Another group of Marines that
I served with and who were killed from 2/1 are laid to rest and their names
forever are identified on “Panel 8E, Rows 90, 91, 94, 95, 97, and 99” on the VN
Wall in Washington, D.C. with their places in military history forever.
Those fine men all died in ugly up close combat on June 25 and 26, 1966 during OPERATION Jay.
That operation place just south of the ancient capital
city of Hue — the the same city that would be nearly totally destroyed in the 1968 North Vietnamese TET (New Year) offensive.
Those we lost on those two days are:
KIA on Saturday, June 25, 1966:
Miller J. Bourg, Age 21, Houma, LA.
Cecil E. Daw, Navy HN, Age 20, Anacoco, LA.
Robert R. Eggleston, Age 36, LA, CA.
Gerald V. Eppley, Age 21, Newark, OH.
Ronald L. Herbstritt, Age 19, Bradford, PA.
Bruno L. Martin, Age 19, Wayne, MI.
David E. Reyner, Age 21, Houston, TX.
Santos Sanchez, Age 23, Selma, CA.
Richard L. Strange, Sgt, Age 25, Richmond, VA.
Melvin E. Taylor, Age 20, Paterson,
NJ.
KIA on Sunday, June 26, 1966:
James Coleman, Jr., Cpl, Age 22, Jacksonville, FL.
John M. Risner, PFC, Age 19, Las Cruces,
NM.
That action occurred as we were moving more north toward North Vietnam and
just before we were to move into the DMZ and be part of the largest operation in VN at
the time: Code name OPERATION Hastings during July and August 1966.
During this operation, my newly-assigned platoon sergeant was then SSgt. Robert Cleary (he was promoted to Gunnery Sergeant that same month).
He would go on to become Sergeant Major of the Marine Corps. During this operation, he won a Silver Star. He did a great job. I'm proud to have been a witness to his acts that helped him get that award. After his retirement, he returned to his beloved hometown Boston. *Updated: He died on February 11, 2018 (at age 86) in Virginia Beach, VA. He was truly a great and honorable Marine having served from the Korean War. R.I.P. Bob Cleary.
Cleary
did what few men could never do under such fire. He crawled to the wounded, actually
put a few of them on his back and crawled with them to the rear for treatment while
still under fire. He would do that several
times, by a miracle he was not wounded himself.
His Silver Star award should have been higher. But as was well known in
those early days of the war, the Marine Corps was very stingy with combat awards,
for what reason none of us ever figured out. We accepted it and moved on.
But,
to make matters worse about those early days, we also heard that people “in the
rear with the gear” as we called them, were being awarded Bronze Stars for
making sure our C-Rations arrived on time. Far too many fine Marines died and
did lots of brave things only to win the Purple Heart and not much else – it
hardly seemed fair then and now!
The events of that battle: During the heat of the fighting, many of us were pinned down under withering NVA fire coming from a series of tree lines that another Marine Battalion (2nd BN, 4th Marines) was pushing the NVA towards us from their northern side of a rather large area.
At it happened, on the same day that Cleary was acting out his brave action, so was our Company
Commander, then 1st Lieutenant Charles C. Krulak and Sergeant Richard
Strange - both of them would also win Silver Stars.
Krulak, would go on to become a 4-star General as Commandant of the Marine Corps in his later years, won his for directing close air support so close that he had to
call it right on top of his own position during the early hours of darkness and
heat of battle – and that act saved many lives.
Sgt.
Strange's story is contained in the section at the end of my book labeled
“Reflections” and sent to me by his former close friend, Butch Gatlin.
We were ordered to advance across the rice paddies towards a huge tree line where we were to set up a blocking force for 2/4 - which was to be rather routine as these operations often
do at first - that is before the shit hits the fan as they say. This day was to
be no different.
We got off our 'choppers, quickly assembled back in our squads and platoons, and not far from the area we were going start our advance and head to the place we had been briefed about blocking from.
This day was no different than the one that had started back during Operation NEW YORK in February. The orders were just as simple: “Land, advance to and take positions and provide a blocking force for 2/4, who would be pushing the NVA south out of the City of Hue towards us.”
