It began almost by accident. It was early May of 1966 when patrols of South Vietnamese Civilian Defense Groups (CIDG), led by American Special Forces advisors, found themselves encountering unusually large formations of enemy soldiers flooding into their area of operations in the Vinh Thanh Valley. Enemy documents captured by the American Led CIDG indicated that several main-force NVA units were converging in the valley for a possible attack on the local Special Forces Camp. The enemy forces gathering in the valley were apparently survivors of Air Cav Operation Masher/Whitewing back during the first part of the year and most recently Operation Davy Crockett.
The NVA’s plan was to marshal their forces, lick their wounds, and attack the lightly defended Special Forces Camp, which they figured would be easy pickings. A quick victory would be a good morale booster for the enemy soldiers who had been suffering defeat after defeat in their recent encounters with the troopers of the 1st Air Cav.
On May 15 1966, the 1st Cavalry Division was winding down Operation Davy Crockett. That same day a (CIDG) patrol from the Vinh Thanh Special Forces Camp, working the mountain valley immediately to the east, ambushed an enemy force and captured a mortar sight, 120-mm firing tables and a gunner’s quadrant, plus some sketches of the CIDG camp and the hamlets in the valley. The “All The Way Brigade” of the 1st Air Cav was alerted for deployment into the valley. One company of the brigade air assaulted into the hills east of the CIDG camp on the morning of the 16th to search out the area.
“We got the word at first light on the morning of the 16th,” recalls David Frantz, a rifleman and platoon pointman with the 1st platoon of Company B, 2nd Battalion (Airborne) 8th Cavalry. We would be moving from our base camp at An Khe to the Vinh Thanh Valley for a few days of easy patrolling. It was to be a shake down cruise for our newly arrived company commander and 1st Sergeant. It was no big deal. It was what soldiers, for a thousand years have called, a walk in the sun”.
Just before noon on the day of May 16, B Company, led by its new Company Commander, Captain John D. Coleman, air assaulted into a landing zone named Hereford, a small patch of elephant grass about halfway up the side of the largest mountain east of the CIDG camp. Coleman, although newly appointed to the command of Bravo Company, was certainly no stranger to the rigors of war. In Korea a dozen years earlier, he had participated in two combat jumps, serving as a squad leader in the famed 187th Airborne. The troopers of B Company were accompanied by a forward observation team from the supporting artillery which was located adjacent to the camp and SFC Thomas H. Welsh Operations & Intelligence NCO for the Vinh Thanh Special Forces Camp, his CIDG counterpart, and a Vietnamese interpreter.
John DeFazio, a 19 year old rifleman with the 1st platoon recalls, “We landed without incident and set up a defensive perimeter and took a break for lunch of cold C-rations. After our meal we began our climb to the ridgeline of the mountain, the company began moving eastward along the razorback. At approximately 1400 hours, after having just crossed a slight rise in terrain, the Third platoon encountered an enemy soldier and opened fire. The enemy immediately returned fire from prepared positions to the east of our advance”. At this point recalls DeFazio “all hell broke loose”.
The Third platoon leader Lieutenant Heaney radioed Captain Coleman that he had encountered stiff opposition and was ordering a squad to begin a maneuver around to his left. This flanking action by the squad met with a ferocious counter-attack by a large enemy force. The American squad fought bravely but was overrun. All but one man was killed. The lone survivor, badly wounded, feigned death and made it back to the safety of the B Company position.
The volume of enemy fire to the immediate front of the Third Platoon intensified to the point that communications became almost impossible. Lieutenant Heaney continued to try to gain the initiative in his sector, but each move cost him casualties and failed to diminish the enemy fire. Then the enemy began thrusting at the flanks of the company column. One enemy automatic rifleman penetrated to within 15 feet of the company command post, located immediately behind the Third Platoon, killing the forward observer’s radio operator and wounding two others of the group before a grenade from a rifleman of the Second Platoon killed him.
Coleman deployed the Second Platoon to both flanks of the company, linking with the now recoiling elements of the Third. One squad, moving to the right, ran into a hail of automatic weapons fire and took several casualties. The squad counter attacked twice trying to reach its dead, but was beaten back into a position that eventually became part of the company’s perimeter. Later that afternoon the weather closed in and a torrential downpour drenched the battlefield. The jungle canopy admitted limited light at best as an eerie twilight engulfed the battlefield. The heavy rains eliminated the hope of reinforcements for the surrounded paratroopers. The number of casualties taken by the company, plus the violence of the enemy assaults, led Coleman to decide to abandon efforts to regain the offensive, and concentrate on forming a defensible position on the small patch of rain soaked high ground the company held.
