Abandoned in Hell : The Fight for Vietnam's Firebase Kate (9780698144262) (16 page)

Black and Nolan arrived over Kate in their gunships at almost the same time as Matlock and Guthrie in their slick. The Jokers' guns gave them cover on their approach. Then our FAC directed Gay's fire team to find and finish a suspected PAVN anti-aircraft site with at least one 12.7 mm heavy machine gun.

“I located the area of the AA site and began an attack run at about 150
feet above the jungle, followed by Blackie and Hearne in the second aircraft,” Gay wrote in his after-action report.

Matlock and Guthrie in Ghostrider 12 were just then hovering into Kate. “As we passed over the wire and bunkers, the men in the cargo compartment kicked out the water and ammo,” wrote Guthrie. “[Matlock] flared the Huey and stood it on its tail to stop it.”

“The medevac helicopters came in like a shot,” recalls the slightly built Geromin. “They were so amazing. They came in at full speed just above the treetops, and as soon as they got to the base of our hill they would gun it to get up the slope and then circle around at what seemed like full power. Then they'd stop and hover just a little above the ground so that they didn't have to build up the momentum to lift off; it seemed like it took just a couple of minutes to come in, reload, and take off because the enemy was constantly shooting at them.”

“I landed on the
H
, for ‘helipad'—it should have been an
R
for ‘[mortar] registration point,'” says Matlock.

Geromin manhandled a wounded striker toward the landing Huey—neither the first nor the last time that he would do so on Kate. “He was shot up so bad that when I lifted him he could barely hold his head up, and he was so bloody that I had to put my arms under his armpits and grab my [other] hand or he would have just slipped right out of my grasp,” Geromin says.

Covered with the wounded man's blood, he put the striker on the Huey's cargo floor. The crew chief beckoned Geromin to come aboard, but he shook his head. “I'm not hurt! It's not my blood!” he yelled over the engines.

A beat behind Geromin, more than a dozen strikers mobbed the aircraft. “A Yard, unharmed and carrying his weapon, jumped on. The gunner yelled to us, ‘Is he supposed to be going?'” says Geromin.
“If he isn't wounded, he's not supposed to go,”
Geromin yelled. “The gunner aimed an M60 at the Yard and told him to get off or he would blow him away. So he jumped off, another Yard grabbed and disarmed him, two more Yards took him away, and a few seconds later, I heard one shot, and then the two Yards walked away without the guy they'd pulled off the chopper.”

Geromin believes the striker was executed for desertion.

Matlock now tried to hover off the helipad, but the overloaded ship, with wounded men standing on the skids and clinging to the side, couldn't rise. “We shooed the excess away, and lifted off just as an 82 mm mortar round landed under us, right on the
H
,” Matlock recalls. “The blast wave blew [the helicopter] off the LZ, doing some structural and sheet-metal damage to the bird. We also took a few rifle rounds coming out.”

In fact, the mortar's steel tail fins were driven almost completely through the aircraft's hardened aluminum fuselage.

Working to Kate's north, Gay had made several passes, each time followed by Black and Hearne, all firing rockets at the PAVN machine gun. “[As] I turned in behind Blackie, I observed AA ground fire from a
second
12.7 mm gun hidden about ninety degrees from the first one,” Gay recalls.

It was a flak trap—the second gun had remained silent and hidden until the first had lured a gunship into range. “I saw [Black's] ship getting hit,” says Gay. “The bottom of the aircraft was struck in the fuel cell by 12.7 mm rounds and immediately burst into flames. I called immediately:
8-5, this is 7-3. You're on fire; you need to put it down.
”

Both aircraft were so low that they couldn't see very far. Black replied, “Where's a field?” Before Gay could respond, the stricken Huey's tail boom separated from its fuselage, and the ship flipped upside down, plunging fifty feet into the jungle and exploding on contact with the ground.

The aircraft was so close that I felt the blast's intense heat on my face and arms—a spectacle that haunts me to this day. As the reality of what I had just witnessed sunk in, I felt hollow. Fighting nausea, I struggled to focus my attention on the multitude of other urgent issues confronting me: Where would the next ground attack come from? Did I have enough men to hold that flank? Enough ammo?

