A Noble Cause: American Battlefield Victories In Vietnam

by Douglas Niles Narrated by Brian O'Neill

Overview

In the tradition of We Were Soldiers Once, and Young, A Noble Cause is a stirring tribute to the valor and courage of the allied forces in the Vietnam War and a vivid re-creation of hard-won battles from Ia Drang Valley to Khe Sanh and Hamburger Hill.

Celebrating the skill and bravery of the United States armed forces and their South Vietnamese allies, A Noble Cause presents a gripping chronicle of both large and small unit successful combat engagements, including the Battle of Dong Xoai (1965); the Battle of Ia Drang Valley (1965), the first major ground battle of the Vietnam War; the Battle of Loc Ninh (1967) by the Cambodian border; the Battle of Khe Sanh (1967-1968) leading up to the Tet Offensive; the Battle of Dong Ha (1968); the bloody siege on Hamburger Hill (1969); and the Battle of An Loc (1972), 65 miles north of Saigon, which contributed to the failure of the Vietcong's Eastertide Offensive.

Documenting the invaluable role of a tireless and determined infantry as well as air cavalry divisions and B-52 "Arc Light" air strikes, A Noble Cause chronicles the crucial strategic decisions that led to victory - often against steep odds - and honors the bravery of every soldier who stood his ground, faced the enemy, and gave his all.

Editorial Reviews

Publishers Weekly

10/12/2015
Niles (MacArthur's War), a novelist and fantasy game designer, unconvincingly attempts to argue that the American war in Vietnam was, in Ronald Reagan's words, "a noble cause." He creditably shows that American fighting forces by and large did well on the battlefields of South Vietnam, winning every important engagement against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese Army. Niles also condemns the "national disgrace" of the American public turning its back on the American soldiers after they returned, seeing them as representing the controversial war and its unhappy outcome. The bulk of the book consists of battle-by-battle chapters that look at the strategy and tactics of more than a dozen important Vietnam War engagements. That includes the pivotal 1965 Battle of the Ia Drang Valley; the Siege of Khe Sanh and the Battle for Hue during the 1968 Tet Offensive; and the 1972 NVA invasion of South Vietnam. All have been well documented in the last four decades in scores of books by historians and journalists and in countless memoirs by those who fought in them. Niles's in-the-trenches recaps, with maps and troop movements, will appeal primarily to those looking for detailed depictions of the Vietnam War's most pivotal battles. (Oct.)

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171285272
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	10/06/2015
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

MAPS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Corps Tactical Zones in South Vietnam

CENTER OF MILITARY HISTORY, UNITED STATES ARMY

INTRODUCTION

The United States is a country that is always looking to the future, moving forward with greater intensity, seeming to increase its national velocity with every passing decade, each succeeding generation. It is not surprising, then, that as we begin to pass the 50-year anniversary mark of America’s involvement in Vietnam, the image of the Vietnam War grows ever more blurry and unfocused in our collective rearview mirror.

The veterans who fought in that war, and who survived to come home, are in their sixties now—at least, the youngest of them are. And this, like all wars, was a conflict fought primarily by young men, each of whom was affected, some profoundly, by his tour of duty. Many Vietnam veterans have spent their adulthood living with the uncomfortable perception that the war that asked so much of them was not a successful war, that it is the first war that America “lost.”

And of course, that outcome is not in doubt, in the sense that the Communist forces achieved their objective of a single nation, controlled by Hanoi, and the United States did not prevent that from happening. It is one of the universal truths of war, even if a little counterintuitive, that it is not the winner that decides when the conflict is over. It is the losing side that must make that bitter decision. In the early 1970s, the United States of America, as a true representative democracy, collectively decided that fighting the war was no longer worth paying the toll it was costing—most notably, the toll in American lives. The toll in American unity had also been high, and both costs would have continued to soar so long as young men were being drafted and sent to Vietnam to face the very real threat of dying there.

Almost all wars are asymmetrical, in the sense that the opposing sides are not usually fighting for the same goals. For example, one nation might be fighting for its survival, while its foe may be fighting to gain territory and treasure. In this regard, the Vietnam War was more asymmetrical than most. The North Vietnamese and the insurgent Viet Cong in the south were fighting to attain national unity—and doing so under the banner of the Communist cause. They had the backing, and the doctrinal and material support, of the USSR and Communist China, very much a pair of uneasy bedfellows but united in their opposition to America and its allies. The South Vietnamese, conversely, were fighting for the very survival of their unsteady democracy. They had the backing of the United States, not just in material support, but also through the direct aid of American combat units and eventually the shedding of much American blood.

The U.S.A., in a national sense, had a lot less at stake in the war than either North or South Vietnam, as it was not remotely threatened by the Vietnamese. America was threatened, however, by the specter of communism—a much graver threat to the entire free world in the 1960s than many younger Americans currently understand. The “domino theory” was held up as gospel, in that if South Vietnam fell to communism, then the rest of Southeast Asia would inevitably follow. History disproved the theory: although Laos and Cambodia, inextricably tied to the fate and future of Vietnam, were caught up and tossed chaotically in the wake of the Vietnam War, other more populous Southeast Asian nations including Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia remained stout pillars in the anti-Communist world.

The American men who fought in Vietnam (and the American men and women who supported the combat soldiers) were not the ones who failed to achieve victory. In what has been a national disgrace, the veterans who fought in Vietnam—either because they believed in the fight against communism, or because they were drafted into the military and chose to follow the law that required them to serve (or both)—have borne a completely disproportionate share of the blame for America’s military performance in Vietnam. While in the vast majority of cases, these soldiers did their best to improve the lives, and the futures, of the South Vietnamese people they were there to defend, too many of them came home to antipathy and scorn.

In Vietnam, the United States Army and the United States Marine Corps both performed with exceptional effectiveness in battles against veteran, well-armed foes. The North Vietnamese Army was a professional organization composed of experienced officers, seasoned by a successful war of independence against the French, passionately committed to the cause of national unity. The Viet Cong insurgents were also veteran fighters, who, for a decade, had been waging war against the national government of South Vietnam. By the time America arrived in strength, the VC had carved out large pieces of territory that were effectively free of government control, where the Army of South Vietnam did not even dare to venture.

President Johnson, in 1965, made the decision to send American combat forces to Vietnam. Because he was not at heart a warlike man, and because he was haunted by the disastrous consequences of the massive Chinese intervention, fifteen years earlier, in the Korean War, he put restrictions on his military to try to prevent the conflict from escalating. Those restrictions included strict limits on where the United States could employ its overwhelming airpower, and banned American forces from operating in Cambodia and Laos, leaving those countries as untouchable sanctuaries for battered, but not destroyed, enemy forces. These two factors combined to create an unwinnable war.

