

© Peter
Isaacs
Adjutant 5RAR
1st Tour |
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In 1997,
Peter Isaacs wrote this account of a visit he
and Brian LeDan made to 173rd
Airborne Brigade in May 1966, a few days before
5RAR deployed into its TAOR (Tactical Area of
Responsibility) on Operation HARDIHOOD. Peter
was the Adjutant and Brian the Regimental
Signals Officer of 5RAR during its first tour of
Vietnam in 1966-67
To gain
some experience of airmobile operations, particularly of
how a battalion HQ operated in the field and to obtain
first hand experience of central Phuoc Tuy Province,
Brian LeDan and I went up to Bien Hoa to join the 1st
Battalion of the American 503rd
Airborne Regiment. (1/503rd) The 173rd
Airborne Brigade operation in which we were to
participate, was a two battalion sized operation (1/503rd
and 2/503rd) aimed at a preliminary clearance
of the intended 1ATF Tactical Area Of Operations (TAOR)
in central Phuoc Tuy. In the afternoon before the
operation was launched, we arrived at the 1/503rd.
It was fascinating to walk through the camp and the
adjacent artillery lines. The GIs were in the last
stages of preparing for the following days operation and
they seemed to be in good spirits. "Airborne all the
way" was the frequently heard cry particularly from the
Sergeants and the same expression was painted on the
barrels of some of the
105mm guns of the artillery battery. The battalion
CO was Lieutenant Colonel Coad. His S3 or Operations
Officer was Major Phelan who would shortly become S3 at
Brigade HQ. We listened to a briefing on how the
operation was to be conducted. My chief interests
in the operation were to observe how two battalions were
to move by helicopter in two lifts and how control was
exercised particularly the final assault and the
preliminary air and artillery bombardment of the assault
L Z (Landing Zone). The scope for cock-ups seemed
enormous!
We stayed
the first night with 1RAR who were now preparing to
leave South Vietnam as soon as 6RAR arrived. The base
camps of all three battalions of 173rd
Airborne Brigade were adjacent to each other around the
Bien Hoa air base with 1RAR in the centre. Before stand
to, I visited John Healey who was commanding A Company.
John had met me at Holsworthy when I arrived in
Australia 2 ½ years before. He reminded me of it and
said little did we know then that we should be here at
Bien Hoa in 1966. All battalions "stood to," i.e.
assumed battle readiness in their defensive positions
from 30 minutes before last light until 30 minutes after
last light. The same procedure was repeated in the
morning before and after first light. It is the time
when attacks are most likely to occur and a time when
commanders can ensure that their defences are in order.
It is also the time to change from a day to night
routine at dusk and resume day routine at dawn.
The 1RAR area was totally blacked out and quiet.
Indeed, I heard Alec Preece the CO of 1RAR getting
annoyed when someone opened the door of the battalion HQ
tactical operations centre (TOC) before the lights were
switched off. In the bases of the 1/503rd and
2/503rd
there were no such restrictions on lights and indeed men
seemed to be making the usual sort of noise as during
the daytime. Looking around it was as though
1RAR's area was unoccupied between the two American
camps.
After
stand down I spent a couple of hours listening with
great interest to my erstwhile colleagues in 1RAR
explain how they had operated in South Vietnam during
the previous year. John Essex Clark was in good humour
and full of advice. Chris Peacock who had replaced me in
1 RAR was similarly helpful. It was with some
excitement and not a little trepidation about the
forthcoming operation that I turned in that night.
Before dawn on the morning
of the 17th May, Brian and I drove to the
airfield. The whole of the 1/503rd were
already lined up in "chalks" i.e. six man groups, one
for each helicopter along the edge of the runway. We
joined the battalion HQ party and were assigned into
chalks. The air filled with sound as an US Army Aviation
Company of thirty Iroquois troop carrying "slicks"
arrived and landed. A second Aviation Company was
getting ready to lift the next wave. The light and heavy
fire teams that were to accompany us flew around what to
me was an air armada. I had never seen anything like it.
We clambered aboard and the lines of helicopters slowly
lifted off the ground and moved forward gaining altitude
as their speed increased. What an experience! We flew
south in two lines of helicopters escorted by the light
and heavy fire teams on either side and ahead. In the
early morning light the helicopters oscillated up and
down relative to each other yet from the ground we would
have appeared to be flying in rigid formation. The beat
of the rotors, the noise of the turbine engines and the
roar of the wind past the open sides. We grinned at each
other. Most of the GIs were chewing gum. I think it
helped calm nerves. About half the troops in my aircraft
were black and several had 8mm movie cameras in their
hands. We were flying to a fire support base between
Ba Ria and
Nui Dat
where the battalion would assemble for the final air
assault into the objective L Z.
