By Honor Bound Read online

  “About a mile into the patrol we began to see a series of bonfires up ahead,” Tom recalled, “fires that usually accompanied bivouacked troops. As we got closer, we began to see a series of fixed bunkers. Now moving slowly, I could spot four small bunkers and one really big one. We still didn’t know where we were, but I was now certain that we were not close to the Cua Viet or the Cua Viet Naval Base. These were large, permanent North Vietnamese Army installations—not hastily constructed defenses of an invading Army.”

  Mike continued: “When we saw the bunkers, Tommy called us in for a field briefing and said we were going to work our way past the line of bunkers and any troops that were in the area and try to get some idea of their disposition and strength. This meant we had to tighten up the patrol and move slowly. Tommy knew how to move around and through enemy formations—he’d demonstrated that on his pilot-rescue operations. It took nerve and confidence on his part, but it was something he was good at. Yet it was still a dicey game. Lieutenant Thuan, Deng, and Quan, and for that matter, Tommy, were small, so all of them could pass for a North Vietnamese patrol in an encounter at night. I spoiled any chance of that, and I was carrying all the damn gear in the world. But Tommy knew what he was doing. Deng and Quan were solid, and they knew the drill. But the Vietnamese lieutenant was clearly nervous. His eyes were as big as saucers.”

  “We turned north to skirt the bunkers,” said Tom, “and we moved very slowly. We didn’t see any troops and assumed they were huddled inside the bunkers. We were well inside North Vietnamese–controlled territory, so there was no reason for them to suspect anything. As long as we were careful and didn’t bump into one of their patrols, we were pretty safe—or as safe as you can be in a situation like that. It was well after midnight, and after we had moved about a mile and a half north, I saw this lump on a sand dune up ahead of us. So I halted the patrol and called Mike up. ‘Is that what I think it is?’ he said, and I said, ‘If you mean that tank up there, yep.’”

  “We were about a hundred yards from it,” Mike said of the tank, “maybe a little more. I got out the starlight scope and checked it out. There were bonfires not too far from the tank, so I could see it clearly. It was a T-54 and I could see the lettering on the side and the red star on the turret. So Tommy says, ‘I think it’s about time we got the heck out of here,’ and I said, ‘Roger that, sir.’ It was about 0300 and we only had about three hours or so of darkness left. It was time to leave.”

  “We turned east and began working our way back toward the beach,” Tom said. “I put Mike on point and I took up a position in the rear of the patrol. The patrol order was Mike, Quan, Lieutenant Thuan, Deng, and myself. Mike had the starlight scope, and I knew that the closer we got to the water, the thinner the covering vegetation would be. He would be able to pause and survey the ground ahead and make sure it was clear of any NVA as we moved. I also had to be on the radio. I was able to raise Woody and let him know that we were on our way out and that we might be needing some fire support at any time. We were moving slowly and carefully, yet we wanted to make our extraction before first light.”

  “As we moved east,” said Mike, now leading the patrol, “we picked up a stream that was heading in our direction. There were trees on the banks to either side and it gave us good cover. So we waded into the stream. The water was three to four feet deep, and I was worried that if it got any deeper, it would be an issue for Quan and Deng. But as we got closer to the coast, the creek widened and became shallower. I knew we were not far from the ocean, as I could hear surf in the distance. Then I heard something else—voices, and they were close by. I halted the patrol and Tommy came up to my position. We listened awhile, and then he sent me up the southern bank of the stream for a look-see. There was good cover in trees along the bank. Not far from our position was an encampment with NVA soldiers moving about. There was a scattering of huts and bunkers, and soldiers moving in and around the structures. They also had a commanding view of the beach where our stream emptied into the sea. There was no way we could cross the beach without them seeing us.

