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18 November - 3 December 1966
Captain Robert J O'Neill MID
While most of
our operations took place in the central and western Phuoc
Tuy, we had been paying attention to one of the main
problems of the eastern district—the
isolation of Xuyen Moc. This village contained approximately
1,500 people and was defended by two government companies of
infantry, the one a regional Forces Company, the other a
Popular Forces Company. We had become interested in Xuyen
Moc for two main reasons—first
to see if we could do anything about relieving its isolation
and second to expand our intelligence net to the east to
cover an area of heavy Viet Cong activity.
The village
of Xuyen Moc was situated centrally within the district of
the same name. It was a large district and the village was
seven miles from the coast and twelve miles from the nearest
village in central Phuoc Tuy. Government control was
non-existent in the area between central Phuoc Tuy and Xuyen
Moc village, and it was far from strong in Dat Do, the main
village on the eastern side of central Phuoc Tuy.
Consequently, the Viet Cong were able to range freely over
the whole of the province to the east of Dat Do. The next
province to the east, Binh Tuy, was sparely populated and
defended by very few Government troops and so the Xuyen Moc
district formed part of an immense zone of unrestricted
movement for the Viet Cong. Much of this movement tended to
concentrate on routes through the Xuyen Moc District because
it was close to the current location of the Viet Cong
fighting and because several roads ran through the district,
leading the chain of Viet Cong bases in the north-east of
Phuoc Tuy. These bases needed access to the sea coast for
receiving supplies brought in from the north by small ships
and junks, they required roads over which the Viet Cong
could drive trucks and ox carts laden with rice from central
Phuoc Tuy from which the Provincial Mobile and District
Company activities could be sustained.
The network
of roads that had been built through Xuyen Moc District in
earlier times served each of these three needs very well.
Route 23, the main road which linked Ba Ria, Long Dien, Dat
Do and Xuyen Moc provided good communications for the Viet
Cong from central Phuoc Tuy to the western part of Xuyen Moc
District. They were not confined to using the road itself
for there were many ox cart trails which ran in the same
general direction as the road and offered the advantage of
cover from view, because they ran through thick scrub and
low jungle. Running north and south throughout the western
section of Xuyen Moc District was Route 328, a well made
earth road which bore the main weight of Viet Cong traffic
to the coast and to central Phuoc Tuy. Route 328 was a
prolongation of Route 330, which ran southwards from Route
1, swept around the western side of the May Tao mountain,
crossed a jungle covered plain where the road became Route
328, and ran due south to Route 23 passed the former Viet
Cong model village of Thua Tich and the junction with Route
327, which ran due west to Binh Gia and Route 2. After
travelling westwards on Route 23 for half a mile, Route 328
swung off to the south again, passed through the village of
Phuoc Buu and then ran south-east to the coast at Cape Ho
Tram. Wide beaches ran along the coast for several miles on
either side of the cape and so it was a very suitable area
for landing supplies from small ships.
When we
arrived in Phuoc Tuy, Route 328 was one of the best
maintained roads in the province, in sharp distinction to
Route 23. As one flew eastwards from Dat Do to Route 23 one
saw a succession of blown up bridges and culverts which had
been cut away and which could be crossed only on single
planks, reducing the capacity of Route 23 to that of an ox
cart track--or worse in those places where travelers' were
not permitted to use the Viet Cong controlled fords. Route
328 had a broad, smooth surface of red earth. All its banks
and culverts were in good order and the bridge over the Suoi
Cay Gia near the junction with Route 23 must have been the
only road bridge intact in Phuoc Tuy, east of Dat Do.
After passing
the junction with Route 328, Route 23 turned to the
north-east to run into Xuyen Moc village. In the centre of
the village, the road turned at right angles and left the
village running south-east. After a mile it turned east to
link several hamlets in its last ten miles within Phuoc Tuy.
After entering the Ham Tam District of Binh Tuy the road
continued to run eastwards until it converged with the
coastline and inclined to the north once more. From this
section of Route 23 several other important Viet Cong roads
branched to the north and south. From the centre of Xuyen
Moc village in prolongation of the north-easterly direction
of Route 23 ran Route 329. This was nothing more than a
broad ox cart track, but it appeared to have been properly
laid out by a surveyor and so it was capable of carrying
more traffic than the normal winding narrow ox cart track.