We landed
in dry paddy fields either side of a road, tumbled out
of the helicopters and I joined Colonel Coad's party
close to a stone shack near the road. An Australian
Captain named Craig Legget was there. (I next met Craig
in Zagreb in 1993 where he was serving on the HQ staff
of UNPROFOR during the Balkans conflict) He led an
irregular band of ex VC known as the Provincial
Reconnaissance Unit. The half battalion that had
arrived in the first lift spread out across the paddy
fields to await the next lift from Bien Hoa. We were
behind the artillery battery that was preparing to shoot
us in. to the objective L Z. I listened to the radio
conversations between the officer commanding the
helicopters and the assistant S3 who was controlling the
lifts. The air commander was saying how many men his
aircraft would pick up for the assault but they would
have to refuel first at Vung Tau. This all seemed
complex to me as there might well be much jockeying
about as the numbers for troops for pick up by each
Slick could change and sections and platoons could
become mixed up. It didn't seem to worry the assistant
S3 and he was passing orders to the companies telling
them how many men to load.
I joined
one of the assault Rifle Companies moving up to their
positions along paddy bunds. The second wave of
helicopters arrived and their troops disembarked
rapidly. The helicopters then flew off to refuel. When
they returned, air strikes onto our objective L Z had
started. We boarded the helicopters and as we took off,
the artillery battery commenced firing. We would
approach the L Z at right angles to the line of
artillery fire so that they didn't have to stop firing
until we were practically touching down.
The
adrenalin was certainly flowing as we began the descent
in two lines of helicopters towards the objective L Z.
There were two Rifle Companies in the first assault wave
and I was in about the third helicopter of the right
hand column. I could now see the objective L Z which was
obscured by smoke from the earlier air strikes and the
artillery fire now being put down. The fire teams were
firing ahead as we approached and would cover the actual
assault landing when the artillery fire stopped. What
amazed me as we came in to land was that several of the
troops had their 8mm movie cameras at the ready instead
of their rifles! The side gunners on the outside
of the two lines of helicopters were now firing their
M60s into the tree line
on either side of the L Z. As they poured into the
L Z from above the trees, each helicopter "flared" into
an upwards attitude which took off the forward speed.
Before the skids touched the ground we were out and
lying on the ground. The helicopters barely touched the
ground and then rose swiftly into the air again to
collect the next wave. As they did so we doubled across
the open area to our assigned position to defend the L Z
until the next lift arrived. There was no hostile
firing - not surprising given the thorough preparation
that L Z Hudson had received that morning! The Rifle
Company spread out as commanders took control. We waited
until the next lift arrived and I then joined the
battalion HQ party and we moved off behind one of the
Rifle Companies. It had all worked very smoothly but
then, there had been no opposition!
The GIs
were well equipped and heavily armed. They all carried
5.56mm M16 (Armalite)
rifles and each man had a very good field pack attached
to a light aluminium frame. Their green shirts and
trousers were a better design than ours and had more
pockets. They all wore steel helmets covered in a
camouflaged material. We didn't wear steel helmets -
just our green jungle hats, much envied by the GIs. Many
of them had a broad rubber band cut from tyre inner
tubes around their helmets in which bottles of insect
repellent were secured. Some added a pack of Camel fags
to this useful stowage space but it destroyed the
effectiveness of the camouflaged material. Each Rifle
Company had its own section of two x
81mm mortars. Each rifleman also carried a round of
81mm mortar ammunition which they dumped at the mortar
position if a long halt was called. The machine guns
were the same 7.62mm M60s
as we had. Each rifleman carried at least five x 20
round magazines for his
M16
rifle plus extra boxes of 50 rounds plus a spare belt of
200 of 7.62mm rounds for the Squad
M60 slung bandolier
style across one shoulder. Section Commanders had a 40mm
M79 grenade launcher
and about 10 rounds of ammunition. Each man also carried
fragmentation and smoke grenades. A formidable load of
ammunition and weapons to carry and then there was food
(C rations), a change of clothing, two water bottles and
spare radio batteries. Peacetime exercises are rarely
conducted with troops carrying anything like the loads
they have to carry in war. It is a nasty surprise the
first time that reality arrives! The radios used
by the GIs were the excellent
ANPRC VHF
range of sets with which the Australian Army had been
equipped in 1963.
Battalion
HQ moved in file - i.e. two lines walking one behind the
other about four yards between each file and about two
yards from the man in front. I had no responsibility
other that to look around. I was close to the S3 and
could hear him keeping track of where the Rifle
Companies were moving. This was very difficult to do
when we ourselves were on the move as I was to find out
later myself. We followed the Rifle Company for two -
three hours before we stopped near a clearing suitable
as an L Z. On one side of the clearing was a small
abandoned and overgrown rubber plantation. Banana trees
grew nearby. Elsewhere, the vegetation was thick scrub
with thorny bushes and patches of bamboo. The ground was
red latterite.
The Rifle
Company left us with a platoon for our protection and
set off eastwards. We were all black with sweat and
stretched out against the rubber trees. The radios
chattered, the S3 called "Buckle Shine 2 this is
Buckle Shine 1 over". "This is 2 over". American
voice procedure was different to ours. They changed
their call signs every day from a random list of names.
There were always two names that identified the net and
the number which followed indicated the sub unit. Of the
hundreds of names that I heard on American radio nets
over the following year, I can remember those used by
1/503rd during the first 24 hours of my first
war "Buckle Shine" and "Sandy Reef". The American
Province Advisors net call sign on that same day was
"Stall Tattoo".