Meanwhile Matlock and Guthrie were fighting gravity and blast damage, nursing their overloaded Huey up from the trees and out of small-arms range. To them, and to many on Kate, it appeared that Joker 85 had been hit by an RPG. “We were taking off to the west and they crashed just to the north of our flight path,” Matlock recalls. “As we passed over the wreckage, I saw [PAVN] troops shooting into the cockpit.”

Gay began to circle the flaming wreckage, but immediately came under heavy fire; the FAC ordered him to leave the area.

I thought about mounting a rescue for any survivors; after a few seconds, I realized that no one could have lived through that explosion. And that it would have been suicide to venture among the hostiles swarming around the crash site.

Every man on Kate who witnessed this horrific event was damaged in some way for the rest of his life. None of us had met those aviators—Black, Hearne, Canada, and Lot—didn't, then, even know their names. But they were our brothers, American soldiers who had repeatedly risked their lives for us, and now they were dead. The thought was overwhelming. Even now, thinking about it is painful.

Later, making my rounds of the perimeter, I spotted a lone PAVN soldier about 450 meters away, moving through a relatively open area below the ridge. I went prone and began firing at him. I'm a good shot, but this guy was a little past my carbine's effective range. Never mind: After my fourth or fifth tracer, the 105 crew took their turn. First shot: a direct hit. The PAVN flew straight up at least forty feet.

Despite that tiny triumph, our situation was deteriorating. Two more gunships, several slicks, and a Chinook were hit by small-arms fire around Kate. By nightfall, the powers that be would decide that sending gunships on close support missions into and through relentless PAVN ground fire from every direction was suicidal. While Air Force fast movers could still work in close proximity to our hilltop impact zone during daylight, after that day Kate could no longer expect close support from helicopter gunships.

When I had time for an accounting of the rifle and machine-gun ammunition that Matlock, Guthrie, and their crew had risked their lives to bring us, I was furious: Some moron—as it happened, Captain Whiteside, an operations officer at B-23—had cut my requisition in half. “No one needs that much ammo,” he said. All that blood and fire, all that fear and angst getting it in to us—and if PAVN attacked again in force, I wasn't sure that we'd have enough ammo to stop him. I got back on the radio and demanded
more.

I have known the call to battle

In each changeless changing shape

From the high souled voice of conscience

To the beastly lust for rape.

I have sinned and I have suffered,

Played the hero and the knave;

Fought for belly, shame, or country,

And for each have found a grave.

I cannot name my battles,

For the visions are not clear,

Yet, I see the twisted faces

And I feel the rending spear.

—George S. Patton, Jr.

H
andsome and fair, First Lieutenant Ronald A. Ross was 23. Very short and slender, he was an almost elfin man, with surprising agility and upper-body strength. He grew up in Muskego, a Milwaukee exurb, lettered on his high school wrestling team, and after graduation spent two years studying marine biology at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. He earned good grades, would almost certainly have graduated, then probably would have gone on to grad school, but in 1966 he decided that his nation's needs outweighed his own ambitions. He enlisted in the Army, and upon completing basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, was awarded the Outstanding Trainee Trophy. He was then trained in signals intelligence and posted to Vint Hill Farms Station in rural Virginia, the Army Security Agency's oldest base. He graduated from Artillery OCS at Fort Sill in December 1967. A year later, after completing jungle warfare school in Panama and troop duty at dusty Fort Irwin, California, he was assigned to the 5/22 Artillery, near BMT. Like most lieutenants in wartime, he served in a variety of roles within the battalion and made several good friends, among them First Lieutenant Reginald Brockwell. “Everybody liked Ron. He was a funny guy, personable, a wonderful human being,” Brockwell recalls.

When Ross came due for R&R, he requested Hawaii, and let it be known that he would meet his wife and newborn son there. When Lieutenant Colonel Elton Delaune, the 5/22's ambitious new battalion commander, learned that only a few months earlier Ross had taken emergency leave to marry his pregnant fiancée, he apparently decided that Ross was morally unfit for the officer's uniform he wore. Delaune seemed to develop an abiding dislike for Ross; some battalion officers recall that Delaune thought that Ross was a screwup.