While in Vietnam, the American military fought an impressive sequence of significant battles, and they won the vast majority of those battles. They introduced revolutionary new concepts to warfare, most notably the use of large numbers of helicopters to give combat formations unprecedented mobility. United States’ soldiers fine-tuned tactics used by their forefathers, including the traditional American reliance on overwhelming support by artillery and, as in more recent wars, the effective use of direct strikes by aircraft to aid the efforts of the men on the ground. In the end, as always, it would be the individual “grunt,” the Army infantryman and the Marine rifleman, who would win the battle with his M16, his bayonet, hand grenades, and the unflinching support of his fellow soldiers to the right and left.

The cost of the war to America is well known. The tally of men and women lost has been carved into black marble on our national mall. The Vietnam War would cost Lyndon Johnson his optimism, his presidency, and most of his legacy. The lives of the war’s survivors, in many cases, were scarred deeply. Some of them were disabled by physical wounds. The health of others was weakened or destroyed by the impact of chemical poisons widely used, and too poorly understood, at the time. Dark memories have caused too many to remain silent about their experiences there, or have festered to overshadow futures, families, and lives.

But it is a mistake to think of Vietnam as some kind of hopeless lost cause. Albeit at a terrible cost, the United States let the Communist bloc know that they could not attack American allies with impunity—that at some point the forces of the “free world” would line up against them and fight. Those forces fought in Vietnam, and quite possibly that willingness to fight led the USSR to consider, very carefully, the impact of further aggressive actions in Europe and elsewhere in the world. During, and after, the Vietnam War, both the Soviet Union and China chose to accept the status quo rather than risk another military confrontation with the United States and its allies.

It is even possible that when the Berlin Wall came tumbling down in 1989, and the satellite subject governments of the Soviet Union toppled like—one has to say—“dominoes,” one of the causes of that collapse was America’s willingness to stand and fight in Vietnam. Perhaps that noble, if unsuccessful, struggle did have a significant impact on the course of world history through the rest of the 20th century, and beyond.

With the advantage of years, of historical perspective, and with a reflection on subsequent events far removed from Vietnam, perhaps the image of the war in America’s rearview mirror may become just a little brighter, and more clear.

ONE

FIRST TO FIGHT

OPERATION STARLITE AND THE UNITED STATES MARINES

We intend to convince the Communists that we cannot be defeated by force of arms or by superior power. They are not easily convinced.

PRESIDENT LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON, PRESS CONFERENCE, 28 JULY 1965

By the spring of 1965, the South Vietnamese Army—or the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN)—was so heavily engaged with the Viet Cong rebels of their own country, and with the invading North Vietnamese Army (NVA), also known as the People’s Army of Vietnam (PAVN), that the south was losing the equivalent of a battalion of soldiers every week. Often posted at remote bases and camps, surrounded by either unpopulated terrain or villages and hamlets sympathetic to the enemy, the ARVN units were often subject to violent, intense attacks. The Viet Cong had practically made an art form of laying and executing ambushes against relief columns that would invariably be dispatched to the threatened outposts along readily predictable routes.

At the time, American involvement in Vietnam was limited to a robust Special Forces presence, mainly through the United States Army’s legendary Green Berets. These skilled and independent-minded soldiers were advising and training the ARVN, and had established a number of camps throughout the country in an attempt to monitor much of South Vietnam’s rugged and roadless interior. But it was clear that Special Forces would not be enough to stem the tide of Communist North Vietnam’s aggression.

The senior American soldier in the country was General William Westmoreland, commander of the headquarters known as the Military Assistance Command—Vietnam (MACV). Recognizing that the situation was a true crisis, and that South Vietnam would fall sooner rather than later without significant American assistance, Westmoreland requested such support from President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Armed with the freedom to act granted to him by Congress in the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, which had been signed the previous summer following a minor clash between United States Navy destroyers and North Vietnamese torpedo boats, Johnson quickly agreed. Even as he made plans to organize and move to South Vietnam an army force of over 100,000 men, the president took immediate steps to deploy America’s most combat-ready military force: the United States Marines.

COMING ASHORE

By March, the 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment (3/9) had been aboard ships near the South Vietnamese coast for the previous two months; these would be the first Marines to land. Other units had completed training in Thailand, or would be moved from bases in Okinawa, Hawaii, and California. Before long, some 5,000 men of the USMC would be in position in country to protect the base at Da Nang, and to expand their missions as the war developed.

When the initial Marines rolled toward Red Beach at Da Nang, on March 8, 1965, they did so in a style that would have made their predecessors from World War II and Korea feel right at home: they deployed into landing craft and amphibious tractors from their sea transport ships, and rode right up onto the sand beach, a few miles south of the large airfield that would become the center of USMC presence in South Vietnam for the next eight years.

I Corps; USMC Operational Area

HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

Of course, what happened after the landing was a little less traditional. Instead of machine-gun and artillery fire, the Marines were met by a bevy of pretty young Vietnamese women who insisted on draping flowered leis over the necks of the sodden leathernecks as soon as they emerged from the surf. After this not-altogether-unpleasant welcome to the country, the Marines boarded trucks and rode to the Da Nang air base. Cheering Vietnamese civilians lined the road for much of the way, and a banner proclaiming “Vietnam Welcomes the United States Marines” swung above the gate as the vehicles rumbled onto the post that would become one of America’s primary bases for the rest of the war.

These Marines, the BLT 3/9 (battalion landing team, 3rd Battalion, 9th Marine Regiment), formed the vanguard of the unit that would initially be known as the 9th Marine Expeditionary Brigade (MEB) under Brigadier General Frederick Karch. A second formation, the 1/3 Marine battalion, flew into Da Nang from Okinawa. Although their arrival was a little more martial, in that snipers fired at the huge USAF C-130 transports that arrived at Da Nang every 30 minutes throughout the day, no hits were scored upon the transport planes.

On 9 March, 23 helicopters that would form the HMM-162 (Marine Medium Helicopter) squadron, took off from the carrier USS Princeton, which lay just over the horizon from the South Vietnamese coast. The choppers, which had been based in Vietnam for more than a year before a brief return to Okinawa, flew back to Da Nang to form the initial wave of USMC airpower in support of what would be a steadily increasing commitment of American strength.

Over the course of the next months following the initial landing at Da Nang, the Marine presence in country grew significantly. Fixed-wing aircraft of the VMA (Marine Attack Squadron) 311 and VMFA (Marine Fighter Attack Squadron) 542 arrived at the base. The Marine Expeditionary Brigade thus had the ability to support ground troops with helicopter transport as well as A4 and F4 ground-assault aircraft. In addition to the large base at Da Nang, a smaller air base near the city of Hue in the north of the country was fortified and expanded at Phu Bai, and a new base, with a quickly established airfield, was built south of Da Nang in Quang Tin province. This base, which was created in an area lacking an existing name, was located during a flyover by the Marine force commander, General Krulak. He called it “Chu Lai,” using the letters in the Mandarin alphabet for his initials.