As we
were obviously staying put for some time, many of the
GIs wasted no time in getting a brew going and opening
up cans of C rations. They discarded the cans and trash
without attempting to bury them. The CO and S3 were busy
with maps and radios as the Rifle Companies searched
their assigned areas for signs of VC presence. Late in
the afternoon, B Company reported that they had spotted
a VC following them who appeared to have a radio.
Shortly afterwards, they reported being in contact with
a sizeable VC force. A nasty fire fight developed and B
Company called in artillery and mortar fire. At some
stage, several rounds of their own artillery fire landed
on a platoon of B Company. Whose fault it was we didn't
know. It could have been the infantry moving into an
area already called as an artillery target or it could
have been the artillery forward controller with B
Company Commander making an error and calling the fire
in too close. Or it could have been a fault at the gun
lines - firing on a moving bubble or some such artillery
technical fault. We were about a mile and a half
from B Company and could hear the firing quite clearly.
Unlike
the Australian system where the artillery battery
commander is always with the infantry battalion
commander, the Americans had a junior artillery officer
with the infantry commander and the battery commander
stays with the guns. The senior artillery officer with
us at battalion HQ was a young captain. He seemed calm
but not surprisingly very concerned that his rounds had
caused casualties to B Company. I thought it would have
been better if the battery commander was with battalion
HQ. The CO seemed to me to be not too concerned. Indeed,
I was surprised at the whole atmosphere within the TOC
group. B Company had run into what was probably a VC
company sized force. They had been caught in cross fire
but were extricating themselves. They had casualties
both dead and wounded but no one raised their voices and
didn't seem too concerned that larger VC forces could
well be nearby. Colonel Coad gave orders for his
other Rifle Companies to move towards B Company but they
were some way off and no helicopters could be made
immediately available to lift them into B Company's
location
Perhaps
fortunately for B Company, the VC broke off contact and
the S3 called in "Dust Off" helicopters to pick up the
wounded and the dead. In the hour or so that the contact
been in progress, B company had taken 8 killed and 23
wounded.
Word was
passed that we would be remaining in our present
position for the night. The Top Sergeant who seemed to
be in charge of the defence of battalion HQ moved men
into perimeter positions. I think the Rifle Platoon that
had earlier provided our defence had moved to assist B
Company. From what followed, I think we must have been
on our own that night which is not recommended for a
battalion HQ.
By now it
was getting late. No one had dug any defensive positions
and no one seemed to be preparing meals before it got
dark. Brian and I were tired and switched into automatic
mode. We dug a shell scrape about three feet deep and
four feet long. We then started to cook our C rations.
It was at that moment we understood why nobody else was
cooking. A lone helicopter clattered into the L Z and
dumped hot boxes -aluminium food containers, paper
plates and cups and then departed - presumably for a
Rifle Company's L Z. The GIs set to and ate with gusto
and within a few minutes they had finished eating. The
paper plates and cups were discarded. They then began to
prepare for last light. Many had nylon hammocks which
they strung between rubber trees.
As last
light approached, everyone stood to in their assigned
defensive position. Those on the perimeter had dug
shallow trenches but apart from Brian and me, no one
else had. Someone shouted a command - probably the Top
Sergeant and those on the perimeter opened fire. The
noise during the one minute of firing was deafening.
Australian tactical doctrine is that before last light,
clearing patrols go out from a perimeter to ensure no
enemy forces are within a couple of hundred yards of the
defensive position from which they can either observe or
assault as darkness falls. Each patrol might also drop
off a two man listening post to give early warning of
enemy approach.
Americans
do it differently and believe in clearing by fire. OK if
you have the resources of ammunition to sustain it but
it also gives away your position to the enemy - as does
a visit by a helicopter shortly before last light. Brian
and I settled down in our lightweight sleeping bags on
the ground rather envious of those who had clambered
into hammocks nearby.
At some
time during the night we were awakened by a low shout -
"Stand to, stand to, VC are inside the perimeter!"
We rolled out of our
sleeping bags and into our slit trench. Pistols drawn we
peered into the inky blackness and waited. We were very
pleased with ourselves for having dug that trench. Those
in their hammocks about two feet off the ground before
stand to was called, were very vulnerable to small arms
fire.
There was
an odd burst of fire from our positions on the perimeter
but nothing incoming. After a while, stand down was
announced.
At dawn
the next morning, a large circular directional mine was
discovered just outside the perimeter. It was wired to
torch batteries taped inside a length of bamboo.
Had it been detonated, the casualties would most
probably have been devastating to the battalion HQ
staff, most of whom were well within the lethal range of
the mine - and in their hammocks two feet above the
ground!
Brian and
I stayed with 1/503rd for another 24 hours.
During that time there were no further contacts with the
VC. We climbed the hill at
Nui Dat
that was soon to become the base of our D Company and
then took out leave of 1/503rd and returned
by a re-supply helicopter to Vung Tau.
We
reported our adventures and joined in the last minute
preparations for Operation
Hardihood
- the establishment of 1ATF at
Nui Dat.
END
ONCE WE WERE SOLDIERS |
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