“I got along well with Delaune,” recalls Brockwell. “I liked him. He was a nice man, but I think he was there for his six-month [command] tour and he was going to do the most he could do to promote his career.”

I have no direct knowledge of the internal politics of the 5/22 Artillery, or of Ross's activities in that battalion, so it's possible that Ross in fact was a screwup. On the other hand, during my brief Army career, I more than once observed how easy it was for a noncom to allow personal prejudices to fuel a strong dislike for a particular soldier under his control, and then to ride him, looking for any excuse to harass or punish him. It also sometimes happens that a senior officer will decide to lean on a junior one, criticizing his every misstep. It might have been that Delaune was something of a bluestocking who frowned on premarital pregnancy. Whatever it was that drew Delaune's ire, it is a fact that young men make mistakes. Lieutenants make mistakes: I certainly did, as did pretty much every lieutenant I ever met. For that matter, I'm sure that lieutenant colonels also make mistakes. Not everyone who's tagged a screwup deserves that label.

On October 30, with Mike Smith in a field hospital, First Lieutenant Tom Klein, a 5/22 battery XO then at Duc Lap, was told to prepare to go in to Kate to replace Smith. Brockwell was told to be prepared to replace Klein at Duc Lap. Instead, despite Ross's scheduled R&R in Hawaii, Delaune ordered Ross to Kate. I find it strange that Delaune sent an officer that he had labeled a loser to an embattled firebase that was then functioning as not much more than a PAVN impact area.

Ross landed under fire on a resupply chopper in midafternoon. Officially, he was Mike Smith's replacement; the first men he met were Koon, Hopkins, Tiranti, and McFarland; the gun crew welcomed Ross to Kate,
and they chatted for a few minutes. “He said that he was supposed to be on his way for R&R to see his wife,” recalls Hopkins. “He told us that he'd pissed off some colonel, that's why he was sent to Kate,” he said. “But then he said, ‘Hey, you guys need help, I'm here.'”

When the mortar barrage resumed, the men took cover inside a gun revetment. With little understanding of what life had been like on Kate during the preceding days, or of how long these men had been in combat, Ross decided to use the incoming fire to teach his new troops about dealing with mortars.

“He said, ‘Gentlemen, if you hear the round leaving the tube and then hear it coming in and explode—that's mortar fire,'” recalls Nelson Koon. Ross went on to explain that this meant that after the mortar was fired, there were a few seconds in which to take cover.

“We'd been taking incoming for two or three days,” says Koon. “We knew what the hell mortar fire was.”

Our medic showed Ross to the FDC, where he met John Kerr. “Ross reported to me, and he asked, ‘What should I do?'” recalls Kerr. “I said that I pretty much had the FDC under control, and that our guns were no longer operational. I told him to find Captain Albracht and see if he needed some help.”

When I found time to sit down and brief Ron Ross, he seemed like a very nice fellow, smart and well-spoken. I told him that except for the 105 crew, most of the artillerymen on Kate were either hiding in their bunkers or fighting as infantry—there wasn't much he could do with the guns. I suggested that he could spell Kerr so he could get some rest. Ross should then work the FDC radios with Johnson, and in the morning I'd give him the grand tour of our perimeter. After that, he could help with the infantry.

Bob Johnson spent most of his waking hours monitoring FDC radios and handling anything else that came up when Kerr wasn't present. With one 155 out, the other damaged, and the 105 in direct-fire mode, there wasn't much artillery radio traffic. Johnson recalls that Ross had an extended radio conversation with one or more 5/22 Artillery officers. “From the nature and tone of it, he was obviously talking with very good buddies,”
recalls Johnson. “There was at least one person very concerned about Ross's welfare. He urged [Ross] to take care of himself, not to take any chances, just get the mission done and get back to them. Lieutenant Ross was respectful of their concerns, so I assume that they were officers, and as was typical of most young men of that age, including myself, he seemed to feel that he was immune from harm. He said that although he would take all precautions, he wasn't concerned and that he would be back with them soon. He was an extremely upbeat type of person.”