The First Platoon, next in column, was deployed to the right and rear, assuming control of one squad of the second. The Weapons Platoon was assigned to fill the remaining gap. The Weapons Platoon, fighting as riflemen, had barely closed into the perimeter and established some semblance of fighting positions across the trail leading into the position, when the enemy launched a determined attack from the west. It was beaten off, but it served notice to the company that it was cut off and facing an enemy force of much greater strength. “By this time” recalls DeFazio “There was no question that we were engaged with a significant enemy force. Although we had been taken off guard and the first moments of the fight were confusing, order and discipline was soon established as we started to return fire into the enemy positions. I recall one of our senior NCOs, Staff Sergeant Henry Roach, crawling from position to position under intense enemy fire reassuring us that we were going to be alright and offering us encouragement as he set up fields of fire into the enemy positions. His calm and cool leadership under fire made all the difference to us on the line and under his guidance we were all soon effectively returning fire into the enemy positions. Thank God for brave men like Henry Roach”.
By 1630 hours, Bravo had tightened its perimeter and conducted two probes to the east to recover wounded and dead. The wounded were collected at a central location in the perimeter and the unit medics consolidated to treat them. As the troopers recovered their casualties they noticed numerous enemy dead in and around their perimeter all of which were clad in khaki uniforms and wore the traditional helmets associated with North Vietnamese regulars.
The enemy force sensing that it had trapped the Americans began pressing attacks at various portions of the perimeter, preceding each with a heavy concentration of rockets and grenade launcher fire. Each attack was beat off, but at a cost of dead and wounded that was beginning to sap the vitality of the company. The heavy rains continued unabated during the early evening because of the steep terrain conventional artillery was unable to place their volleys near enough to the perimeter to be effective in the close-in fighting. Under the severe weather conditions, the aerial rocket artillery, the usual savior of an isolated airmobile element, could not be expected to function. However, two birds from the 2d Battalion, 20th Artillery (the battalion commander and his XO volunteered for the mission) felt their way up the side of the mountain and, guided by radio, pressed home salvo after salvo of rockets, some within a few feet of the company’s perimeter. One last volley, in conjunction with a violent exchange of small arms and automatic weapons fire, ended the enemy threat for the night.
The attacks diminished in strength and intensity and by 2000 hours, all contact was broken. With more than 40 wounded men, along with nearly 20 killed, Coleman had little choice but to remain in position and await reinforcements which had been landed at landing zone Hereford during a brief period when the weather broke. The men of Bravo used the lull to continue digging in. By this time most of the medics had been wounded but despite their injuries crawled from position to position providing aid to their wounded comrades. Even though the company was badly mauled, their morale was high and fighting spirit undiminished. Many of the paratroopers cursed the enemy as they vowed to stand and die for that piece of ground.
At a few minutes after 2200 hours, Bravo with less than 45 combat effective troopers manning the perimeter was reinforced by some 130 men of Company A, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 12th Cavalry. Alpha, commanded by Captain John W. Cummings, which had air assaulted into landing zone Hereford and marched without opposition to the perimeter. To facilitate relief in the pitch blackness, elements of the relieving company were fed into the line and integrated into the overall defense. There in the darkness the men of Bravo Company 2/8 (ABN) and Alpha Company 1/12 (ABN) hunkered down in their holes and awaited the next NVA onslaught.
John DeFazio remembers, “The NVA continually probed and attacked our positions throughout the night. At one point they attacked our position with grenades and rockets and I recall seeing a bright flash of an explosion before actually hearing it. As I hugged the ground I felt a hot burning sensation along the right side of my body as grenade fragments impacted along my torso, a sergeant next to me was seriously wounded and I helped put a tourniquet on his bleeding leg and called for a medic. Within a few minutes a medic crawled to our position and gave a shot of morphine to the badly wounded sergeant. I remember him saying that these mothers weren’t going to take him out because he had too much to live for. That young sergeant, who had so much to live for, bled to death sometime during the night”.
On 17 May, at 0615 hours, Bravo pulled in its listening posts, which were positioned some 25 meters outside the perimeter, then two companies initiated a “mad minute of M-16, machine gun and M-79 fire to the front of their positions. This firing touched off an immediate enemy response as they launched a coordinated attack on all sectors of the paratrooper's defensive perimeter, initiating the assault with an intense rocket and grenade barrage. The volume of the incoming enemy fire indicated an attack by a battalion-sized unit. Despite being greatly outnumbered and surrounded, the paratroopers tore gaping holes in the attacking enemy formations.
Both companies fought bravely side-by-side for nearly two hours. Enemy riflemen came within a few feet of foxhole positions before being killed, and the ammunition in the perimeter began running alarmingly low. The approach of another relief company—Company C, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry—moving up from Hereford, apparently caused the enemy to break contact. As the enemy soldiers faded back into the jungle, the men along the perimeter already had fixed their bayonets and had loaded their last magazines into their rifles.
Charlie Co 1/12 Airborne
advances to Hereford
RTO Bill Martin
cleans his M-16