By the middle of May 1965, the US had deployed seven of the nine battalions of the 3rd Marine Division to Vietnam. These Marines were supported by an artillery regiment, transport troop, and a number of air-support squadrons. Though most of this strength remained centered in Da Nang, which was subject to continued harassment by the Viet Cong, both the northern base at Phu Bai and the southern installation, Chu Lai, had significant garrisons and well-established defensive perimeters. As a capstone to the initial deployment—and at least in part because the term expeditionary invoked in the Vietnamese unpleasant memories of the war against the French—the name of the Marine Expeditionary Brigade was changed to the III Marine Amphibious Force.

FITTING INTO A COUNTRY, AND A WAR

Throughout May, June, and July of 1965, the Marines struggled to define their role in the fight against the Viet Cong. The country of South Vietnam was divided into four so-called Corps areas for command purposes, with the I Corps in the north and the IV in the far south. The Marines would operate in the I Corps area, which was composed of the five northernmost provinces of the country. Initially, however, their efforts were constrained to simply defending the three bases where their aircraft and artillery units were concentrated. Through negotiations with the ARVN, each base was surrounded by a very small TAOR (tactical area of responsibility) in which the Marines were allowed to patrol.

Naturally, this restricted activity did not sit well with the typically aggressive commanders up through the USMC hierarchy. On 4 June, as Major General Lewis W. Walt took over command of the III MAF, the ceremony transferring the unit had to be held indoors at Da Nang, because American colors were still not allowed to be flown outside, where it was feared they might offend the sensibilities of the South Vietnamese.

Already frustrated by the restrictions created by the limited TAORs of his units, Walt and the rest of the Marines were outraged by a highly publicized VC attack on the Da Nang air base on 1 July. The base was hit by a force of 85 enemy troops, combining a special operations company and a mortar unit. An advance demolitions team dug a tunnel under the base’s outer-perimeter barbed-wire barrier and then punched through the inner fence without being discovered, until a Marine sentry heard noise and launched an illumination grenade at 0130.

This signaled the attackers to spring into action. Sappers threw satchel charges at parked aircraft, destroying a fighter and two huge C-130s and damaging several other aircraft. The attackers fled, and few casualties were inflicted on either side, but the spectacular nature of the attack—and the wide publicity it received—convinced the Marines that they would need to leave their enclaves and carry the war to the enemy in order to prevent future attacks. General William Westmoreland, CO of MACV (Military Assistance Command—Vietnam) and the senior American officer in country, agreed, as did the ARVN commanders.

Almost immediately the Marines began to expand their TAOR, patrolling aggressively well beyond the perimeters of their bases. As patrols pushed into the jungle, however, the enemy simply seemed to melt away. Throughout July and into early August, numerous patrols swept through the enlarged TAORs, but no significant enemy presence could be located and brought to battle.

Meanwhile, on 28 July, President Johnson announced that the number of American troops in Vietnam would be rapidly increased—to a level of 125,000—and that General Westmoreland would be given greater flexibility in how those troops were employed. Still, the big question remained: How could you battle an enemy if you couldn’t find him?

FREED TO FIGHT

It was 6 August when General Walt was granted the authority to begin offensive operations. In the Chu Lai area, a strong Viet Cong presence identified as the 1st Viet Cong Regiment was suspected in the vicinity south of the base. A month earlier, this force had attacked a hamlet about 20 miles south of Chu Lai, inflicting more than a hundred casualties on the ARVN defenders and capturing two large howitzers, among other weaponry. For weeks, Marines and ARVN patrols had been searching for the headquarters of the regiment, known to be located near the Phuoc Thuan Peninsula. Those patrols turned up tantalizing clues, but no hard proof—until a solid breakthrough unexpectedly materialized.

The intelligence windfall came in the form of a VC deserter who turned himself in to the South Vietnamese Army on 15 August. He claimed that the 1st Viet Cong Regiment had established a powerful base in the Van Tuong complex of villages. The location lay only some 12 miles south of the brand-new Marine base at Chu Lai. According to the deserter, who was personally interviewed by the ARVN area commander, General Thi, the regiment intended to stage a massive attack on the USMC installation. When the general found the deserter’s tale credible, he reported the intelligence coup to General Walt.

Throughout July 1965, the intelligence branch, or S2, of the 3rd Marine Division had picked up background noise suggesting such an attack might be in the works. Thus far, however, the Marines had been unable to nail down a precise location for the VC regiment, which numbered some 1,500 experienced, motivated guerrilla fighters. Now the suspicions of attack had been confirmed, and the unit located.

General Walt decided to turn the tables on the VC, and so was born Operation Starlite, the first regimental-sized combat operation for the American military since the Korean War. (Initially termed Operation Satellite, the offensive was renamed after an electrical generator failed, and the clerk who was typing up the plan, working by candlelight, misread the term as Starlite.)

Operation Starlite followed an ambitious and somewhat complicated plan, especially considering that most of the young Marines would be new to combat, and that the battalion-sized offensive involved companies from no fewer than three different USMC regiments. On the other hand, the operation would benefit from the fact that the Marine units were bolstered by both officers and NCOs who had experienced jungle warfare in World War II, as well as some grueling fighting during the Korean War. Furthermore, the Marines were structured as a complete and independent fighting force, with their own air-transport and air-support elements, and benefited from a long history of cooperation with the United States Navy.

All of those elements would be employed as Operation Starlite was put into practice. The result would be a long day of battle, more days of mopping up, and a dramatic victory for the first large-unit American action of the Vietnam War.

With solid confirmation of the enemy’s whereabouts, the planning for the attack proceeded quickly. The 1/7 Marines and the HQ of the 7th Marine Regiment had arrived in Chu Lai only days earlier. Although the 1st Battalion was assigned to the defense of the base, the regimental command staff was given command of the operation against the Viet Cong regiment, which would involve overland maneuver, air transport, and a beach landing.

General Walt demanded that a ship-based landing team be in place to support the operation, and such a force, the 3/7 Marines, was available in Subic Bay, the Philippines. Those troops, transported aboard the helicopter carrier USS Iwo Jima, could arrive off the coast of South Vietnam by 18 August, so that day was designated as the start of the operation. Fortunately, additional naval transport was nearby, enough to ensure the lift of the 3/3 from Chu Lai to the landing beaches. By the morning of 17 August, the plan was ready to be put into effect. Colonel Oscar Peatross, CO of the 7th Marines, would be in tactical command of the operation.

STARLITE BEGINS

Company M of the 3/3 made the initial movement, riding LVTs (Landing Vehicle, Tracked) along the coast from Chu Lai to a beach a few miles north of the Phuoc Thuan Peninsula. Debarking from their landing craft, the Marines marched some four miles inland, much of the move occurring after dark on the 17th. Despite some fog and confusion in the forested, somewhat hilly terrain, the company achieved its blocking position north of the Tra Bong River before dawn of 18 August. Here they dug in and hunkered down; their mission was to prevent retreating VC from fleeing northward, away from the converging jaws of the main attack. Though the move was initially noted by enemy scouts, the Marines had been making these kinds of excursions for several weeks now, so none of the VC took the landing as the sign of any kind of imminent attack.

That unawareness vanished with the dawn as the rest of the 3/3 appeared in landing craft off the beaches south of the peninsula, and air and artillery bombardment commenced to soften up the three landing zones for the three companies of the 2/4 that would make up the third prong of the triangular offensive.

The transports carrying the amphibious force had sailed due east from Chu Lai on the 17th, crossing the horizon so that they were out of sight of land, before turning to the south and drawing close to the landing beaches. In addition to Colonel Peatross, the amphibious force included Companies K and I of the 3/3 and the battalion commander, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph Muir. Company L would follow close behind as the battalion reserve.

A civilian hamlet, An Cuong (1) lay adjacent to the landing beach, so in order to avoid civilian casualties the preliminary suppressing fire was limited to a series of strafing runs by the 20-mm cannon of Marine A-4 Skyhawks. (Another nearby village that would become involved in the battle soon was named An Cuong (2); these numerical designations were common in Vietnam, where several small clusters of huts would be separated by rice paddies or forest, yet together would be regarded as a single village.) Aside from a few snipers shooting from the trees, however, the landings proceeded very much as planned.

The first wave of Marine infantry rode inside massive 40-ton AmTrac amphibious landing vehicles. These behemoths, standing some 11 feet tall on dry land, rumbled from the surf and drove quickly across the sand to approach the tree line. Bow ramps dropped on each AmTrac, and the Marines—about 40 men per vehicle—came charging out to secure the beach. They quickly advanced through An Cuong (1), but found no signs of the enemy.

Meanwhile, churning shoreward behind the AmTracs came a series of landing craft carrying the Marines’ potent fighting vehicles. A massive LCT drew up onto the beach and disgorged five M48 main battle tanks, which at 50 tons would be the real heavyweights of this fight. Another brought up three M67 flame tanks in support, while still more delivered several of the unique Ontos recoilless rifle launchers. The latter looked strange but menacing, with a total of six long barrels, three to each side of the driver’s turret. At nine tons, they were smaller than the tanks, but faster and more maneuverable. They scuttled along the beach, past local fishermen who continued to go about their daily routines, launching their boats and putting out to sea against the backdrop of the Marine landing.

Quickly the landing companies formed up and moved off the beach, except for Company L, which proceeded to establish a perimeter around the beach area. Company I swept through An Cuong (1) without resistance and continued inland. Company K shrugged off sniper fire from the right flank and proceeded north along the coast for about 2,000 yards, until it approached the first obstacle: a small hill. Heavy gunfire, including automatic rifles and machine guns, erupted from VC units entrenched on the hill, lashing the Marine unit, forcing the men to dive for cover. Mortar rounds thudded into the soft ground, exploding in blossoms of dirt and sand.

Company L was ordered forward to support the attack on the hill. Offshore, USN combat ships, most notably the light cruiser USS Galveston, armed with batteries of six-inch guns, pounded the hill with a crushing barrage. Amid searing heat, the Marines pressed the advance, and as always the battle became a struggle between individual troops. Marines with bayonets fixed leaped into the trenches, killing Viet Cong but suffering a number of fatal casualties on the way. But the Marines didn’t falter, and by midafternoon they had reached the top of the hill and forced the enemy survivors to flee north.

The fighting raged with equal, perhaps even greater intensity on the third flank of the triangular battle. This part of Operation Starlite represented the first battalion-scale attack in USMC history in which all of the troops would be delivered to the battlefield by helicopter, and as it happened, the perils inherent in airmobile operation quickly became apparent.

The heliborne attack fell to the three rifle companies of the 2nd Battalion, 4th Marines. The men mounted bulky, green UH-34 helicopters at Chu Lai in the dawn mist, and flew at low altitude toward a series of three landing zones (LZ) that had been selected along the southwest boundary of the battlefield. These LZs were designated Red, White, and Blue, from the north to the south.

Fifteen minutes before the choppers arrived, big howitzers that had been moved into Company M’s position, at the northern terminus of the battlefield just beyond the Tra Bong River, erupted with a barrage of 155-mm shells, pummeling each of the three LZs with a punishing series of explosive ordnance. Nearly two dozen A4 and F4 ground-attack aircraft delivered 18 tons of high-explosive bombs and napalm onto the ground to further soften up the three sites.

Company G of the 2/4 came down on LZ Red, and seemed to have the easiest time of it. They encountered only sporadic resistance from snipers, and quickly cleared two hamlets very near to the LZ. Within a few hours the company had moved north to link up with Company M, thus sealing off the northwest arc of the concentric battlefield.

Company E was assigned to LZ White, the middle of the three zones. The Marines there immediately took fire from a strong VC force posted on a ridgeline overlooking the landing zone. Mortar and machine-gun fire showered the freshly landed Americans, and it took a determined bayonet attack driving up and over the ridge before the VC were forced out of their position. Within a few hours the landing area was secure, and Company E was able to move out before noon, advancing to the northeast in an attempt to link up with Company G to the north and further tighten the noose around the 1st VC Regiment.

ORDEAL OF COMPANY H

It was at LZ Blue, the objective of Company H under the command of First Lieutenant Homer Jenkins, that the first perilous setbacks occurred. Landing Zone Blue occupied about the seven o’clock position on the ring of the roughly circular attacking formation. The LZ itself lay under the shadow of Hill 43, just a couple of hundred yards to the east. The plan of advance had the company marching northeastward, where it would quickly encounter three small hamlets.

The first choppers swooped in and dropped off their Marines without incident, but by the time the second wave of helicopters approached, the VC had set up their fields of fire, and the enemy unleashed a murderous barrage from the top of the hill. As desperate pilots dropped to the ground and Marines sprinted out of the aircraft, Lieutenant Jenkins ordered his men to form a defensive perimeter around the LZ. At the same time, three well-armed US Army UH-1B Hueys arrived to deliver a series of withering bursts into the VC on the hill, pouring machine-gun and rocket fire from the sky to the ground.

Once Jenkins had all of his men assembled, he ordered one platoon to attack the hill, dispatching the other two toward the nearest hamlet, Nam Yen (3). Based on previous experience in the field, the officer not unreasonably expected the VC defenders to withdraw in the face of a Marine attack. What he did not realize, however, was that his LZ placed his company within rifle range of a VC battalion HQ; the enemy would not give up this position easily. Bullets hit home, dropping several men even before they had a chance to form up and move on the objectives.

Nevertheless, the double-pronged advance began immediately, spurred on by the nearness of the enemy firing positions. When the first Marines reached the base of the hill, however, they were driven to ground by a withering fusillade of small-arms and machine-gun fire—an outburst of firepower indicating a much larger defending force than the young lieutenant had imagined. At the same time, the platoons approaching Nam Yen (3) also encountered fierce opposition, as many of the innocent-looking huts were revealed to be fortified defensive positions; in several buildings, the walls flipped outward to reveal hidden machine-gun positions. Within minutes the lethal defensive fire halted progress against both objectives.

Reasoning that the elevation of the hill would provide the most advantageous position for his company, Jenkins determined to focus his strength against that objective. He recalled the two platoons from the fringe of the village and sent the full company against Hill 43. At the same time, he called for air support and reinforcements. Three battle tanks and three Ontos vehicles rumbled toward the hill from the beach at An Cuong (1), adding the tanks’ main guns and machine guns, and the 18 recoilless rifles on the Ontos, to the Marine firepower.

Several waves of ground-attack jets roared over the hilltop, dropping bombs into the thick tropical growth, smashing trees, tearing up huge chunks of dirt, and pummeling the entrenched VC. Huey gunships added their firepower to the ordnance pouring into the hilltop. Still, the defensive fire remained savage as Company H crept through the broken ground, directing rifle fire at one objective after another. Well-aimed grenades flew through the air, exploding in VC trenches. As the Marines swept past one well-concealed heavy-machine-gun position, they counted many enemy dead in the foxhole and throughout the surrounding jungle.

After a long, brutal struggle, Jenkins and Company H finally drove the enemy from the hill. The lieutenant ordered the airstrikes to shift onto Nam Yen (3) and, with only a few minutes to rest and rehydrate, the now-battle-tested Marines marched down from the hill and formed up to move on the hamlet. Immediately beyond the first hamlet, An Cuong (2) formed the company’s next objective. As his troops advanced, Jenkins received a radio message he interpreted to mean that both of the hamlets had been cleared by Marines of the 3/3 who had come over the beach.

Jenkins’s picture of the situation was to prove erroneous because he couldn’t know what was happening on the other side of the villages. Just east of An Cuong (2), Company I of the 3/3 had been driven to ground by the air attacks called in to support Jenkins’s attack on Nam Yen (3), suffering several men wounded by friendly shrapnel. Captain Bruce Webb, CO of I Company, identified enemy fire coming from his left flank. Though that area lay in the 2/4 area of responsibility, he received permission from Colonel Peatross to change the axis of his attack in an effort to clear the hamlets and relieve some of the pressure faced by H Company of 2/4.

RELIEF COLUMNS

Several more tanks, M48 Pattons, rumbled up to join Company I in the attack, but they quickly found themselves blocked by a deep ditch, impassable to the huge, tracked vehicles. Captain Webb assigned a squad led by Corporal Robert O’Malley to mount the hulls of the tanks and ride along as they sought a passage around the south end of the trenchlike obstacle.

They quickly found trouble when a blistering volume of automatic rifle fire opened up on the tank section and its accompanying infantry. One Marine was killed instantly, while the rest of the foot soldiers dived for shelter behind and around the armored behemoths. No sooner had his men hit the ground, however, than O’Malley led them into the attack. Accompanied by another NCO, Lance Corporal Chris Buchs, the squad leader jumped into the trench. The two men killed eight VC before they had to stop to reload their M14s.

The young corporal continued to press the advance, suffering three wounds even as he killed many more VC. By the time his squad had cleared the trench, the fight in the hamlet had also been resolved, but O’Malley refused evacuation until all of his wounded Marines could be airlifted out—no easy task, as the choppers performing the medical evacuations continued to take heavy fire. The last aircraft was so badly damaged that it crash-landed aboard the USS Iwo Jima. O’Malley survived the crash, however, and would become the first Marine to be awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for action in Vietnam.

As the fight in the trench raged, Company I advanced into An Cuong (2) without taking fire. Quickly the Marines began to spread out among the three dozen or so huts that made up the village. They were in the process of discovering trenches and fighting holes when a grenade tossed by a hidden VC flew into the midst of the company command group. The explosion killed Captain Webb and ignited a savage firefight. Enemy mortar shells exploded amid the advancing Marines as First Lieutenant Richard Purnell, company executive officer (XO), ordered all Company I platoons into the attack.

The VC ambush was lethal, but ultimately ineffective—perhaps because it had been sprung too late, after the Marines were already in the village. Small-arms fire and grenades from both sides chattered and banged as the men of I Company moved from hut to hut, killing more than 50 VC defenders before finally clearing the village of enemy troops. By around 1100, the hamlet was declared secure, and Purnell received orders to move Company I to the northeast, where it could join in securing the perimeter holding the retreating VC against the coast. That order was quickly modified, however, as a Huey gunship, disabled by enemy fire, crashed just northeast of An Cuong (2). Ordered to secure the crash site until survivors could be evacuated, Purnell detached two squads of riflemen and three tanks to guard the scene. The rest of I Company then moved out.

At the same time, Lieutenant Jenkins and H Company advanced from the crest of Hill 43, intending to move between the two hamlets and link up with the encircling Marines as they drove toward the sea. The company now had the added firepower of three Ontos and five tanks. However, under the impression that both hamlets had been cleared by Company I, the Marines marched into a deadly ambush. Machine guns and mortars opened up from the village, to the left and rear of the company. At the same time, another enemy strongpoint made itself known from atop Hill 30, a low elevation just to the northeast of both hamlets.

Finding themselves virtually surrounded by enemy guns, Jenkins’s men dived to the ground and took whatever shelter they could find in the open patch of rice paddies they had been traversing. The big armored vehicles roared and slipped in the muddy terrain, tracks spinning as they vainly sought to maneuver. The best they could do in the face of the barrage was to form a tight circle and add their firepower to the small arms of the Marines who struggled to set up a defensive perimeter.

Clearly, the battle was no longer going according to plan. The position of Company H was perilous and, ultimately, untenable. Jenkins decided to fall back to LZ Blue, where he and his men had arrived at the battlefield. He called in artillery fire against Nam Yen (2) while Marine ground-attack fighters directed bombs and cannon fire against Hill 30. Under cover of this pounding bombardment, the company began to inch its way back to the landing zone.

