Combat Swimmer (20 page)

Our fire had told them our position. Suddenly we were taking heavy automatic fire from what seemed to be all directions. My guys shot back, but when the incoming rounds stopped, I yelled, “Cease fire.” For a few minutes all was quiet. I knew it was the lull before the storm. I figured they were maneuvering to cut us off from the rice paddy.

I got on the radio and asked the status of the slicks and Seawolves; the ship reported they were right over the place they'd dropped us in. Andy Hayden spotted the four birds circling about 2,000 meters north of us, which was how I learned that we were south of where we wanted to be. We were right across the canal from the large camp, and we were probably surrounded. As my old squad chief Jess Tolison used to say, “We had them right where we wanted them.” Rounds started coming in again from all directions.

I radioed John Abrams; the helos immediately swung in our direction and started looking. Normally, to help them find us, we'd throw out a smoke grenade, the helo would tell us what color smoke they saw, and we would confirm it. (We didn't say the color first, because the enemy had been known to listen in on our frequencies and lure helos to them with smoke of the same color.) On this occasion, I didn't want to use any smoke—it would pinpoint our position for the bad guys as well as for our helos. Instead, Andy stood in the little clearing around our hootch and made himself conspicuous by waving a large water jar we'd found inside.

There wasn't room for the birds to set down where we were. I decided to go through the bushes to our right rear to the paddy, where we could be extracted. I passed the word that I was going to fire the Claymore mines, and we'd haul ass through the smoke and debris. I figured if anyone had penetrated from our rear, the Claymores would get their attention and, if not kill them, stun them and enable us to kill them as we headed toward the pickup point.

I yelled, “Fire in the hole!” and squeezed the firing device. There was a deafening explosion, and the bushes erupted in black smoke and debris. We charged. Either no one had been close by or the mines did the job, because we took no fire on the way to the paddy.

We quickly set up behind a dike; it shielded us on only one side, but there was no place that gave us all-around protection from the ever-increasing volume of incoming fire. I figured the slicks would come right down to pick us up, so all we had to do was hold on for a little while.

The Seawolves started a pattern around our position, putting M-60 minigun and 3.5 rocket fire into the suspected VC firing positions. The minigun put down a heavy stream of fire. As long as the Seawolves fired, the other guys lay low.

But the Seawolves couldn't fire continuously, and during the interval after the first firing run all hell broke loose. We came under increasingly intense fire from 360 degrees, with rounds smacking into the dike between Clay (who was carrying the radio) and me (who was talking on the radio). I was trying to convince the slick pilots that we had things under control on the ground and that they could come get us any time, but they weren't buying. Yet whenever we returned fire heavily, the other guys stopped shooting. For about twenty seconds out of every minute it got really quiet.

Then the rounds would come in again. And my guys would open up again. Ed Bowen firing his Stoner machine gun. Ken McDonald lobbing 40mm grenades toward the canal. Andy Hayden putting down heavy fire from his M-60 into the tree line a thousand meters behind us. The heaviest volume of incoming fire seemed to be originating from the tree line along the canal, so two men fired LAWs into the trees to keep the enemy down. The LAW, a very lightweight antitank rocket, had a shaped-charge warhead that I liked for punching through the caked mud of bunker fortifications. Fired into a tree line, it would explode as it hit the heavy foliage, scattering tree shrapnel. On previous missions LAWs had proven to be good “area” weapons. We used them almost like we'd use mortars.

I began to get concerned about our ammo status. We'd come in with a lot of bullets, but we were also expending a lot. I yelled for the guys to ease up and told the slicks to come down. There was a pregnant pause. They still weren't buying.

Then a Cuban-accented voice came on the air. Soto, the Bay of Pigs veteran, told the slicks' pilots they had two choices: go down to get us, and risk getting shot by the VC; or keep dawdling, and be certain of being shot down by the Seawolves. Both those pilots were also running low on ammo, and there was no way they were going to leave us on the ground while they went to get more.

