Crazy Horse Introduction

To Yearn a Bit

Across the fields of yesterday
They sometimes come to me,
Young men, hard at war;
The boys they used to be.
In my mind, I see their faces
As the memories begin.
I wonder of the men they became,
And of all the might have beens.
Through the years much has passed,
And surely I've grown older.
Yet, I sometimes pause to yearn a bit,
To be once more a soldier.

By Garry Bowles
A Company, 2nd Battalion,
8th Cavalry (Airborne) 1965-1966

Introduction

The paratroopers of the 1st Airborne Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) who landed on the shores of the Republic of South Vietnam on September 21, 1965 were a unique and special group of men. A great majority of the senior noncommissioned officers (NCO’s) and officers were veterans of WWII and Korea. Ranger tabs, Pathfinder patches and Recondo brands were common amongst the cadre. Every man of the brigade proudly wore the silver wings of a paratrooper on his left breast.

Jumping Mustangs of the All The Way Brigade land at Qui Nhon

These men were the direct descendants of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test). The 11th Air Assault was formed in 1963 to develop and prove the army’s new “Doctrine of Airmobility”. The 11th was manned by veteran paratroopers from the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions, Special Forces and other specialized army units. They were picked men. As Sergeant Art Miller of A Company 1/511th Airborne Infantry recalls. “The air assault training was tough and exhausting. Having come from the 101st Airborne I was used to the demands of airborne training but in the 11th Air Assault the tempo and sense of urgency was much more intense. On July 3, 1965, during a ceremony at Ft. Benning’s Doughboy Stadium our training officially came to an end. The mission of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) was successfully completed. We furled and cased the colors of the 11th Air Assault and became the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). My battalion the 1st /511th Airborne Infantry became the 2nd Battalion (Airborne) 8th Cavalry commanded by Ltc. James Nix. The other paratrooper battalions, the 1/188th Airborne Infantry became the 1st Battalion (Airborne) 8th Cavalry commanded by Ltc. Ken Mertel and the 1/87th Airborne Infantry became the 1st Battalion (Airborne) 12th Cavalry commanded by Ltc. Robert M. Shoemaker. Our fire support came from the 6/81st Artillery and was designated the 2/19th Airborne Artillery commanded by Ltc. Francis J. Bush .The newly formed “All the Way Brigade” was commanded by Colonel Elvy B. Roberts. All of us in the new Air Cav had a pretty good idea where we were headed and it became official on July 28, 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson announced during a press conference that he was sending the Airmobile Division to Vietnam. We were bound for war!”


A Co 1/511th Airborne Infantry of The 11th Air Assault Division	President Johnson

The man the army selected to command this unique unit was a small, tough paratrooper general by the name of Harry W.O. Kinnard. As a young officer Kinnard served with the 101st Airborne in World War II. It was during the “Battle of The Bulge” in December of 1944 that the young Colonel’s legend was born. It happened when the Germans demanded the surrender of the encircled paratroopers at Bastogne. Brigadier General McAullife, the 101st commander, asked his staff for suggestions on an appropriate response to the Germans request. Kinnard’s immediate response was “nuts, tell them nuts”. General McAullife then penned a single word reply to be delivered to the Germans. It read simply “Nuts”. The rest is history.

Twenty years later it was Major General Harry W.O. Kinnard who led the 1st Cavalry Division (Air Mobile) ashore at Qui Nhon, South Vietnam. The Division that arrived in Vietnam in the fall of 1965 was the most mobile force in the history of warfare, with more than 400 helicopters capable of air lifting an entire infantry brigade into combat. While designed primarily as light infantry, the division could deliver massive firepower with its artillery, aerial rocket artillery and helicopter gun ships.

Major General Harry W.O. Kinnard

It was Major General James Gavin of World War II paratrooper fame who introduced the concept of airmobility. In 1954 he wrote an article for Harper’s Magazine titled “Cavalry And I Don’t Mean Horses”. In one paragraph he summed it up in a nutshell. “Where was the Cavalry...and I don’t mean horses. I mean helicopters and light aircraft, to lift soldiers armed with automatic weapons and hand carried light anti-tank weapons, and also lightweight reconnaissance vehicles, mounting anti-tank weapons equal or better than the Russian T-34s…if ever in the history of our armed forces there was a need for the cavalry arm—airlifted in light planes, helicopters, and light assault type aircraft—this was it ...Only by exploiting to the utmost the great potential of flight can we combine complete dispersion in the defense with the facility of rapidly massing for the counter-attack which today’s and tomorrow’s Army must posses.” The 1st Air Cavalry Division that arrived on the shores of Vietnam in the fall of 1965 was the fulfillment of General “Jumping Jimmy” Gavin’s vision.

