(Cont'd)

February - March 1967

Captain Robert J O'Neill MID

A Company returned to the base for a few hours and then set off to the west of Nui Dat to guard the north-western approaches to the Task Force base. On the evening of March 29th Three Platoon under Lieutenant Ben Morris were ambushing some fresh Viet Cong tracks. Half an hour after darkness had become complete the platoon heard voices of approaching Viet Cong. The enemy were allowed to come right up to the ambush position before they were blasted by a Claymore mine and automatic fire. The Viet Cong withdrew to the protection of a creek bed into which the platoon lobbed hand grenades. Out of eight Viet Cong counted, two bodies were found in front of the ambush in the morning. Three blood trails left by wounded Viet Cong were followed for a short way and scuff marks made by bodies being dragged were found. The two dead men must have been important couriers for they were carrying 13,955 piastres (approx. $130 Aust.), Communist psychological warfare publications in both English and Vietnamese, private letters to persons in Hoa Long, Long Phuoc and Ba Ria, and a notice of a meeting of the Chau Duc committee on April 8th. The group had been one of several from the Chau Duc District Company, C20, which A Company had ambushed in the previous few months.

On April 3rd Three Platoon had a further success with an ambush. They were lying in wait on a trail three miles to the west of Nui Dat. In the early evening, a few minutes after 7 p.m. three Viet Cong came down the trail from the north. The leading enemy scout must have noticed some traces of recent activity around the point at which the northern Claymore had been concealed. He stopped and began to make a careful examination. That was the last mistake he ever made for the Claymore was detonated just as he was about to discover what it was. He was killed instantly. His two friends took to their heels and ran into an artillery barrage which was brought down onto their withdrawal route. The platoon recovered the body and the man's weapon, a Garand MI.

B Company's first few days on the fence, south of Dat Do, passed quietly. On the night of April 4th the company was in ambush on the south-west approaches to Dat Do. Just after dark two Viet Cong coming from the Long Hai hills walked into the position of Six Platoon. They were engaged with machine gun fire. One was killed and the other ran off, badly wounded. This incident was an interesting study in the slowness of the passage of information amongst village level Viet Cong for although B Company had moved into their evening location at 5.30 p.m. through open paddy fields in full sight of the villagers of Dat Do, no warning had been passed to the two Viet Cong who walked directly onto B Company's position.

Two days later B Company encountered further difficulties. At 11.30 a.m. on April 6th a mine was detonated by a work party on the northern side of Phuoc Loi, killing Private R. E. Lloyd and wounding two others. All were members of Four Platoon. In Major Hamlyn's opinion, the mine had been planted by the Viet Cong, for it was directly in line with the path to be taken by the fence. However it was impossible to say how long the mine had been in the ground. It was another U.S. 'jumping Jack'. At 7.25 p.m. that evening, Four Platoon opened fire on a Viet Cong scout who tried to creep up onto their position. The man escaped into thick bushes to the north.  At 11.10 a.m. on April 7th B Company was shaken by another explosion. Taking great care after the previous explosion, the company had been working behind a team of sappers who were searching the ground with mine detectors. Four Platoon had just received a new commander, Lieutenant Kerry Rinkin. Rinkin had been commissioned as a national service officer and he had transferred to the regular army. He was a very active leader and tried to set a vigorous example to his men in all their activities. On this morning he stood on one of the raised paddy bunds near the fence and explained to his platoon the area which had been cleared of mines by the sappers so that his men knew where they could work in safety. One of the boundaries of the cleared area was the bund on which Rinkin was standing. Immediately after this explanation, he stepped back off the bund into the uncleared area, perhaps because he lost his balance for a moment, and had the extreme misfortune to step onto another mine which had been planted in line with the fence and with the mine which had been detonated on the previous day. Rinkin was very seriously wounded and died shortly afterwards.

B Company withdrew for the night to the south-west edge of Dat Do. Four Platoon, now under the command of Lieutenant Lew O'Dea who had been transferred from Five Platoon, took up a position of all round defence to harbour for the night. One Section was across the southern flank, Two Section faced to the north-west and Three Section covered the north-eastern approach. At 11.05 p.m. the machine gun sentry of Two Section thought he saw three Viet Cong move quickly towards him from the south-west. He fired a burst of automatic fire at what he saw and the whole platoon tumbled into their pits and stood to. One of the men in One Section looked to the west and saw a large number of rifle flashes outside the perimeter, advancing towards him. During the following exchange of fire one of the members of Two Section was hit as he was moving towards his pit.

Lieutenant O'Dea went forward and called the platoon medic to treat the wounded man. At first the wound did not appear to be serious but further examination revealed a serious laceration and a deep wound in the chest. A Dust Off aircraft was requested. Lieutenant O'Dea ordered the firing of artillery illumination shells over his area so that his men could examine the ground in front of them. The helicopter was brought into a landing zone twenty yards east of the platoon. Initial attempts to guide the aircraft in by torches failed so a small beacon fire of grass was lit to solve the problem. After the departure of the helicopter, O'Dea reorganized One and Two Sections into four man weapon pits so that control over the perimeter could be tightened. A fifty per cent stand-to was ordered and O'Dea then checked his men and saw that all was in order. B Company were withdrawn from the fence on the following morning and replaced by A Company.

This new team completed the assigned length of the fence by the early afternoon of April 11th and commenced to move into position for the Fifth Battalion's final operation-the clearing and patrolling of the road to Xuyen Moc. The engineers had completed their bridging and road repair operations and the resumption of normal unrestricted civilian traffic was scheduled to commence on April 12th after a break of several years. The battalion flew out in the early morning of the 12th and took up a series of company positions along the road between Dat Do and the Song Rai bridge. Patrols fanned out to sweep the jungle to a distance of several hundred yards out from the road. The road and its environs were checked with mine detectors to guard against any Viet Cong activity which had taken place during the previous night. No trouble of any kind was encountered and the road was open from 11.09 a.m. A ceremony conducted at Xuyen Moc by Colonel Dat and Captain Duc released a flood of traffic as civilians took advantage of the Government trucks provided to carry them into Dat Do and Ba Ria. We felt that our last operation had closed on a significant note with the restoration of full communications between the Provincial Headquarters and all of its subordinate districts. It was particularly satisfying to know that for the people of Xuyen Moc the tide of the war had begun to flow strongly in the direction of their own wishes.

End
 

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