As sundown approached and the fast movers could no longer operate safely at low levels, Kerr left the safety of the underground FDC, where since the start of the fighting he had handled such essential tasks as coordinating artillery fire from Susan and Annie, and working the radios to bring in gunships and medevac and resupply choppers. He found a partially exposed location where he could adjust Susan's guns on known or suspected PAVN positions.

“I adjusted [Susan's] fire on the ridge to our east. Because range errors are more probable than deflection errors, and Susan was about eight miles away—right at the 155 howitzer's maximum range—it was risky having Captain Adam's guys shoot over us at that ridge,” recalls Kerr. “But they put their fire where I wanted it, and with no short rounds. It seemed like it was working.”

Kerr probably didn't know it, but that day, while he was attempting to adjust Susan's fire,
Cheap Thrills
, one of Susan's two 155s, had to be taken out of service. “From the time I got in-country in January until the end of October, I'd say we were firing it all the time,” explains SP4 Francis “Butch” Barnes, the assistant gunner. “That day, when we couldn't hit our coordinates, someone checked our tube, and we'd shot our gun out. We'd shot so many rounds that the tube was worn-out.”

Our PAVN neighbors decided that fire from Susan's remaining 155 was an annoyance that couldn't be tolerated. They couldn't reach Susan, so they directed fire from recoilless rifles, rockets, and mortars at Kerr, the forward observer. A mortar shell blew shrapnel into the inner part of his left thigh. Not that close to the family jewels, but close enough.

Running on adrenaline, Kerr felt no pain for several minutes; he did not even notice that he'd been hit. “So much incoming was landing that I immediately ran down into the FDC bunker,” he says. “One of the soldiers there said, ‘Look at your leg, Lieutenant,' and I saw that it was soaked in blood.”

Doc patched him up, but Kerr refused evacuation. He would tough it out, continue to work as best he could. As the shock of his wound wore off, however, he began to feel pain on a scale that he had never before experienced. He said nothing about it, continued to do what he had been doing. The medic offered him morphine, but Kerr declined. “We didn't have a lot of that, and it did not yet hurt real badly,” he recalls. “I figured somebody would soon need it more.”

I cannot say enough about the courage, selflessness, and cool professionalism of that medic. He was only a few days from the end of his tour when the shit hit the fan. He was told to leave Kate, return to BMT, and begin out-processing. Instead, he told his first sergeant that he would make it back to the world with the rest of Charlie Battery or he wouldn't make it back at all.

Kerr's wound was far more serious than it had first appeared. Soon he was unable to walk, and dragged himself around on one leg until it was too dark to adjust artillery.

As twilight fell, several strikers observed flashlights across the ravine on the opposing hillside. The 105 crew fired high-explosive and beehive rounds at them. A little after 1900 hours, someone spotted movement in the wood line below our northeast perimeter: the NVA were massing in the jungle there. I moved to the perimeter, but remained in the open so I could effectively direct both the air support and my strikers. Almost immediately, about 500 PAVN troops poured out of the jungle and started up our hill.

The strikers opened up with all they had, but I could see that it wasn't enough. What I came to think of as my mobile reserve—Koon, Hopkins, and Tiranti—rushed to that section of our perimeter and moved up on line. Koon, who had gone to such stupefying lengths to serve in Vietnam, brought his M60. “I fired at this one [PAVN] soldier and I hit him,” he
recalls. “He kept coming and I just kept firing and he finally dropped about five feet in front of me. And I said to myself,
Well,
you
wanted to see what Vietnam was like.
”

We held them long enough for the fast movers to return with 500-pound bombs. Then it was dark, and an AC-119G Shadow came on station to lay a curtain of minigun fire just below us, cutting the attackers off from their reinforcements. We took a few more casualties, but our perimeter held; by 2100 hours the enemy had backed off.

I knew they'd be back. As always, I kept Bu Prang informed, and they passed our status to B-23 in BMT, and then up the line to the ARVN 23rd.

It seems to me, all these years later, that if ARVN was supposed to demonstrate their battlefield chops, this was a pretty good time to do it. We were surrounded by all the PAVN troops you could ever hope to find in one area.

But the 23rd ARVN remained in its BMT
garrison.