Abandoned in Hell : The Fight for Vietnam's Firebase Kate (9780698144262) (19 page)

Immediately after the strike, Air Force FAC Will Platt—Mike 82—swooped down in his Bird Dog to do a bomb damage assessment. “There was nothing left. Nothing moving. Nothing standing,” he recalls.

When the explosions stopped, I went outside. An enormous cloud of dust and smoke hovered over the ridge to our east. I was pretty sure that not many PAVN could have survived something like that.

Unless, as we would later learn, they had been warned. As early as
1967, Russian trawlers bristling with antennas had been spotted off the north end of Guam, exactly beneath the flight path of B-52s taking off from Anderson AFB and headed to Vietnam. Ditto for the waters near Kadena Air Base in Okinawa. In May of that same year, recently declassified documents revealed that US intelligence knew that the VC had some kind of early-warning system that broadcast alerts from twenty-four to four hours before B-52 strikes. The rest of the mystery was explained in 1985: Truong Nhu Tang, a French-educated lawyer who served as a high-ranking Viet Cong political functionary, published his memoirs, which includes this passage: “B-52s flying out of Okinawa and Guam would be picked up by Soviet intelligence trawlers plying the South China Sea [
sic
]. Their headings and air speed would be computed and relayed to COSVN headquarters (Communist headquarter in South Vietnam), which would then order NLF (National Liberation Front) or Northern elements in the anticipated target zones to move away perpendicularly to the attack trajectory. Flights originating from the Thai bases were monitored both on radar and visually by our intelligence nets there, and the information similarly relayed.”

So it was that ten minutes after the devastation of that B-52 strike, the shit storm battering Kate resumed: rockets, mortars, recoilless rifles, and small-arms fire smashed Kate from every direction. Our last functioning howitzer, the 105, took its second direct hit from a recoilless rifle and was finally knocked out.

A little later, as I made the rounds of the perimeter with Ross, we took advantage of a lull in the action to chat about personal things. He was from a small town in Wisconsin, I grew up less than 150 miles away, in neighboring Illinois; our backgrounds were similar, although he had been to college and was a bit older.

During our conversation, I noticed that he wore a wedding band, so I asked about his wife. Ross replied that he was due to meet her and their newborn son, John—a child that he had never seen—in Hawaii when he went on R&R.

Ron continued to talk about his son, and how proud he was to be a father, about how he could not wait to hold the infant, about his hopes and dreams for his little family's future.

Then the shooting resumed. In a moment we were pinned down on the northwest side of the perimeter. We were safe for the moment, but I couldn't run the show from there.

When things slowed down, around 1120, and after a few minutes with only occasional incoming, I decided that we had to risk moving. We were high on the military crest; as soon as we stood and moved to the top, we'd be silhouetted against the sky.

I pointed out the sandbagged command bunker and told Ross that was where we were headed. I described its L-shaped entrance and blast wall in front to protect it from the near misses of flying explosives. I told Ross, “We're going to run to that bunker. When you get there, enter from
that
side.”

Ross nodded his head to show that he understood.

“There is no point in giving them two targets,” I continued. “I'll go first.
Let me get to cover behind the blast wall
before you follow
. Understand? Got it?”

Ross nodded again. “I've got it.”

It was fifty or sixty feet to the bunker, the first part uphill, but altogether no more than a four-second sprint. I took off, running as fast as I could. The enemy was only about 125 meters away on the opposite hillside; when I was about halfway to the bunker, I heard Ross's footsteps behind me, a few steps back and closing. Then I saw the rocket. Time seemed to slow down as I heard the B-40's distinctive scream. From the corner of my eye, I saw its fiery red tail heading right at me. I hit the entrance behind the blast wall and the exploding warhead's shock wave blew me inside the bunker to safety.

Behind me, Ross lay crumpled in the doorway. One more step, and he would be telling this story. Instead, a jagged hole in his neck pulsed a fountain of blood. I slapped my hand over the wound. Someone from inside the bunker moved up behind me to help—I have no earthly idea who that was—but despite my hand clamped over his throat, Ross was still squirting blood. In half a minute, the fountain slowed to a trickle. Deathly pale, Ross was not breathing, and I realized that he would never see his new son.

I had told him to wait until I was in the bunker.