  “I made my way back down into the streambed and told Tommy what I’d seen. He sent me to scout the area north of the streambed to see if we could safely move in that direction to avoid the NVA troops now to our southeast and behind us to the west. I scrambled out of the stream and made my way onto a series of sand dunes north of the streambed. It was getting to be just past 0400. I immediately saw a large lagoon and that our streambed had skirted the southern bank of the lagoon. After surveying the area with the scope, I made my way up to a tall dune that had a large abandoned bunker on it. It was not a bunker in the concrete or earthen-log type of construction, but a volcano-like, big foxhole made of sand. It was some twenty feet high with some inside shoring at the base. The ‘rim’ of the bunker afforded a 360-degree vantage point, and it was a good defensive position. Inside, at the base, the walls were thick, solid sand, and there was a tunnel at the bottom for additional protection—probably from offshore naval bombardment. I scrambled back down and worked my way south to where Tommy and the others waited in the streambed. I told him what I’d found.”

  “By the time Mike got back to me, it was coming up on 0430. And now I no longer had comms with Woody and the junks. The PRC-77 was a line-of-site radio and good for only about five miles—maybe seven if you had a good elevated position. And it sounded like Mike had found just such a place. It was looking like we might not get off the beach before daylight and would have to lay up for the day. His bunker also sounded like that might be a good place for that as well. I told him to take us there and he did.”

  Mike: “I led the patrol north from the stream across a field of shallow dunes to the one tall dune with the bunker. It was close to a quarter mile from the stream, and it put that much more distance between us and the encampment to the south. The dune and bunker were pretty isolated and looked like a good place to hide. It was about 0500 when we got there. Tommy immediately got on the radio trying to raise Woody or one of the offshore Navy ships. Deng stayed there with him and I set security with the other two LDNNs. I put Quan just north of the bunker with the starlight scope. He had good command of the beach to the north of our position. With the scope he could see a long way, and I could count on Quan to keep a good lookout. Lieutenant Thuan and I set ourselves south of the bunker, between Deng and Tommy and the streambed. Thuan was on a small dune forty yards behind me and on the seaward side of my position. We were well positioned if someone approached from the south. Our western flank was protected by the large lagoon that was maybe a mile long north and south, and a half mile across. We were in a good defensive position. And so far, the bad guys didn’t know we were there.

  “The terrain was a lot like that on the Silver Strand where SEAL Team One and the BUD/S training unit are now located on Coronado. Lots of sand, scrub grass, and several smaller dunes between us and the trees along the river. The bunker itself was maybe two hundred and fifty yards from the ocean and close to that same distance from the lagoon. Farther north, the land between the ocean and the lagoon narrowed. Lieutenant Thuan and I had taken up positions behind small dunes maybe a hundred yards south of the big dune with the bunker.”

  “At this point,” Tom recalled, “I still didn’t know where we were. Up on the dune near the bunker, I had good contact with Woody. We had a good position and I didn’t want to try to cross the beach unless I knew where we were so the junks could pick us up. I knew once we went into the water, we couldn’t use the radio and there’d be little chance of them finding us. Once out of the line of dunes, there was a flat stretch of beach we’d have to cross—about a hundred yards of it. Unless I knew where we were so I could get the junks in to pick us up or so I could call in gunfire support, our options were limited. We’d have to hide out for the day and try to extract the next night. All this was going through my mind when Quan came running back to the bunker.

  “‘Dai-Uy Norris,’ he reported, ‘with the starlight scope, I see two
men coming down the beach. They are quite a way off, but they are headed our way.’

  “I took the scope and spotted them as well. Then I sent Deng to get Mike and Lieutenant Thuan. We’d now have to decide what we were going to do with these guys. Waiting for Mike and Thuan, I watched them approach. They were not together. One was in the lead and walking down along the water’s edge while the other was walking along the high-tide line near the first line of shallow dunes and maybe trailing the guy near the water by a hundred yards. They were kind of moseying along and not in too big of a hurry. When Mike and Lieutenant Thuan got there, we talked it over and decided that one of these guys could be our captured NVA soldier, maybe both. But if we were going to take one of them, we would have to take them both, or take one and kill one. So we came up with a quick plan. It was a little after 0530, so dawn was approaching. Official sunrise that day was 0545, and I could see the sky to the east beginning to get light. We needed to grab these guys before full dawn—while it was full dark. We would be coming from the west against the dark backdrop of the dunes, and they would be silhouetted to the east. I needed to stay with the radio. It was looking like we were not going to extract anytime soon, but I did need to try to contact the ships. If things got ugly, we’d need their support. Deng would stay with me and Mike, and the other two LDNNs would go after the two NVA.”