This route led into the southern part of the May Tao
mountain and met several tracks of varying capacities,
including Route 331, which ran along the Binh Tuy border to
Route 23 and to the coast.
All of these
roads and tracks, except for the area within two miles of
the Xuyen Moc intersection, were heavily used by the Viet
Cong. Consequently, the Viet Cong were anxious to dislodge
the Government forces from their last foothold, but while
the Government outpost continued to exist we were provided
with an excellent listening post for detecting Viet Cong
movement on the road system leading into the main bases of
the Fifth Viet Cong Division.
The Viet Cong
had always held a strong influence over the Xuyen Moc
District, for since the time of the Viet Minh, it has been a
base area for the Communists. For this purpose the district
was well suited for it contained few people to observe the
movements of the Viet Cong, it was relatively close to
Saigon and it linked the sea coast with the May Tao mountain
and War Zone D, further to the north. Ever since the early
nineteen-sixties, the garrison had been confined to the
immediate locality of the village because of the superiority
of the local Viet Cong forces, particularly the D445
Provincial Mobile Battalion which had its bases to the north
of Route 23, between Xuyen Moc and Dat Do, centered about
the Song Rai. This battalion mounted several attacks on the
garrison but suffered with losses in doing so that it seemed
better to be content with having isolated the garrison from
the provincial administration.
Because they
were unable to take Xuyen Moc by force, the Viet Cong began
to use means which were slower but which could have been
just as decisive. They set up several tax points along Route
23 which the villagers had to pass through when they went to
Dat Do. Xuyen Moc was not self sufficient in important food
stuffs such as meat, fish and rice, so the people had to
make frequent journeys to
Dat Do to sell their fruit, wood and hand-made articles and
to buy foods they could not produce. Consequently the Viet
Cong had an inescapable grasp over the lives of the
villagers by their control over Route 23, and a sure means
of local income. The taxation points were spread over a wide
area of country on either side of Route 23 in order to catch
people who tried to walk around the tax collectors. The rate
of taxation varied up to as high as forty percent of the
goods being carried, thus it imposed a considerable burden
of poverty on the people of Xuyen Moc.
The village
grew poorer and poorer. The people were faced by an acute
dilemma—they
either had to move to the central part of the province and
abandon their homes and lands without recompense or they had
to endure the continual loss of a major portion of their
income until government control over Route 23 could be
re-established. Had the people left Xuyen Moc, the Viet Cong
would have won a considerable success in demonstrating to
the people in outlying villages in Phuoc Tuy that the
government could not protect them and that the Government
was still the weaker of the two contenders for control of
South Vietnam.
The
Government attempted to assist the people of Xuyen Moc by
supplying their needs by air. Every few weeks, several
American C123 aircraft
flew to Xuyen Moc to drop rice, medical supplies, ammunition
and equipment for the garrison. The strength of the garrison
was maintained at two companies despite reductions elsewhere
in the province, and it was provided with two 105.mm field
guns and a platoon of artillerymen. However, the scale of
government support for Xuyen Moc did not meet it needs and
so the fundamental problems of the people were still
present.
The village
was fortunate in its garrison commander, The District Chief,
captain Duc. Duc was a lithe man and when one saw how well
maintained his compound was and how effectively his troops
went about their duties it was obvious that Xuyen Moc was
under the leadership of an outstanding man. Duc had been at
Xuyen Moc since 1961 and had been confronted with the
serious problem of maintaining morale of the people over a
long period. When we first made his acquaintance in October
1966 he was getting a little dispirited himself, for it was
impossible to say when an improvement in Xuyen Moc's
position would take place. Duc came from Go Cong in the
Mekong Delta. he felt it was unsafe to bring his wife and
children to Xuyen Moc and so he had seen very little of them
for five years.
Duc had laid
out the defences with some originality. Not content with
simply a fortified compound which could not keep the Viet
Cong out of the village at night, he had surrounded the
compound with twenty- two defended posts which were
scattered in an irregular manner in a perimeter some three
hundred yards out from the compound. Each of these posts
were sited so it could receive supporting fire from the two
posts on its flanks in the event of an attack, and each was
manned by seven Popular Force soldiers. During the time of
day, this number was reduced to two to permit the defenders
to go about their own business and to patrol the immediate
environs of the village.