As I said, the mission sounded easy enough, but, then that old guy “Murphy and his damn laws” dropped by with a few other plans (damn, I hated it when Murphy dropped by). We started moving forward and towards the tree line to set up the blocking force line, and as we advanced we could hear gunfire ahead of us, and still somewhat in the distance. but slowly the volume and intensity of that fire started to increase, and then rounds started getting really close.
My first thought was “We had been landed in the wrong spot (again)?” Well, hell at that moment, it didn't matter, we were here, and they enemy was there, and all hell was about to erupt.
Suddenly and with some distance still to
go before we could get good cover, we started receiving fire directly at and
around us. Rounds were hitting the rice paddy dikes in front and whizzing
bullets over our heads.
Initially
and like all good Marines are trained, we hit the deck and started looking
around. Then we all realized at once it seemed, we were in the open and still
had a good distance to go for the tree line and any chance of real cover and
not those damn open, shallow dry paddies with little cover and zero camouflage.
I also thought, here we go again – another OPERATION New York, or worse: the bloodbath we had on OPERATION
Harvest Moon all over again.
Also, this action also was about to take place just a short month after we were hit hard and lost so many back on that horrible Memorial Day. But, we also knew what had to be done, and without waiting on orders, we jumped up and started hightailing toward the trees. We only took a few more rounds, and then a sudden lull. But then just as fast, the whole world seemed to open up as we got closer – the volume of fire was intense.
What seemed to have happened
was that the fleeing NVA were now firmly trapped between 2/4 pushing them and now facing us. They were not ready for that trap.
They
apparently saw us and held their fire giving us a chance to get up close, and
then opened on us as we started advancing closer to them. At the same time, 2/4
never let up their fire, so we had both NVA and friendly fire falling on us and
soon both found their targets. We started taking loses and quickly.
The
NVA started to rake us pretty good all across our front with heavy rifle and
machine gun fire - back and forth, left to right and then right to left. It was very effective, but we kept up our
advancement until we finally reached the tree line. What made matters worse,
the word came down to watch your fire, that 2/4 was not far away. No shit, I
thought!
At the time it all seemed crazy with commands of: Hold your fire, watch your fire, be careful where you fire, and such. Our leaders feared that we would confuse 2/4 and their push with the NVA, or that 2/4 would confuse our fire with the NVA, and we'd end up shooting each other.
Things would really get hot as two Marine battalions
plowed into each other not knowing where each other was. For the NVA, it was
great - they could shoot as both of us and we couldn't shoot back at them.
Damn, friendly fire and NVA fire – great I’m sure we all had the same thoughts.
Some
of the rounds we were receiving probably were from 2/4 but the sounds of AK-47
make a very distinct sickening ring to them that is nothing like an M-16, so we
pretty much knew where the NVA were. That message was cleared up quickly and we
were told to return fire but take care at our targets. The NVA saw what we were
about to do, so they held up and started taking their time firing and choosing
their targets, too and their fire was starting taking its toll. It looked like
another mess was brewing, and initially, it was a mess.
There
was a lot of confusion and lots of firing from what seemed like every conceivable
direction and position. The NVA were trapped and fighting for their lives, 2/4
was pushing like a bunch of madmen, and all we could do was be selective and be
careful where we fired.
We had five killed very quickly in my company (Golf Company).
Hotel Company on our left flank, also had five killed in short order.
One was killed in H&S
Company.
My platoon now in the lead for Golf Company managed to get to the tree line first. We had the main road on our left which anchored us to Hotel Company who was on the other side of the road. We could all see each other clearly and that helped in some of the confusion.
We had wide open rice fields to our far right and plenty of huts and trees in front of us that turned out later to be a rather big NVA stronghold.
Lt. Krulak set up his command post (CP) with radios and 60mm mortars just to our rear and in old Buddhist-style grave yard. The CP was better off than we were located in the rear and fairly well covered. One of those wounded early from Hotel Company was my old friend and former squad member and my M-79 grenadier from Fox Company, LCpl. Edwin Labotto. He had been shot though the upper shoulder with an exit wound out his back. He was in very bad shape, but he pulled through.