The slicks killed collective and auto-rotated down. I watched as they hurtled through the air directly over our heads. The two Seawolves laid a fierce curtain of fire all around us. Rockets came screaming over our heads and exploded into the area by the hootch. The friendly fire was so heavy, I began to wonder if we'd survive it. Yet without that volume of fire, the enemy would probably shoot down the slicks as they landed. Pick your poison.

The slicks got to fifty feet and flared. Their rotating blades grabbed the air and kicked up a tremendous downdraft. Dust and debris from the dry rice paddy flew around the birds. They seemed to disappear, then hit the ground about ten meters to our right.

My squad put down covering fire as Chuck Newell's sprinted for one of the two helos. When the last feet disappeared into the bird, I yelled, “Go.” Clay and I fired to our rear as we ran for the second bird. The two door gunners on both choppers were firing their M-60 machine guns toward the canal behind us—they must have spotted enemy movement there as they came down.

Clay reached the helo and threw himself in. I was right behind, dodging the fire from the gunner's M-60. The bird was already lifting off the ground as I dove headfirst through the door. As it hurtled forward, I landed half in and half out, and someone grabbed my shoulders to pull me the rest of the way in. I sat up in the door and resumed shooting. Clay squatted just behind me, firing his M-16 out the open door. Off we went, firing everything we had, rounds slapping the sides of the birds. That slick rose faster than any helo I'd ever been on. We kept firing until we were at 1,500 feet. Our door gunners didn't stop firing until they ran out of ammo.

Back at the LST, I thanked John and Soto and took the platoon below for debriefing. Our ammo inventory revealed that everyone but Clay and I had fired everything. I had three full magazines; Clay had two. And that was only because we'd been so busy with the radio. Good thing Soto made his pronouncement when he did.

After our adrenaline stopped pumping, we had a chance to evaluate what had happened. I told the troops we'd had a good mission. True, we'd jumped a much larger unit, been outgunned and surrounded, but we'd killed a few and gotten away with no casualties of our own. Plus, we'd accomplished two things: we'd rattled the gooks in their backyard, and we'd scared the shit out of ourselves. Actually, while we were in the firefight, none of us were scared. We were too busy fighting. We had taken on a large force of VC (or NVA) and fought our way out of a sticky situation. We were damn good.

I never learned the identity of the people we killed. Intelligence officers told me they were probably NVA regulars. Gary Gallagher told me later that he had gotten good information about our battle from some of the locals. Seems many new graves were being dug in that area the next day—more than enough for the four I knew we'd killed.

Gary was so excited by our success he took his PRUs into the area about a month later. Operating on more precise intelligence than we'd had, he captured a high-ranking VC leader. As his unit was leaving, they got into a fierce fight with a battalion of NVA regulars. Vastly outnumbered and without any helo gunship support, they fought a hasty retreat away from the enemy. Gary's PRU chief wanted to kill their wounded VC prisoner, but Gary refused. In the next wave of heavy fire the PRU chief himself was seriously wounded. Gallagher picked him up and carried him as the team fought its way back to a road where the PRUs had stashed its trucks. Amid a hail of fire they all got out. For his heroic action, Gary Gallagher was awarded the Navy Cross.

As for us, we'd done what I'd set out to do—only sooner, and with a little more excitement. Most important, we'd penetrated an area in which the VC felt absolutely safe and created havoc, once again showing them that with us around they didn't have any real refuge.

M
uch has been written about the Seawolves, the Navy helicopter gunship squadron that worked under CTF-116. I don't know a single SEAL who operated in Vietnam and wasn't saved by those guys at least once. They were the best helo crews I'd ever seen. Land-based throughout the delta and aboard LSTs at the mouths of rivers, they'd fly anywhere, any time, to support us. Night or day, good weather or bad, they were there. As my old Seawolf buddies used to say, “We like to get down low and root around,” and they did. I can't count the number of times I could feel the heat from their 3.5 rockets as they passed over our heads toward the enemy. Often Seawolf fire teams made dry runs on the enemy after they had expended all their ordnance in order to give our guys a chance to break contact and get the hell out. And they were just as likely to land and pick our guys up if things really got serious. The Seawolf crews were real heroes.