Major General James Gavin

The men of the “All The Way Brigade” moved from the beaches of the South China Sea to their base camp in the Central Highlands of Vietnam. The Air Cav base was called Camp Radcliff after a brave young major of the 1/9 Cavalry who lost his life on August 18, 1965 while flying his Huey gun ship in support of a besieged Marine unit. Camp Radcliff was situated at the base of Hon Cong Mountain which was located next to the small Central Highlands village of An Khe. It was from here that the paratroopers of the 1st Air Cav would begin their war. The men of the 1st Airborne Brigade went to work immediately developing and constructing defensive positions around the 17-mile perimeter of the base camp, which was a no-mans land of sorts called the “Green line”. They also aggressively mounted patrols deep into the surrounding countryside far outside the camp’s defensive perimeter. On October 15, 1965 the 1st Cav launched its first offensive combat campaign named “Shiny Bayonet” with the 1st Battalion (Airborne) 12th Cavalry of the “All The Way Brigade” leading the Air Cav forces into combat. At the end of that month the paratroopers of the 1st Brigade were once again called on to be the tip of the Air Cav spear as they led the division into combat during the “Pleiku Campaign”. In January 1966 the paratroopers were able to once again flex some airborne muscle in the biggest campaign of the Vietnam War to date. “Operation Masher/Whitewing” found the airborne brigade fighting from the Cambodian border across the center of Vietnam through the An Lao Valley to the shores of the South China Sea. Operation Masher/Whitewing was an impressive combat demonstration of the viability of the doctrine of airmobility.

Operation Masher/Whitewing

By the spring of 1966 the men of the “All The Way Brigade” had matured into a tough combat savvy outfit that had proven time and again their ability to move, shoot and communicate against a relentless and disciplined enemy. This experience was to prove invaluable in the epic battles that were to become known as “Operation Crazy Horse”.

“Happy Valley”

The 1st Cavalry Division was deployed to Vietnam in the summer of 1965 with the primary mission of deterring North Vietnamese offensives out of Cambodia that were designed to cut South Vietnam in two by controlling Highway 19 which ran east to west through the Central Highlands. The division’s area of operations extended from the Cambodian border in the west to the South China Sea in the east. The key port city of Qui Nhon lay at the eastern boundary of Highway 19 and the provincial capital of Pleiku sat at the highway’s western extremity. The terrain in this area varied from the wide sandy beaches along the South China Sea to the fertile rice paddies along the coast and to the triple canopied jungles of the Central Highlands. In these dense and forbidding jungles lurked the North Vietnamese infantry units that the 1st Cavalry would fight time and time again during its seven years in Vietnam.

Dark green jungle of the Vinh Thanh Valley

The 1st Cav base camp was located at An Khe, a small village that sat astride Highway 19 about half way between Qui Nhon and Pleiku. To the east and west of An Khe lay a series of ridgelines and valleys many of which became major battlefields of the war. To the west of An Khe was the Mang Yang Pass famous as the site of the total annihilation of the French Mobile Group 100 during the earlier Vietnam War. Twenty kilometers to the east of An Khe lay the Vinh Thanh Valley. The valley was familiar ground to the men of the Air Cav, having run numerous combat operations there since their arrival in country. The mountains above this valley were a staging area for North Vietnamese forays into the rice paddies and population centers along the coast.

In the spring of 1966 the stage was thus set for a brutal and bloody confrontation between the North Vietnamese Army and the paratroopers of the 1st Airborne Brigade in an operation called “Crazy Horse”, in a place grimly remembered by the soldiers of the 1st Air Cavalry Division as “Happy Valley”.

The Enemy

During Operation Crazy Horse the men of the 1st Air Cav engaged enemy soldiers from both the National Liberation Front, commonly referred to as VC, and the North Vietnamese Army or NVA. Both were excellent in the attack and stubbornly defiant on the defensive. They were young, between the ages of eighteen and twenty years old, physically strong and well-trained, disciplined, educated and totally indoctrinated in the cause of Vietnamese Nationalism. Many young soldiers coming south down the Ho Chi Minh Trail had "Born in the North to die in The South" tattooed on their arms. They had belief in their leaders; the very same leaders that had lead them to victory over the French a decade earlier. They had confidence in their weapons, which were durable and designed to deliver the maximum amount of firepower. The weapons were supplied by all communist block countries with the great majority coming from Red China and the USSR. Their AKA-47 was a superb assault rifle and a favorite of the VC and NVA. As the war progressed large numbers of captured American M-16's began appearing in the ranks of all enemy units. Their B-12 Rockets were accurate and effective. The enemy soldiers used them with much expertise when attacking American positions. They were experts with the 82MM Mortar. Being on the receiving end of an enemy mortar attack is something you don't forget. Their heavy caliber machine guns were lethal to both men and aircraft. They employed excellent small unit tactics and were masters of stealth and camouflage with the ability to move, shoot and communicate swiftly. Many military experts considered them some of the best light infantry in the world. They were a very formidable enemy who was totally ruthless, fought without mercy and gave no quarter.

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