He said that he understood.

Why the hell didn't he wait?

I felt rotten. Empty. I needed time to come to terms with his death—but I didn't have even a few minutes. I tucked the thought away and returned to the urgent work of getting more air support and preparing for yet another ground attack.

An hour later, as I zipped Ross into a body bag, I noticed that he'd neglected to button the top of his flak vest, leaving his throat exposed. Had it been closed, would that few inches of layered Kevlar have saved him? It's very hard to
know.

You may talk o' gin an' beer

When you're quartered safe out 'ere,

An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it;

But if it comes to slaughter

You will do your work on water,

An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it.

—Rudyard Kipling, “Gunga Din”

W
e needed more men to plug the gaps in our perimeter. We needed ammunition. I needed to lie down and sleep for a week. I needed a cold beer. Most of all, we needed water. By the afternoon of October 31, we were out. Every canteen was dry. Even the canteens of the dead had been drained. Forty-eight hours of fighting under the sun and moon, and no water since the previous night. I was learning the hard way that when you're out of water, when you can no longer sweat, when peeing is out of the question because there's no fluid left in your kidneys, when you grow lethargic and there's nothing left in your body core to draw energy from, when even standing up and walking around is hard—then you're literally starting to die from dehydration. The only thing that you can think about is water.
God, I wish I had some water.
And this was where I was, and where pretty much everyone on Kate was.

I had been on the radio asking for water several times, and none came. I had prayed for rain. Yes, prayed to God to send us water. It was that horrible.

You don't forget that kind of thirst. It's been more than forty-six years, and I haven't.

I radioed yet again, and told Bu Prang that we
must
have some water.

Staff Sergeant DeNote, the communications honcho for Team A-236 and my constant companion over the FM radio lifeline, told me not to worry.

Late in the afternoon, low on the horizon to the west, I saw two Chinooks, call sign “Freight Train,” escorted by a couple of Falcon gunships. A pair of Cobra gunships, call sign “Undertaker,” were already on station, and they gave the ridge and hillside a good going-over; the first drop was completed without incident.

Warrant Officer Les Davison was ramrodding the Falcon gunship team: “When we arrived, two Undertaker Cobras happened to be on station, and together we covered the first CH-47 in and out without incident. But that had expended the Snakes [ammunition], and our two Charlies just couldn't put out enough firepower to cover the second Hook as well. He made it out OK—but not without taking several hits. The area was definitely HOT!”

The first load was our water.

The second was our ammunition. As the Chinook closed on us, it was taking heavy ground fire from several directions. The Falcon gunships deployed on either side of Kate, moving around and firing at what I can only describe as a highly target-rich environment. It didn't seem to help much—there were just too damn many enemy guns. As the Chinook approached, it descended until it was perhaps fifty feet above Kate's summit, closing on our south end doing maybe thirty-five or forty knots. The pilot released his load and the Chinook leapt into the air, turning left as it clawed for altitude.

The big rope basket with our ammo dropped a few meters short of our foxholes. It tumbled down the slope, crashed through the treetops, and then disappeared into the jungle below.

It took me a few seconds to realize that I had might have witnessed the first successful PAVN aerial resupply of the war. Down in the jungle, the boys in pith helmets would soon be celebrating. There was nothing to do but hope that we could hold off another ground attack until we could get
more ammo. Until then we would have to make do with what little we had. And then I realized that we might yet see some of our lost ammo, but not until the neighbors fired it at us.

At least we had water. Four hundred gallons in an M-149 water trailer, the venerable steel “Buffalo.” Five thousand pounds of water and trailer, dropped from twenty feet off the deck, the impact breaking two wheels and both axles.

But the tank held.

Water! Safely on Kate, and ours for the taking.

Oh, shit.

Dozens of strikers left their holes and rushed the trailer. Ran for their water. Ran for their lives. Danny and I ran after them, screaming at them to stay away, dragging them away from the trailer, throwing them back, trying to stop the riot. Too late: Attracted by the crowd, the nasty neighbors began walking their mortars the length of Kate. Mortar bombs exploded all around the trailer.
Mirabile dictu,
by God's grace, no shard of shrapnel pierced that rotund steel trailer. Our precious and holy water was saved.