I managed to see him a few years later back in the states while at Camp Pendleton. I went to a base movie one night on post and he was an MP on duty at the theatre. It was great seeing him. He said he was now married and was going for 20 years. I bet he made it, too.
As the battle raged, we became more pinned down not only from the NVA trying to escape, but from the bullets flying in from 2/4 as they continued to advance all across our front. A sniper fired a shot here or there, a hand grenade was tossed nearby, and that kind of close combat remained constant for several hours. When I had the chance, I started to survey the dry rice fields to our right. What I saw, I didn't like.
What I didn't know but
suspected, was that that flank was an easy route around us for the NVA to
escape.
Eventually, 2/4 either slowed down, got bogged down, or started to dig in because we were told that the friendly fire was being lifted and that we had permission to fire at will, but continue picking targets carefully. We did stay low, picked off a few NVA whenever we saw then as the battle sea-sawed back and forth for a few more hours.
We threw hand grenades all
across our front while Krulak gave us overhead mortar and M-79 fire from time
to time keep the snipers off guard because they were now in the trees shooting
down on us and wounding just about anyone who moved.
Then something terrible happened. Tw CH-46 helicopters landed up front near Hotel Company to pick up the wounded from 2/4. Some of our wounded managed to get over near the first chopper by crossing Hotel's lines to our left front.
One had just loaded the wounded and started to lift off when NVA hit it hard with both heavy gun fire and RPG rockets.
The ‘chopper burst into flames and started to crash with Marines who
thought they were being lifted to safety falling out the back as it passed treetop
level. That was an awful sight but were helpless to do anything.
The
'chopper was melting right before our eyes. I'd never seen a chopper burn like
that nor did I think they burned that fast. I don't know how many died in that
crash from 2/4, but I'm sure most of the wounded now became KIA. Before that
was over, another 'chopper a short distance away also went down just like the
first. We had two terrible crashes in
about 20 minutes.
Things
didn't start to cool down until near darkness. By that time, many of us had
managed to regroup, get more ammo, take care of our dead and wounded and try to
shore up that exposed right flank I had been cautious of all day. That was the
place I most worried about because of the fleeing NVA we kept seeing from time
to time darting to their safety.
During the early darkness, Krulak passed the word that two jets: F-4 Phantoms were on the way with some “snake and nape” (that meant bombs and napalm).
He told us to get
down and stay down because they would be dropping right over the top of us.
They would be making their run from left to right in between us and 2/4 - right
across our two fronts on top of the NVA, or at least that was the plan.
As the old saying goes: “If it can go wrong, it will go wrong.” Well it was about to.
The two Phantoms arrived right on schedule because we could hear them, but as they started their napalm run, it became clear they were coming in from behind us, not from our left across our front as we thought.
Bingo, they roared
right over the top of the CP at my platoon's back and not across
the NVA's front. They were coming in low and hot.
We
could clearly see their napalm bombs tumbled off their racks and started
falling right toward Krulak and the CP, not toward the NVA – they had missed
the angle of their attack. The nape hit the ground just short of the CP, and
burst into one helluva giant fireball and then if by magic, it rolled right over
the top of the CP missing everyone below.
That happened as if it had been planned, but it surely was not. Free and clear and not one of our guys was hurt. It looked like a pool player making the cue ball jump over the seven ball and knocking in the eight ball.
Even with that screw up, those F-4's helped save our asses because the NVA didn't do anything the
rest of the night. Either they were cooked or managed to flee. They dropped way
short and from the wrong heading, nearly wiping out our CP but somehow ended up
saving the day. Everyone knew it was damn close. I knew the guys in the CP got
their whiskers singed! Krulak for his
bravery that night won his Silver Star. He damn sure earned it.
We
mopped up the next and continue to move north towards the DMZ and more
fighting. That’s the way this war continued.
Related: Remembrance of Operation JAY from 1st BN, 4th Marines point of view – their page link.
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