The dangerous maneuver was further complicated when a medical evacuation helicopter arrived, coming to rest in the middle of the ragged formation and separating Jenkins’s lead platoon from the rest of the company. That lone platoon quickly came under heavy VC fire. In perhaps the first lucky break of Company H’s day, though, the detached platoon encountered the Company I tanks and squads that had been assigned to protect the downed Huey gunship (which had been repaired and flown out under its own power). The ad hoc formation fought its way into An Cuong (2), where the Marines took advantage of the fortifications abandoned by the VC to establish a strong defensive position.

After a running fight, Jenkins and Company H arrived at LZ Blue at around 1630. The lieutenant had fewer than 30 able-bodied riflemen remaining in his command. He was ordered to form a defensive perimeter at the landing zone, and learned that a convoy of reinforcements had been dispatched from the landing beach to his position. However, like so many other aspects of this company’s battle, the relief did not materialize as planned—instead, the reinforcements were diverted to assist another beleaguered detachment that had found itself surrounded and very nearly cut to pieces.

SUPPLY CONVOY SIDETRACKED

Several hours earlier, around noon, a supply column consisting of five LVTs and three flame tanks, was dispatched to bring ammunition, water, and other essentials to Company I of the 3/3. At some point in the tangled network of trails and tracks that webbed around the multiple hamlets, the convoy made a wrong turn. With a tank in the lead, closely followed by an AmTrac, the rumbling formation found itself moving along a narrow trail with a rice paddy to one side and an impenetrable wall of foliage to the other.

With shocking suddenness, a barrage of grenade and recoilless rifle fire erupted against the vehicles. The convoy was attacked from both sides, and many of the vehicles suffered hits and damage. Backing into the hedgerow and thicket, the vehicles brought their weapons to bear across the rice paddy. Savage fire continued to erupt from all sides, and the Marines suffered numerous casualties. It quickly began to appear as if the whole detachment would be overrun. Unfortunately, the radio operator in one of the LVTs who was calling for help kept his microphone talk button depressed for a very long time, thwarting any and all attempts by HQ to get an exact fix on the besieged position.

The convoy CO, 1st Lieutenant Robert Cochran, did a remarkable job in organizing the lumbering vehicles into as much of a defensive position as possible, losing his life in the process. Staff Sergeant Jack Morino took over command, and held up the morale of the surrounded unit as the hours of daylight slipped away and it began to be clear that no relief would be forthcoming.

This was not for lack of effort, however. As Colonel Peatross, in the regimental CP (command post) followed the course of the battle, he feared that a major enemy counterattack was developing. This initiative suggested an enemy poised to drive a wedge between the supply convoy and the still-beleaguered Company H 2/4. (Peatross would later speculate that the ambushing VC force had been mustering to attack Company H, but that attack was disrupted by the inadvertent appearance of the supply convoy in the midst of the enemy position.)

Only one tank remained available for the relieving force, so the big M48 would take the lead of a new column that also included several Ontos and flame tanks. The weary neo-veterans of Company I, still under the command of 1st Lieutenant Purnell, had just returned to the regimental CP after their fierce fighting in the An Cuong (2) area. Since they had already fought through the terrain that the relief column would need to traverse, they were ordered back into the fray as the infantry component of the hastily assembled column.

A little after 1300, the file of armored vehicles, with Company I Marines riding atop the tank and Ontos, and inside the huge LVTs, moved out swiftly. Major Andrew Comer, executive officer of the 3/3 Battalion, commanded. Quickly traversing the coastal zone, the column rolled to the top of Hill 30 without notable opposition. As soon as the tank came over the crest, however, it took a hit from a recoilless rifle round and thudded to a stop. A fresh barrage of mortar and machine-gun fire lashed at the formation from both sides, almost immediately inflicting two dozen Marine casualties, including five dead. Airstrikes and artillery barrages in support of the column commenced almost immediately as Major Comer called in the support arms.

The pounding of guns, bombs, and rockets forced the VC to hunker down to a certain extent, but it did not eliminate the threat. Comer sent Company I forward to sweep through An Cuong (2), the hamlet where the company captain had perished just a few hours before. A detachment of riflemen, together with the disabled vehicles, remained behind to protect the wounded until choppers could arrive to evacuate them.

Entering the village again, initially finding only light opposition, the men of Company I encountered the two squads of their comrades who had been detached in the mission to protect the downed Huey. Those Marines were still accompanied by the platoon from H Company that had gotten separated during the withdrawal to LZ Blue. Comer sent the two squads of I Company back to Hill 30, the summit of which they reached after a stiff firefight; there they were evacuated with the wounded when the choppers began to arrive, while the separated platoon of H Company remained with the reinforcement column.

Operation Starlite Battle Map

HISTORY AND MUSEUMS DIVISION, UNITED STATES MARINE CORPS

COMMITTING THE RESERVE

Colonel Peatross’s reserve was the special landing force (SLF) consisting of the 3rd Battalion of the 7th Marines—the 7th representing the third of the three regiments contributing a company or two to Starlite. They remained aboard ships, including the LPH Iwo Jima, but had arrived off the coast during the morning hours. Late in the afternoon Peatross ordered Company L of the 3/7 into the battle. Helicopters carried the Marines directly to the regimental CP, which had been established about a half mile inland from the initial landing beach, at 1730. Company L, under the command of Captain Ronald Clark, immediately moved westward under orders to reinforce Major Comer’s column and to continue the search for the still-lost, still-surrounded supply column. The command staff scraped up two tanks to accompany the fresh company.

Once again the open rice paddies around An Cuong (2) proved lethal to the young Marines. Even before it reached the hamlet, while crossing those exposed agricultural flats, Company L felt the impact of enfilading machine-gun and mortar fire. The men took shelter as best as they could, firing back with everything they had. By nightfall, the Viet Cong began to pull back, but in the short, intense firefight the company had suffered 18 serious casualties, four of them fatal.

Still, the presence of the third company in the area where Company H and Company I had battled for so much of the day proved decisive. The VC pulled back everywhere they were engaged, and an uneasy silence settled over the battlefield. In the thicket next to the rice paddy where the battered supply convoy still sheltered, desultory attacks continued through the hours of darkness, but the enemy proved disinclined to make any serious offensive forays.

OVERNIGHT INTERVAL

The long night of 18/19 August was brightened by a steady series of star shells fired from the batteries aboard the Galveston. The illumination was comforting to the weary Marines, who settled in to eat cold C rations—including delicacies such as beans and wieners, meatballs and beans, and ham and lima beans—and to catch a few nervous hours of sleep. The day had been particularly difficult for Company I, 3/4, which sustained casualties amounting to 53 wounded and 14 killed—out of the 177 men who had come ashore Green Beach near An Cuong (1). Company H of the 2/4 had also been severely mauled. Fortunately for the survivors, enough fresh reserves were available in the SLF battalion that those two companies would not have to resume the attack on the 19th.