Not so my strikers, several of whom were hit, a few seriously. Also hit was Sergeant Mike Caldwell, a tall, thin, bespectacled 22-year-old draftee from West Sacramento, California, universally known as “Red” for his flaming red hair and freckles. When the first mortars landed, Koon and Tiranti jumped into his sandbagged hooch. “We sat down on a cot, me and Bernie on either side of Red, and then a mortar round landed right inside the doorway,” recalls Koon.

“We were getting hit pretty hard, and I had just put both hands over my helmet,” Caldwell recalls. His forearms were peppered with shrapnel; he bled profusely. Koon was unhurt. And for the second time in three days, Tiranti was miraculously unscathed.

Meanwhile, Danny and I drove the thirsty strikers back to their holes. Then we dragged or carried the wounded to our makeshift aid station. When everyone had calmed down, we had an orderly distribution of water, one man from a squad at a time.

•   •   •

AT
1520 that day, while I was in my bunker talking to Major Lattin on the radio, I heard a door slam. And then two more, one after the other.

There were no doors on Kate.

A series of tremendous explosions rocked the hilltop—large-caliber artillery shells landing nearby. The earth shook as several rounds slammed right into Kate. A few bunkers partially caved in. One round landed near the corner of the FDC. Three feet closer and it would have blown the roof off.

When the explosions stopped, I popped out of my hole. Kate was high enough that we could see the muzzle flash of big guns firing from a few miles to the northwest.

I got back in my hole just before the shell buried itself in Kate's side and the hilltop rocked from the impact. Evidently, PAVN had obtained conventional artillery pieces—perhaps they had taken a few of their big guns apart and hauled them piecemeal down the Ho Chi Minh Trail, then reassembled them at Cambodian Army Camp La Rolland, a base used, I am told, to train PAVN replacements. Or maybe they'd captured some ARVN 105s.

“The North Vietnamese had 130 mm guns and 105 mm howitzers, probably captured from the French,” explains Reg Brockwell. “So they had the same artillery capacity as we did—except that we operated under rules of engagement that said we couldn't attack [across the Cambodian border] unless it was under exceptional conditions.”

The PAVN respected no rules of engagement.

It made no difference where they came from or if it was 105 mm or bigger. Another round landed near Kate. Another. Two more, almost together.

If this didn't stop soon, we would all die. Our defenses simply could not take a direct hit from that kind of artillery and survive. I called—screamed, actually—for Major Lattin to call in the fast movers to silence those guns.

He flew northwest, circling low over the Vietnam side of the international border. After a few minutes, he called back.

“Can't do it, Hawk,” he said. “They're on the other side of the fence.”

I got back on the radio and told Lattin in no uncertain words that I didn't care where they were. I wanted them hit.

“The only way I can do that is if the ground commander declares a tactical emergency.”

No sooner had these words caressed my ears than I said, “I declare a tactical emergency,” in the same tone of voice that I might have used to order a cold Tiger Beer at the officers' club.

“Roger,” returned Lattin. The next thing I knew, the fast movers were screaming eastward to bomb the bollocks out of Camp La Rolland. A week later there was a blurb in
Newsweek
to the effect that US Air Force planes had bombed a neutral Cambodian Army base. John Kerry mentioned it in his Winter Soldier rants. So let me set the record straight for all time: That was me.
I
did that. If I hadn't, my bones, and those of everyone else on Kate, would probably be rotting in the bottom of a big ravine below Kate's ghost.

The cross-border strike triggered formal protests of outrage from Phnom Penh and all the rest of that bull. I still chuckle when I realize that my name was probably on President Nixon's desk the next morning, the rogue officer who had created an international incident by directing a “neutral” country to be bombed.

But as soon as that heavy incoming artillery was stopped, PAVN attacked from four sides, hundreds of enemy soldiers running, walking, or crawling up at us, firing. Thanks to Major Lattin and the fast movers he brought in, we held our hilltop. A little later, however, when I got the casualty reports and ammo status, it was clear that we were losing this battle. The next time PAVN attacked in force might be the last.

Later, as I did every night, I radioed a casualty report to Rocco at Bu Prang. When I had concluded, Rocco asked if that was it.

“One more thing,” I said, thinking about the big bag of M&M's peanut candy that I had stashed in my rucksack. Shrapnel from the PAVN artillery had holed my rucksack and pierced the half-empty bag.