 

Because of my gratitude to them, I ran a very distasteful mission not long after the Bac Lieu operation. I went to retrieve the remains of a Seawolf and its crew that had been shot down over Dung Island while coming back to the LST near the mouth of the Bassac, the same LST from which we'd staged our Bac Lieu operation.

When we arrived for the retrieval, I asked who had gone down. The CO told me it was John and Soto, who had pulled us out of Bac Lieu. I couldn't believe it. They had been on final approach to the ship when a burst of Chicom (Chinese Communist) 12.7mm machine-gun fire hit them. The people on shipboard watched as the rotor blades locked and the helo plummeted a thousand feet to the ground. They immediately launched another bird, which found the crash site and reported that there was no hope for survivors. The CO said they wanted to retrieve the bodies and what was left of the helo.

A Popular Force (PF) company from the Junk Force base had been waiting for us to get to the LST; they'd provide security while we worked at the crash site, but they wouldn't go in until we got there. Popular Force companies, which resembled militias, mostly defended the areas in which they lived, though some units sought out and aggressively fought the VC. I'd worked with a few PF units upriver and found them to be as good as their leadership. Usually, though, Junk Force PF weren't very aggressive toward the VC. On this operation they could at least provide lookout service while we policed up the helo and the crew.

I got the men together, gave a quick brief, and headed for our boat. The ship put up another Seawolf fire team to cover us from the air. We inserted on the island and patrolled about a thousand meters. Just after first light, we found what was left of the helo.

It was a mess. The helo lay on its left side in an irrigation ditch six feet across and three feet deep. Except for the rotor assembly, the entire helo was squeezed into the ditch, its left side underwater. It had landed with terrific force. We could see the right door gunner hanging out of the door, still strapped into his seat. I saw Soto still in the right seat, staring straight ahead. We couldn't see any of the left side of the helo below the water. I made sure the Popular Force company was in place around us, and we started the grim task of getting the bodies out.

Andy Hayden took over at this point. He had an engineering rating and had salvaged aircraft before. We got the bodies on the right side of the helo out and on the ground next to the bird. Both of them were like jelly. I think every bone in their bodies had been crushed. It took us six hours to disassemble the helo to get at the other two men. We all were in the ditch following Andy's directions, and quickly much of the helo was in pieces on the ground.

Soon after we had started, I got a call from the Seawolves overhead saying they had taken fire from about 300 meters farther in on the island (I hadn't heard a thing with them circling over us). The pilot told me they were going to go into a wagon wheel to return fire, but since he couldn't see our perimeter forces, would I mark their positions so he wouldn't hit them? I rogered.

I got out of the ditch to look for the Popular Force company commander. Walking about a hundred meters from the helo in the direction he'd said he'd be, I saw no one. They'd apparently run away. I hurried back to the guys and told them I wanted everyone but Andy and one other out of the ditch. Then I radioed the Seawolves to tell them to break contact and circle back over us. I figured the fire they'd taken was meant to draw them away.

I set a perimeter and waited for an attack. The helos started taking fire from .51-caliber antiaircraft guns. They broke contact and came back over us. When nothing else happened for about twenty minutes, I put three more guys back to work on the helo. It was now about 1400, and I wanted to be out of there by nightfall.

Finally, Andy got down to the left side, and we dragged out the other two bodies. John Abrams had been killed instantly. An aluminum crosspiece from the helo's frame had pierced his chest and pinned him to the seat. It took us nearly an hour to free him and put him in a body bag next to his mates.

The ship CO sent in an Army heavy-lift helo with cargo nets for the bodies and whatever parts we'd salvaged from the crash. They'd drop the full nets on the ship, then lift out the rest of the helo and carry it to Can Tho for evaluation. (We later learned investigators had found just one hit on the helo. A .51-caliber round had entered the gear box and frozen the rotor almost instantly—a freak hit.)