The helicopter squadrons, HMM-361 and HMM-261, had also taken a pounding during the long day of fighting. The former flew from Chu Lai, and while the latter was based at Da Nang, some 50 minutes flight north of Chu Lai, its aircraft made numerous sorties to the battlefield as well. Only one of the birds was destroyed during the day, but half of HMM-361’s UH-34 “Seahorses” were declared unflyable by nightfall. Virtually all of them had taken hits from enemy ground fire. The Marine Corps official history notes that the VC marksmanship was somewhat deficient, in that most of the hits scored on the Marine choppers struck the tail booms, not the crew compartments or engines. Even so, many pilots and crew members were hit, but the machines were manned by replacement volunteers and continued flying. After the introduction of the SLF, the ship-borne helicopters of HMM-163 joined in the fray. More than 500 helicopter sorties would eventually be flown during the course of Operation Starlite.

As the veterans of the first day’s battle rested and recovered, the two remaining companies of the SLF battalion arrived ashore. Company I, 3/7, reached the regimental headquarters by 1800 on the evening of the 18th, while Company M crossed the beach in the hours of darkness around midnight. By morning, these two fresh units were ready to join in the resumed offensive.

Two companies of the 3/7 were tasked with sweeping through the area of An Cuong (2) and relieving the supply convoy. The battered column had lost five of 23 men during the savage fighting of the previous afternoon, and only nine of the survivors remained fit for action when they were relieved. Still, they had survived a lethal, powerful ambush without being overrun. Some 60 VC bodies were discovered in the area of the convoy fight.

Shortly after rescuing the convoy survivors, the companies of the 3/7 joined the line with the remaining companies of the 3rd and 4th Battalions. Side by side, the Marine companies advanced northeastward, closing on the coast. Company M of the 3/3 remained in place, blocking any enemy withdrawal northward. The Viet Cong seemed to have vanished; at no point did they make a serious effort to stand and resist the American advance. Even so, the enemy remained dangerous; often individual or small groups of VC would appear from tunnels and other concealment after the Marines had passed, opening up on them from behind.

Nevertheless, by nightfall the Marines had swept all the way to the shore, even clearing the small Phuoc Thuan Peninsula jutting into the South China Sea. Suspecting that more enemy troops remained hidden, General Walt decided to keep his Marines in the field for five more days. Over that time numerous tunnels and fortified positions were destroyed by Marine engineers. Intelligence personnel determined that the hamlet of Van Tuong (1) had been the HQ of the 1st VC Regiment. Protected by an extensive ring of fortifications, and thoroughly booby-trapped with punji stick traps, the hamlet also contained communications equipment, supplies, and propaganda leaflets. It was determined that the regiment consisted of two battalions, the 60th and the 80th. The 60th VC Battalion had been within rifle range of LZ Blue, and had been virtually destroyed during the battle, while the 80th had been very badly damaged.

OPERATIONAL ASSESSMENT

Operation Starlite represented a significant success for the United States Marines. Naturally, a number of lessons were gleaned from the fighting, but the overall efficacy of helicopter transport combined with amphibious assault proved key to trapping an enemy force where it could be forced into battle. The price of victory was high: 45 Marines lost their lives in the battle, and more than 200 were wounded. In an enemy casualty ratio reminiscent of the USMC battles against the Japanese during World War II, the Viet Cong left 614 dead on the battlefield, while nine VC were taken prisoners.

One key to the Marine success was the flexibility allowed by the SLF battalion available offshore as a reinforcement. Colonel Peatross was able to bring the companies of the 3/7 into the battle quickly, deploying them exactly where and when they were needed. The first company was delivered to the shore by helicopter transport, and the other two came over the beach, one of them making a landing around midnight.

American firepower, both from the tubes of traditional artillery batteries and the crushing presence of airpower, proved its worth in this battle, and it would remain a key US advantage in virtually every subsequent battle of the war. Advanced control of both elements, with spotters located among the frontline troops and maintaining reliable, high-quality radio contact with their weapons to the rear, and in the air, allowed for an unprecedented level of accuracy. Additional spotters, both for artillery and airstrikes, observed the battlefield from helicopters, and could respond instantly to changes in the front lines below. The use of colored smoke, both to mark targets and to show the disposition of friendly forces, continually aided the delivery of explosive ordnance on target.

As a subset of this firepower advantage, American aircraft had advanced two weapons systems that had been tried in previous wars. Many of the helicopter gunships supporting the Marines (and, later, the Army) were equipped with rocket launchers, and could slam highly explosive rounds onto very precise targets. Also, the use of napalm—essentially jellied gasoline canisters that exploded into lethal, ground-cloaking infernos—proved to be a hellish, deadly weapon that would become greatly feared by the enemy.

The Vietnam War would be essentially an infantry war, but the presence of Marine Corps tanks at key locations proved decisive in Starlite. Armor would be used sparingly in this country with a very limited road net and highly rugged terrain off the beaten paths, but where it could be employed it would add another significant advantage to the American arsenal. Tanks and armored personnel carriers (APCs) would save a lot of lives, but they were not invulnerable. The Viet Cong and their regular-army allies in the North Vietnamese Army were well equipped with recoilless rifles, some up to a 75-mm bore, as well as handheld rocket launchers, and both of those weapons were capable of doing serious damage even to a main battle tank.

The inherent risks of airmobile tactics were revealed in the surprising proximity of the 60th VC Battalion to Landing Zone Blue. However, and despite the fact that helicopters make a lot of noise while they are approaching an LZ, the speedy insertion of airmobile troops generally gave an advantage of surprise to the attacker, since the soldiers could be dropped very suddenly into a position that the enemy, even when close, was not prepared to assault. Helicopters remained vulnerable to ground fire, and the Americans would lose a lot of them in this war, but the new generation of UH1 “Huey” choppers would prove to be exceptionally reliable and durable machines. Indeed, if there is an iconic image that remains in our memories of the Vietnam War, it is the picture of the redoubtable Huey helicopter.

The successful completion of the battle garnered a lot of positive publicity back in the United States. It was a clear-cut victory, and had been a large-unit action that involved spectacular uses of new technology and tactics. America’s South Vietnamese allies, however, displayed some signs of ruffled feathers since, with the exception of two generals, none of the ARVN forces had been informed of the plan for Starlite. This secrecy had helped to achieve the surprise necessary for the operation’s success, but in the future, international cooperation would require that more communication and shared planning take place between the two countries. Of course, all too often this communication would result in security failures and intelligence leaks, but it was a price that was necessary in coalition warfare.