The village
was made up of five hamlets, four of which were grouped
together around the main road junction while the fifth, a
Catholic new Life hamlet, stood by itself to the north-west,
separated from the main village by five hundred yards. Each
of these two settlement groups were surrounded by a ditch,
rampart and barbed wire fences. Although the Catholic hamlet
was defended by only twenty Popular Force soldiers, its
potential for resistance was far greater than this would
indicate for most of the villagers were trained to bear
arms. Around the hamlets were minefields and on all the
roads which led into settled the areas, barricades were
placed one behind the other so that it was quite difficult
to thread one's way even by day when they were partly
opened. Within the four central hamlets was a small airstrip
some three hundred yards in length. However, the possibility
of sniper anti-aircraft fire from around the village had
prevented aircraft from using the landing strip and it had
fallen into disrepair.
I made my
first visit to Xuyen Moc motivated more by curiosity than by
any particular knowledge of the outposts need. Until
October, all we knew about the village and its garrison was
summed up by a blue circle on our maps which indicated that
the village was still under government control. I wanted to know
how the post had held out, what its problems were, what its
worth was, how it could be relieved and what intelligence
assistance it could give us. Prior to Operation Crowsnest I
had made some preliminary arrangements with the R.A.A.F. for
a helicopter. Normally, the R.A.A.F. pilots liked to have
radio contact with any landing zone which they had to use.
However, we thought that it would be most unlikely for Xuyen
Moc to have a spare radio available for this purpose, even
had we been able to contact them before the visit. Without
direct contact with the landing zone, one did not know
whether any artillery was being fired which could endanger
the helicopter, or even whether the landing zone was secure
from Viet Cong interference.
However, when
I had explained the significance of making contact with this
beleaguered outpost, the pilots agreed to make an attempt to
land, depending on our assessment of the local situation as
we flew overhead. We hoped that at least we would know
whether the post was still in Government hands or not on the
day of the visit, but until we had landed we would have no
idea of what sort of local situation we were flying into.
We took off
from Tiger Five, the battalion helicopter pad, at 10 a.m. on
the morning of October 4th. Accompanying me were Bic, the
interpreter, and private Browne, my Batman and bodyguard. We
ascended over Nui Dat in tight spirals to a height of nearly
four thousand feet, quite sufficient to cope with any
anti-aircraft fire which may have met us when we were a long
way out from the base. The green rows of rubber trees passed
beneath us as we flew over Long Tan and looked out on a vast
expanse of jungle, still bright green in the wet season.
Here and there were large clearings across which ran the
unmistakable marks of ox carts. The early part of the Dat Do
rice harvest was evidently on its way to the rice caches of
D445 Battalion and the Fifth Viet Cong Division. We swung
south to follow Route 23. so we could see the state of the
damage inflicted by the Viet Cong . I gave up trying to
count the number of culverts which had been destroyed and
the number of holes which had been dug across the road. As
one flew over mile after mile of jungle which denied visual
penetration one came to feel Xuyen Moc was the end of the
earth--nothing could be further away from one's concept of
civilization!
After five
miles we passed the staggered junction of both sections of
Route 23. The red earth of the former was smooth for as far
as the eye can see. Shortly afterwards the clearing in which
Xuyen Moc lay came into view. The village looked perfectly
peaceful. Small columns of smoke twisted upwards in moist
air from huts of bamboo and houses of brick. A few herds of
cattle moved between the edge of the jungle and the outer
barbed wire of the village defences and the men could be
seen at the road blocks guarding the approaches to the
village. As we swung low over the centre of the village we
could see a broad square of earth which formed the market
place. Around the market place on three sides were shops. On
the fourth side was the district headquarters compound.
Small figures began to run out of the compound as we came
low overhead. While we made another circuit of the village
they grouped in a field one hundred yards in front of the
compound and set off a canister of purple smoke. We took
this as a good indication of where they wanted us to land
and made a final steep drop to land twenty yards from the
assembled group. No sooner than I, Browne and Bic jumped out
of the helicopter than the aircraft had taken off again, not
caring to risk enemy mortar fire from the jungle, a little
over a mile away.
CONTINUE
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