  “We kind of drew it up in the dirt,” Mike said of the plan, “or in this case, the sand. Quan and I would first take out the trail NVA soldier. We’d hide in the dunes just above the high-water line and take him as he passed us. He was our primary candidate for capture. Then Lieutenant Thuan would handle the second NVA, the guy along the water. I gave him the hush puppy, and his job was to walk up behind him and either capture him or kill him. It was still dark and we had the noise of the breakers to cover the sound of our movements. Well, the first part of the plan worked fine. Quan and I moved down to near the high-water line and squatted in the grass. The guy was paying very little attention, just walking with his head down—same as his buddy down by the water’s edge. It was easy. He walked past us, and I stood up and started walking, ducking in behind him. When I got close, I took him down with a butt stroke of my rifle. CAR-15s have a collapsible, hard plastic stock, so I had to make sure I didn’t break my gun. I kept my hand close to the butt and just whacked the shit out of him. He went down like a sack of cement.

  “Quan took charge of him and I started moving down the beach, running along the dune line, waiting for Lieutenant Thuan to make his move. But he did nothing. The lead NVA soldier was walking along the water past where Thuan was positioned along the dune line, and I was waiting for him to do something. I don’t know if he could see me, but I was waving my arms trying to get him to move. The NVA soldier was paying no attention at all, just strolling down the beach, head down and probably tired after a long and boring patrol. With the noise of the surf, Thuan could easily have just walked up behind him and shot him. Instead he comes out onto the open beach and yells at him.

  “‘Ngung lai! Den day!’ Stop! Come here!

  “Well, the guy takes off running, and I start chasing him. I have the angle and I’m running down the beach gradient after him, but he’s got a pretty good lead. Yet I’m closing in on him. I glance back at Lieutenant Thuan, and he’s headed back for the bunker. The NVA soldier is running south along the beach into the growing dawn. I can see he’s picked up a trail and making for the trees that mark the bank of the streambed. And I can’t let him get there. He stops and fires a couple rounds at me with his AK-47 and keeps running. I keep chasing him and am only about twenty-five yards from him when he gets to the tree line. I stop, take a knee, and put two rounds into his back. He goes down. I race up to drag him off to the side and hide his body. The shots may or may not have alerted other NVA in the area. Quite often, they fire rounds into the air as a means of signaling. At least that’s what I hoped. But no such luck. Just as I got to him, a whole squad of NVA came charging from the river bed right at me. So I turn around and start hauling ass the other way. Now they’re chasing me! The sun was just starting to come up.

  “But my lieutenant had my back. Tommy watched the whole thing unfold from his post up on the big dune. He grabbed one of his LAAW rockets and ran down to one of the lower dunes and took up a firing position. He sent a rocket into the trees above the pursuing NVAs’ heads, and that caused them to stop and take cover. I don’t think he hit any of them, but that was not his intent. He just wanted to get them off my tail, and he did. Now we had a whole other issue on our hands. As near as we could tell in the growing light, there were fifty or so bad guys in that encampment and they were all swarming out of the encampment, across the creek bed, and after us. For the moment, that rocket caused them to duck for cover. And with Tommy and Deng covering me, it gave me a chance to get back up into the shallow dunes just to the south of the bunker.

  “I got to a good position where I could engage them as they came from the cover of the trees by the stream and tried to move north on our position. Quan had taken our prisoner back to the bunker and left him with Deng. Then he took up a position just seaward of me, and together Quan and I watched as the bad guys began to work their way up to where we were. I sent Lieutenant Thuan to a security position to the north bunker, guarding against anyone moving on our location along the beach from the north. By this time, I knew I couldn’t count on our LDNN lieutenant in the coming fight. And a fight it would be, as we had all those NVA from the encampment to contend with.”