The final lesson would be learned by the end of the year, a grim harbinger of the resiliency of this enemy, and an experience that would be repeated again and again throughout the war: despite the fact that it was surrounded and virtually annihilated during Operation Starlite, the 1st Viet Cong Regiment would be back.

TWO

AIR MOBILITY COMES OF AGE

THE IA DRANG CAMPAIGN AND THE 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION (AIRMOBILE)

The Ia Drang campaign was to the Vietnam War what the terrible Spanish Civil War of the 1930s was to World War II: a dress rehearsal.

LIEUTENANT GENERAL HAROLD MOORE (RET.), FROM THE PROLOGUE TO WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE . . . AND YOUNG (1992)

Even as the Marines prepared to move out against the Viet Cong irregulars in the I Corps area, the United States’ top military commanders were acknowledging that the mission to check Communist aggression in Southeast Asia would require a significant number of regular US Army units. Although untested in battle to this point, perhaps the most celebrated of those units was the division that had trained at Fort Benning, Georgia, in the use of helicopter operations.

Previously, rotary-wing aircraft had proven their use on the battlefield, at first as flying ambulances capable of moving casualties directly to the field hospitals and aid stations, then as stable platforms allowing aerial observation of the battle, and most recently as airborne attack elements, capable of firing machine guns and rockets directly into enemy positions. But helicopters were generally thought to be too slow and vulnerable to ground fire to be used practically on an active battlefield.

At least, that was the conventional wisdom, but it was not an opinion held universally. Early in 1963, at the behest of President Kennedy’s secretary of defense, former Ford Motor Company president Robert S. McNamara, the United States Army had commissioned a new test formation. Although it was really only the size of a brigade, it had been dubbed the 11th Air Assault Division, and it had been placed in the hands of several young, maverick Army officers who believed in the concept of air mobility. Major General Harry W. O. Kinnard—the most senior of those mavericks, and a sincere believer in the concept—was placed in command of the test formation, and given leave to choose his subordinate officers from throughout the ranks of the Army.

Of course, like any new and revolutionary concept, especially in an organization as tradition bound as the United States Army, air mobility was not without its detractors. Most of the senior brass were dead set against the idea. They had a number of logical reasons for this resistance, even above and beyond the very real fear that helicopters lacked sufficient armor and durability to survive on a modern battlefield.

In addition to institutional conservatism and genuine concern about survivability, other reasons existed to explain the regular-army resistance to a new doctrine of air mobility. One of these echoed the objections raised during World War II when the Army introduced the then-revolutionary idea of airborne, namely paratroop, formations: the new units smacked of elitism, and threatened to draw resources and exceptional soldiers from the ranks of the Army as a whole, thus diluting it. There was some justification for this: as it happened, the airmobile division would prove to be tremendously expensive, and quite naturally would consume a great deal of the Army’s helicopter resources.

A final reason went back to the age-old specter of interservice rivalry, most recently seen in the Key West Agreement of 1947, which attempted to clearly delineate the division of responsibilities between the good old United States Army and the very newfangled United States Air Force. Under that agreement, the Army was allowed to employ its own air units for reconnaissance and medical purposes, while all combat missions would fall under the purview of the Air Force. Most of the Army brass thought, not unreasonably, that the USAF would focus on strategic bombing and air superiority missions, giving short shrift to the transport and combat support of units engaged in ground combat.

However, with the full and enthusiastic support of a secretary of defense fully invested in the idea of air mobility, and fully committed to the use of combat helicopters by the United States Army, there was little to nothing that the forces of resistance in either branch of the service could do to stand in McNamara’s way. Hence, the “airmobile division” trained and developed doctrine at Fort Benning, and prepared to go to war. And the new Bell Iroquois UH-1, forever to be known as the Huey, would be the harbinger of a new generation of exceptionally capable, robust, and reliable helicopters.

The test division’s preparations included extensive planning in the areas of supply and logistics. Everyone acknowledged that the airmobile division would need a lot of helicopters, and that it would need an extensive support system to keep those aircraft maintained, repaired, and flyable. This would become a matter of ongoing tension throughout the war, a tension that the superior officers of the 11th Air Assault Division addressed by what they called the A-B-C maintenance concept. This concept decreed that the A level of maintenance would be handled integrally, at the battalion level, and would manage every aspect of support needed to return a helicopter to action within a four-hour window. The B level of maintenance was to be handled at the division level, and would address more serious issues that could nevertheless return an aircraft to service in a matter of a day or two. Only at the C level would the machine be removed from operations and transported to a depot for significant repair.

By the late summer of 1965, two airborne units—the Army’s 173rd Airborne Brigade and the 1st Brigade, 101st Airborne Division—were already in Vietnam. However, both of these units relied on helicopters only for transport. The men would be carried to a landing zone somewhere near the area of operations where they would debark and march like standard infantry as they conducted operations. General Kinnard and his subordinate unit commanders, including Lieutenant Colonel Harold Moore, who had been one of Kinnard’s original battalion commanders, had a much more aggressive plan for the use of helicopters in battle. By fall of 1965, they would get the chance to put those plans into action.

THE CENTRAL HIGHLANDS

The United States Marine Corps had responsibility for conducting the war in the northernmost area of South Vietnam, I Corps. As it encompassed the strategically important area around Saigon and the center of the country’s government, III Corps was also a significant tactical zone, and would get a lot of attention from the Army’s more traditional divisions and brigades. However, both General Westmoreland and the ARVN high command recognized the crucial significance of the II Corps area in between. The strategic heart of the II Corps area was known as the Central Highlands, and consisted of a rolling, heavily forested plateau that covered most of the ground between the Cambodian border and the coast.

At the west end of the Central Highlands rose the Chu Pong Massif, a sprawling mountainous region consisting of steep valleys, with some peaks towering more than two thousand feet above the plateau, and a rugged, roadless landscape that offered plenty of concealment to the Viet Cong, and to any infiltrating force of PAVN soldiers moving down the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos and Cambodia. By the summer of 1965, just such a force had arrived and begun to form a base in this most remote tangle of terrain.

In fact, a year earlier Hanoi had ordered a significant formation, the B3 Front, into the Highlands. Originally that force consisted of the 325th Division; when that division was broken up and dispatched to other parts of South Vietnam, the front commander, Major General Chu Huy Mân remained in the highlands, assembling a new force from units that continued to arrive between the end of 1964 and the summer of 1965. He had a number of potential targets for offensive, but his most ambitious objective was nothing short of a strike for the coast from his base in the Chu Pong Massif. If successful, his attack would cut South Vietnam in half, and seriously compromise the defense of the rest of the country.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "A Noble Cause"
by .
Copyright © 2015 Douglas Niles.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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