Returning Fire

Approx 3:00 PM, 10 June 1965 Assault #3-- The Soccer Field Major Jim Jaggers took control of the all armed helicopter fire support and coordinating USAF/VNAF close air support. For the assault, he directed an approach route over the jungle from the southeast into the soccer field, with a sharp left pedal turn after touchdown and take off departing to the south and east, again quickly over the jungle and away from the heaviest VC fire. Identifying the landing area and touchdown point was no problem. The soccer field was clearly visible from several miles away. Small it could only accommodate five helicopters at a time. Meanwhile Capt Dave Scott and I had been working to get a flyable helicopter to replace ours previously shot up. The main flight had departed before we took one by displacing the pilots of another ship, which pissed them off immensely.. Arriving at the end of a long column of flights of five, we fell into escort position on the right side of the first flight that did not have armed escort. Due to our late arrival, we were about 12-13 flights back in the column. When we got into position, I looked down the line of helicopters descending at about a 30-degree angle into the soccer field. They were in a perfect column descending in stair step formation from about 1200 feet down to the lead flight of five just touching down in the soccer field. No excess chatter on the radios. Every transmission was clear and concise. The scene before me was like a firepower demonstration at Fort Benning or Fort Knox except some very angry guys were shooting back. What looked to be thousands of tracers were flying everywhere, green coming up, red going down. Smoke grenades were popping all over the place. Mortars were exploding in and around the Compound and soccer field. A-1Es were bombing and strafing west of the fort. I thought, you can never survive flying all the way down into this maelstrom escorting these slicks. We were flying directly into the dragon’s mouth, and it was breathing fire. I quickly reconciled myself to what had to be done, sucked it up, concentrated on what I needed to do, and became acutely aware of what was going on around us. As we moved inexorably downward toward the soccer field, I heard a helicopter several flights ahead of us call out “27’s going down.” Glancing forward, I saw it twisting down into the jungle. As we passed over the spot I looked down quickly, but only saw a smoking hole in the jungle. All aboard were lost. Approaching the LZ we came under heavy automatic weapons fire. The ARVN Rangers sat in the lift helicopters with their butts on the floor and their legs hanging outside, or, feet on the skids if they could reach them. As the helicopter reached about 3 ft off the ground the rangers began leaping out. The last unloaded as the helicopter touched down. With all his 8 Rangers out, Capt. Jack Grasmeder, Thunderbird lead, lifted off and called “Leads up” after only about 3-4 seconds on the ground. The remainder of the 118th quickly touched down and unloaded their troops. But the assault was fiercely opposed.. A/501st was the second company in line immediately behind the 118th. Their after action report describes their assault and action in the LZ. Quote: “The route into the soccer field was from the southeast. Starting three minutes out on final the Rattler (A/501) lead started receiving heavy automatic weapons fire. The flight continued in. Suddenly a .50 caliber cut loose on the right flank. Capt. Schem continued in with his flight getting all aircraft safely into the landing zone. The LZ itself had been receiving as much fire as the approach path. CWO Shelton Foles said that four troopers that jumped out of the right side of his aircraft were mowed down without firing a shot. One of them was knocked back into the aircraft and was carried back to Phuoc Vinh. As WO Foles made a pedal turn to the left, his copilot WO Mason, saw two more troopers killed by enemy fire. This made six casualties out of the eight troopers in their aircraft. As the A/5011st second flight unloaded their troopers and picked up to a hover mortar rounds began to explode. Aircraft 007 had a mortar explode directly underneath shredding the underside of the aircraft. WO jerry Cobb and CWO Lewis Gibson were uninjured and able to fly it out of the area.” End Quote. As the “slick” flight Dave and I were escorting slowed for touchdown in the soccer field, we went past them on the right side between 15-25 ft altitude firing into the fort and the jungle edge to our front and right front. Both door gunners were blazing away. We broke hard to the right and started to climb out to the north. We called the 52nd Ranger Battalion US advisor, (Panther) and said, “We have a partial load of ammo, designate a target and we will engage.” I will never in my life forget his response, “Stand by, we are in hand to hand combat.” I thought “Damn and perhaps several other profanities.” We began orbiting to the northeast and waited. About 15 minutes later, the Advisor came on the radio and identified a target, which we attacked. Within the next 30-45 minutes the 52nd Rangers stormed and retook the compound. They had sufficient combat power to do so because A/82nd and 117th AHCs had joined the 145th CAB before this assault providing enough slicks to combat assault the entire battalion in one lift. The complete Ranger battalion, strongly supported by armed helicopters, controlled by Jaggers, and Jarrett, stormed over the berm and into the compound recapturing the ruins of the District Headquarters building, then took control of the entire compound. Armed Helicopters provided all of the fire support for this assault. At no time was artillery available. There were no ARVN artillery units near enough to deliver fire into the Dong Xoai area. At the end of the day, after returning to our Villa I recalled that 10 June was my sons 11th birthday. I quietly wished him a happy birthday. What else can you do.