  Tom: “With Mike and Quan in position to engage the enemy, I got back to the bunker and got on the radio. It was now light enough to clearly see our surroundings—the beach, the other side of the lagoon, and the tank. I knew we might be able to deal with the NVA infantry, but not with a tank or artillery or whatever else they might have. Now we really needed that fire support. I raised Woody on the radio and told him to get some spotting rounds on some of those predesignated coordinates. Woody said the ship had radioed him and said they were shooting at first one and then another of the preassigned spots. But I could see no impact from the rounds. From his position offshore, neither could Woody. I knew we were not where we were supposed to be, but could we be that far off?”

  THE STAND IN THE DUNES

  The confusion that accompanied the insertion of the team carried over to the early daylight hours of 31 October. The Navy ships offshore supporting the operation were a heavy cruiser and a destroyer: the USS Newport News (CA-148) and the USS Morton (DD-948). On the evening of the 30th, the Newport News received orders to steam south and support the ARVNs at Quan Tri City, who were fighting to hold the provincial capital. That left the USS Morton alone to provide navigation and on-call fire support for the SEALs ashore. The Newport News did not return until just after dawn on the 31st. The ships that performed naval gunfire support, or NGFS, were assigned to sectors along the coast of Vietnam. Collectively, these sectors were called the gun line. They responded to calls for fire from units ashore and conducted harassment and interdiction fire missions—putting rounds on suspected enemy troop concentrations. On the morning of 31 October, the USS Morton was relieved of all her normal NGFS duties and was standing by to support the SEAL team ashore.

  When Tom asked for fire support in the form of rounds on one of his predesignated coordinates, Woody relayed that request to the Morton. The Morton complied, sending white phosphorous spotting rounds to the designated coordinates—a set of coordinates near the Cua Viet Naval Base and along the coast just south of the Cua Viet River. But that was several miles south of where the beleaguered team was engaged by a superior NVA force. Neither Tom nor Bill Woodruff spotted the fall of shot. At this time Tom was out of radio range of the Morton, and Woodruff, standing just off the coast in his junks, was just barely within radio range of the destroyer. So early on, all requests for fire support went through Bill Woodruff.

  At the time, neither the team ashore nor Bill Woodruff on the junks knew they were that far north of their int
ended insertion point. Tom kept asking for spotting rounds, and Woody kept relaying those requests to the Morton. But neither saw the rounds fall. Meanwhile, the team ashore was giving a good account of themselves, but their situation was precarious.

  “Aside from being outnumbered ten to one,” Mike recalled, “we had a few things going for us. First of all, they didn’t know how many of us there were. Both Quan and I would take a shot or two, then roll over a few times and take another shot from another location. Then we’d move again, and maybe toss a grenade at them. Second, we had position. We were in a scattering of shallow dunes that provided us, and them, with cover, but we had a slight elevation advantage. Quan and I gave ground, but we made them pay for it. They were close to us, and you could see one of them peek over a dune, then duck back down before you could get a shot at them. But we would aim at the exact spot where they had peeked, and wait. They’d invariably pop their head up in the same place, and we’d squeeze off a round. More than once I saw the top of the guy’s head come off. We sent a lot of NVA pith helmets flying that morning.”

  “Mike and Quan were doing a great job of giving ground and killing bad guys,” Tom said of the engagement. “When I wasn’t on the radio, I too was looking for that head to pop up a second time and fire. We killed a lot of those guys with head shots. I think we were lucky that morning with this opposition. You always wonder just how good the guys are you’re fighting, and these guys weren’t all that great. And that stands to reason. Most of the crack infantry units were engaged in what was left of the Easter Offensive and the fighting around Quang Tri City. I think these were some guys from a rear-services battalion or some support element. They were brave and they kept coming, but they made a lot of mistakes. And they paid for it. But time and the numbers were not on our side.