“I took a direct hit in my M&M's,” I added, going for the laugh.

“Do you want a medevac?” he replied, concern in his voice.

“Nope. That's it,” I said, and signed off.

Not until days later did I learn that Rocco, and the rest of our team at Bu Prang, had mistakenly understood my reference to M&M's as code for testicles.

•   •   •

BETWIXT
and between all my other chores, I'd been back and forth to Bu Prang on the radio and, reading between the lines, I was given to understand that there would be no help coming from the 23rd ARVN or the US 4th. The former, I am now certain, because I challenge anyone to show me ten ARVN officers who would have given a rabid rodent's rectum for the life of one Montagnard, let alone a hundred or so who knew how to fight and didn't much care for their kind either. The latter, I am now equally certain, because the Pentagon was crooning “Vietnamization,” music by Richard M. Nixon, lyrics by Department of the Army, arrangement by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam.

In plain English, the Fifth Special Forces request for assistance from the ARVN high command had been met with stony indifference. The ARVN would never say no to an American general, but they had a dozen ways to avoid saying yes: They would “study the request.” Or “seriously consider it.” They would “explore the ramifications.” They would try to “reorder their priorities.” They would apologize for communications difficulties.

What they wouldn't do was fight for us.

On the other side of the table, US commanders were under strict orders to implement Vietnamization. Most of the warm bodies on Kate—and most of the cold, stiff ones in body bags stacked like cordwood on our landing pad—were South Vietnamese Montagnards, members of the CIDG, whose chain of command ran through the ARVN Special Forces. Recall that the yellow-and-red South Vietnamese flag flew over Camp Bu Prang, as it did over all Special Forces camps in Vietnam. Note also that there was not then, nor had there ever been, so much as a single ARVN soldier on Kate. Nevertheless, whoever was running the US Army in our part of Vietnam would not allow his subordinates to commit troops to a rescue, since relieving Kate's garrison was to him so obviously an ARVN responsibility.

Bottom line: If we could hold Kate, fine. If the ARVN 23rd's
commanding general changed his mind and sent some of his precious troops to help us, woo-hoo! Another win for Vietnamization!

And if not—them's the breaks. Shit happens. It's a war, y'know.

We were pawns in a political poker game in which neither side would call the other's bet.

So we'd been written off. Sacrificed for the greater good of forcing the Saigon regime to take responsibility for its own war. By then, almost 47,000 American soldiers had died in Vietnam. What were a couple dozen more corpses if it would speed the day when Nixon could declare victory, bring all Americans home, and win a second term?

All that aside, I didn't believe for a minute that my Special Forces brothers would abandon me and Pierelli, along with more than a hundred Montagnard strikers, and of course all the artillery boys, if there was anything at all that could be done.

•   •   •

KATE'S
perilous situation was not unique. By this time, the IFFV Artillery commander's pipe dream that small hilltop firebases along the Cambodian border would protect Special Forces camps at Duc Lap and Bu Prang had become a catastrophic nightmare. Duc Lap's Firebase Helen was the first to fall. “It was overrun on October 28th,” recalls Reg Brockwell. “There were quite a few causalities, and [PAVN] then made it their own firebase.”

Nearby to Helen was Firebase Martha, evacuated the next day, the day that Kate had first come under attack. Despite those defeats, and what was all too apparent at Kate, no senior IFFV artillery officer was disciplined or relieved of command for sticking indefensible firebases on PAVN's doorstep.

Describing these tragedies in the February 1970 edition of the IFFV troop magazine,
The Typhoon
, Colonel Francis Bowers, commander of the Provisional Artillery Group, would say that “the important thing is that the artillerymen on those three [firebases] had already
done their job of supporting the troops
[emphasis added]. There wasn't any need for them any longer on the hills. The operation on the ground were completed. And these firebases would have been evacuated soon anyway. They were sitting ducks.”

All credit to Colonel Bowers for the sitting-duck metaphor. As far as
I have been able to tell, however, Kate's artillery hadn't supported any ground troops except themselves. Kate was emplaced to support Bu Prang, but never got the chance to do so. While I hate to disagree with a colonel, the balance of Bowers's statement in
The Typhoon
was equine road apples: