure along the DMZ pulled the Marines northward, the Army took over
responsibility. On 20 August 1969, the Army officially handed back the
defense of the northern portion of the Nui Loc Son Basin, as the 7th
Marines moved into the Que Son Mountains.
(Rocky Blier was in the Army and was wounded in Hiep Duc Valley about this
time. Mr. Blier, who was a running back for the Pittsburg Steelers and
was on 4 Super Bowl winning teams, was the only professional athelet to
serve in Vietnam. All the rest were evidently, much like our current
President, far too good to have to do that.)
From the Army, the 7th Marines inherited two combat bases, both located on
Route 535, a narrow dirt road which ran westard from Route 1 to the
district headquarters at Que Son. There the road divided, with Route 535
continuing southward into the Americal TAOR, while the northern fork,
Route 536, climbed over the Que Son Mountains, through Antenna Valley, and
then into the An Hoa basin. LZ Baldy, formerly the command post of the
Army's 196th Infantry Brigade and now site of the 7th Marines'
Headquarters, was the easternmost of the two bases, located at the
intersection of Route 535 and Route 1, about 30 kilometers south of Da
Nang. Sixteen kilometers west, near Que Son District Headquarters, was
Fire Support Base Ross, which commanded the Que Son Valley.
Within days of the arrival of the 7th Marines, heavy fighting erupted in
the rolling foothills around Hiep Duc, some 32 kilometers west of Tam Ky,
at the head of the Que Son Valley. Triggered by elements of the 196th
Infantry Brigade endeavoring to reach a downed helicopter, the Army's 4th
Bn., 31st Infantry locked horns with elements of the 1st VC Regt. and 3rd
Regt., 2nd NVA Division, both of which were attempting to destroy the
governments model pacification effort at Hiep Duc. By 20 August, the 31st
Infantry had killed over 300 enemy troops, and was still heavily engaged.
The following day, the Army battalion requested the 7th Marines provide,
"any size unit" to relieve the pressure by sweeping a finger of the Que
Son Mountains to the east of their position. At 1400, in over-100-degree
heat, two of Lt. Col. Lugger's companies, F and G, in addition to the
battalion's alpha command group, left FSB Ross and advanced down Route 535
towards the hill mass, thought to contain an NVA battalions and regimental
command post.
Early on the morning of the 22nd, Company F moved up Hill 441, north of
the village of Phu Bin (3), and then back down where it joined Company G
in a sweep of the hills southern slope. (Once again I had no idea what was
going on, though they had told us we were reacting for the Army. The
brush along the side of 441 was increadibly thick. We had some heat
casualities. I helped carry some of their gear on the chopper, as I was
getting off I just happened to look down and saw my rifle laying there. I
had dropped it with the rest of my gear to help and somebody had thrown it
on the chopper thinking it belonged to one of the medivacees. It would
have been real cute to have to have gone to the Lt. and told him, "I've
lost my rifle." As it turned out, I would have had no trouble getting
one in the next few days.) As the companies moved westward, the only
difficulty encountered was the heat, which caused numerous nonbattle
casualties, requiring several emergency evacuations. Later in the day,
again at the request of the 31st Infantry, Lugger's two companies moved
off the slopes of Hill 441, and by the morning of the 23rd, had set up a
1,500-meter blocking position, stretching across the valley floor. The
following day, Companies F and G were to begin moving slowly forward in an
effort to relieve enemy pressure on the Army battalion, pushing eastward
from Hiep Duc. In the interim, forward and flank patrols were sent out.
On the left, Company F made no contact as it reconnoitered the area to the
front of its position, but on the opposite flank, as Lt. Col. Lugger
reported, Co. G encountered stiff resistance:
The hill mass located to my immediate right front was a very heavily
covered hill......I ordered
Golf Company to send a reconnaissance force forward to determine what was
on that hill, and
they sent a reinforced squad. The squad moved up the slope, and was about
one-third of
the way up when it came under intensive sniper fire. The enemy, firing
from very
well-concealed and very heavy sniper positions, inflicted wounds on two
men
(Sgt. Adams and another guy, I think his name was Black,were killed.) and
then,
with his normal tactics, he covered the bodies with fire so that anyone
who attempted
to go forward to assist or to aid or to retrieve the bodies would himself
come under
very intensive fire. Before the day was out, we had about three bodies
that we
could not retrieve.
At 1700, Co. H moved by air to reinforce Co. G and the two units attempted
to recover the dead Marines, but failed. (Steve Cunningham was killed
trying to get them. There were several other casualities (Mills
(nicnamed Powerhouse) was shot in the leg, Cortez broke his leg, a couple
others were medevaced for heat - it was incredibly hot). We had fired a
lot of artillery form LZ West and there had been several air strikes. The
entire area just below the treeline where the bodies were was burned off.)
On the 24th, after air and artillery had stripped away the heavy foliage
and destroyed the enemy's positions, the two companies made another
attempt during which they retrieved the three bodies.
All three companies of Lugger's battalion moved out on the morning of the
25th, but ran headlong into elements of the two enemy regiments. On the
right, Companies G and H encountered the same heavy resistance they had on
the 23rd, and spent most of the day attempting to both move forward and
recover their casualties. On the left, elements of Company F came under
intensive mortar, RPG, and automatic weapons fire, as did Lugger's command
group in the center. With the enemy less than 50 meters away, noted Lt.
Col. Lugger, "every man in the CP had to fire his weapon in order to
protect himself." Lugger requested air strikes - napalm within 50 meters,
250-pound bombs within 200 meters, and 500-pound bombs, "as close as we
dare get them" - breaking the attack on the battalion command post. By
late afternoon, with Companies G and H still heavily engaged on the right,
and the forward elements of Company F unable to move on the left, Lugger
requested reinforcements. At dusk, Company E helilifted into the area,
and in what was a daring rescue, Huey gunships, supported by AH-1G
Cobras, extracted the battered remnants of Company F, returning them to
the command post while evacuating the casualties.
GolfCoHiepDuc3
That night, as the Marines of Companies E and F huddled around the
battalion command post, the enemy attacked with a heavy mortar barrage
which killed four and wounded 26. It appeared that all efforts to spread
the Marines out and dig them in was to no avail, and as Col. Lugger
remarked:
It was a very grim lesson that was learned. Unit leaders at every level
must pay more
attention; especially after an intensive fight there is a tendency for
people to let down
because they feel they have given their all. This is not the time to let
down. You must
even intensify your efforts in order to spread people out and dig people
in, especially
when the enemy seems to have had some advantage over you. These enemy
forces
will press the advantage.
Later that evening, the battalion received another mission. Once all
casualties were retreived and evacuated, Lugger's Marines were to push
forward 2,000 meters, link up with 4th Bn., 31st infantry, and act as a
rallying point for its scattered companies.
At first light on the morning of the 26th, as Companies G and H secured
the high ground on the right, Companies E and F moved forward and
immediately came under heavy small arms and mortar fire. By afternoon,
both companies had advanced only 600 meters, and once again had come under
heavy enemy fire. Digging in, the companies requested air and artillery
support, but it had little effect. Under constant orders to push forward,
no matter the cost, Company G. was brought down to reinforce the
beleaguered companies, but it too took intense mortar fire, suffering
numerous casualties. With all forward movement blocked, Col. Codispoti
ordered Lugger's battalion to hold its positions, retrieve all casualties,
and assist the 3rd Bn., which would be moved up in relief. In the
interim, Lt. Col.Joseph E. Hopkins, transferred from the 3rd Marine
Division, had assumed command of 2nd Bn., 7th Marines. (Keith Nolan, in
his book "Death Valley" said that Lt. Col. Lugger was releived of his
command because Col. Codispoti felt that Lugger was not agressive enough.
I don't see what more he could have done. The fact was that everywhere we
went we met very stiff opposition from a very determined foe who had had
maybe years to prepare this area. They were very well dug in and about a
prepared as they could be.) Hopkins, with Col. Codispoti's approval,
issued revised orders for the battalion to "move forwrd to certain
selected objectives...and recover all casualties lying in front of their
positions." Second Bn. Marines accomplished the mission as ordered,
noted Hopkins, "albeit reluctantly in at least two instances."
Following its arrival in the Que Son Valley on the 17th, the 3rd Bn., 7th
Marines, under Lt. Col. Ray G. Kummerow, who had relieved Lt. Col. Allison
on the 16th, was assigned by Col. Codispoti the tasks of securing LZ Baldy
and the 9th Engineer rock crusher to the west, and patrolling Barrier
Island to the east. On the 26th, following several days of sweeping the
island and encountering nothing but enemy snipers, Kummerow's Marines
helilifted to LZ West, atop nui Liet Kiem, overlooking the upper Que Son
Valley,, and ordered to relieve the 2nd Bn., heavily engaged below. After
coordinating with Lt. Col. Lugger by radio on the relief, the batalion
moved off the hill, guided by an Army reconnaissance unit. Lt. Col.
Kummerow described the relief:
The going was very slow, with numerous halts and very little progress. It
turned out
that the Army had never been off the hill on foot before, and had become
helplessly lost.
I instructed mypoint of the mile-long battalion column to use a compass
heading to the
rendezvous point. Approaching dusk, we finally emerged on the stream bed
where I
expected to pick up 2/7 guides and found to my surprise 2/7 on the march,
heading
back to FSB Ross. I deployed the point company to establish security for
a bivouac area
just short of the 2/7 furthest point of advance and closed in the
battalion
as darkness fell.
The next morning, following a passage through the 2nd Bns. lines,
Kummerow's Marines headed west toward a planned linkup with the 4th Bn.,
31st Infantry.
Straddling a small stream with two rifle companies abreast followed by the
remaining two in trace, the 3rd Bn. began sweeping the valley floor.
Almost immediately, Co. L, on the right flank (It sounds to me like this
would be in the same area Golf got bogged down on the 25th.) became
engaged and eventually unable to maneuver, all the while suffering heavy
casualties from an entrenched enemy automatic weapons position. Kummerow
ordered Co. K to pass through Co. L's lines and continue the attack.
Surmounting a series of rice paddy dikes, the marines of Co. K, in a
number of violent assaults, overran the NVA platoon, killing 13 and
capturing two 12.7mm heavy and on 7.62mm light machine guns.
This was about the end of Golf's contribution to the fighting at this
time. When we left the valley we went back to Ross and resupplied. The
next day we left and went back toward Hill 441 but stayed on the east
side. On August 29th we had our last firefight associated with the above.
We were going to the aid of Hotel Co. and was ambushed. We had two
killed and 5-6 wounded.
Map And Comments Hiep Duc
"Captain Plumb"
Charles Plumb was a U.S. Navy jet pilot in Vietnam.
After 75 combat missions, his plane was destroyed by a surface-to-air
missile. Plumb ejected and parachuted into enemy hands. He was captured
and
spent 6 years in a communist Vietnamese prison. He survived the ordeal
and
now lectures on lessons
learned from that experience.
One day, when Plumb and his wife were sitting in a restaurant, a man
at
another table came up and said, "You're Plumb! You flew jet fighters in
Vietnam from the aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk. You were shot down!"
"How in the world did you know that?" asked Plumb.
"I packed your parachute," the man replied.
Plumb gasped in surprise and gratitude. The man pumped his hand and
said, "I
guess it worked!" Plumb assured him, "It sure did. If your chute
hadn't
worked, I wouldn't be here today."
Plumb couldn't sleep that night, thinking about that man. Plumb says,
"I
kept wondering what he might have looked like in a Navy uniform: a
white hat,
a bib in the back, and bell-bottom trousers. I wonder how many times I
might
have seen him and not even said 'Good morning, how are you?' or
anything
because, you see, I was a
fighter pilot and he was just a sailor." Plumb thought of the many
hours the
sailor had spent on a long wooden table in the bowels of the ship,
carefully
weaving the shrouds and folding the silks of each chute, holding in his
hands
each time the fate of someone he didn't know. Now, Plumb asks his
audience,
"Who's packing your parachute?" Everyone has someone who provides what
they
need to make it through the day. Plumb also points out that he needed
many
kinds of parachutes when his plane was shot down over enemy
territory-he
needed his physical parachute, his mental parachute, his emotional
parachute,
and his spiritual parachute. He called on all these supports before
reaching
safety. Sometimes in the daily challenges that life gives us, we miss
what is
really important. We may fail to say hello, please, or thank you,
congratulate someone on something wonderful that has happened to them,
give a
compliment, or just do something nice for no reason.
As you go through this week, this month, this year, recognize people
who
pack your parachute. I am sending you this as my way of thanking you
for your
part in packing
my parachute !!! And I hope you will send it on to
those who have helped pack yours!
Sometimes, we wonder why friends keep forwarding jokes to us
without writing a word, maybe this could explain: When you are very
busy,
but still want to keep in touch, guess what you do - --you forward
jokes.
So next time if you get a joke, don't think that you've been sent just
another forwarded joke, but that you've been thought of. A friend on
the
other end of your computer just wanted to send you a smile.
A TRIBUTE TO VETERANS by Jerry Calow
In Vietnam, Korea and World Wars Past
Our Men Fought Bravely so Freedom Would Last
Conditions Were Not Always Best They Could Be
Fighting a Foe You Could Not Always See:
From Mountain Highs to Valley Lows
From Jungle Drops to Desert Patrols
Our Sinewy Sons Were Sent Over Seas
Far From Their Families And Far From Their Dreams
They Never Wrote Letters Of Hardships Despair
Only Of Love, Yearning That One Day Soon:
They Would Come Home, They Would Resume
And Carry On With The Rest of Their Lives
The P.O.W.šS Stood Steadfast
Against the Indignities And Cruelties Of War
They Could Not Have Lasted as Long as They Did
If They Had Relinquished Their Hope That Some Day:
They Would Come Home, They Would Resume
And Carry On the Rest Of Their Lives
Medics, Nurses, and Chaplains Alike
Did What They Needed To Bring Back Life
They Served Our Forces From Day Into Night
Not Questioning If They Would Survive:
They Mended Bones And Bodies Too,
They Soothed the Spirits of Dying Souls
And for Those M.I.AšS, Who Were Left Behind
We Echo This Message Across the Seas
We Will search For as Long As It Takes
Youšre Not Forgotten And Will Always Be:
In Our Hearts, In Our Prayers,
In Our Minds For All Time
A Moment of Silence, a Moment of Summons
Is Their Deliverance of Body And Soul
To a Sacred Place That We All Know
Deep In the Shrines of Our Soul:
In Our Hearts, In Our Prayers
In Our Minds For All Time
INTERLUDE:
GOLD STAR MOTHERS GRIEVE: ENDLESSLY,
ENDLESSLY, ENDLESSLY.......
These Immortalized Soldiers Whose Bravery Abounds
Theyšre Our Husbands, Fathers, and Sons
They Enlisted For the Duty at Hand
To Serve the Cause of Country and Land:
They Had Honor, They Had Valor,
They Found Glory That Change Them Forever
Men Standing Tall and Proud They be
A Country Behind Them in a Solemn Sea
So Let the Flags of Freedom Fly
Unfurled in Their Majesty High:
In the Sun, In the Rain
In the Winds Across This Land
Years of Tears Has Brought Us Here
Gathering Around to Hear This Sound
So Let the Flags of Freedom Fly
Unfurled in Their Majesty High:
In the Sun, In the Rain,
In the Winds Across This Land
REPEAT:
In the Sun, In the Rain,
In the Winds For All Time
Jerry Calow (copyright 2003 )
