By Honor Bound Page 5

  “For me, it was all about executing my part of the mission. It did me no good to worry about all the aircraft that were lost and guys killed or captured, nor the North Vietnamese offensive. My job was to slip through our lines and past their lines, find these airmen, and bring them out. Nothing else really mattered. I was worried that if we got a major armored thrust through our area, we could be in real trouble, but again, you can’t get too concerned about what you can’t control. Like all SEAL missions, all you can do is hope for the best but plan for the worst. At that point in time, the mission looked difficult but doable. Of course, I knew that could change at any time. Right then, all I wanted was to get to the outpost, get my team ready to go, and then get on with the mission. I’d only managed a few hours’ sleep the night before, but when you’re getting ready to jump off into the unknown, you’re pretty wired up. You don’t think much about sleep. I tried to get a little rest in the APC, but it was hot, noisy, and we were getting bounced around a lot. Anderson was studying his maps and the five Vietnamese were dozing fitfully. They’d known nothing but war for their entire life, and this mission, difficult as it might be, was just another day for them.”

  THE OUTPOST

  “It was late afternoon when we turned north off Route 9 and headed for the outpost. It was a good position, about fifty yards off Route 9 and on a hill looking down onto the Mieu Giang River that was some 150 yards below and to the north. The outpost, if you could call it that, was an old circular French bunker—a small concrete roundhouse maybe fifteen feet across. The position was manned by about twenty Vietnamese Army rangers and one very scared Vietnamese second lieutenant. He had three American M-48 tanks that were dug in across a shallow arc just west of the bunker, again in command of the slope down to the river and of the approaches to the position along Route 9 from the west. There were three burned-out T-54 tanks just off the road 150 yards or so from the position. The ARVN rangers pointed to them like they had destroyed them, but we weren’t sure whether it was their M-48 tanks that got them or an air strike.

  “Weather in this part of Vietnam at this time of year is unpredictable. There are two seasons, wet and dry—or relatively dry. The wet season ends in January and the dry season begins in March. But it’s all governed by coastal airflow over the South China Sea and Gulf of Tonkin. This day there was a low cloud cover and an intermittent ground fog. For the North Vietnamese, the weather was everything. When it did clear up, the NVA tanks and armored vehicles were vulnerable to South Vietnamese and American warplanes. Both the South Vietnamese air force and our Air Force flew the A-1 Skyraiders, and they could be deadly for both tanks and troops caught in the open. It was critical for us on the ground as well. When there were low clouds or fog, we could use it to mask our movements. But low clouds and fog meant no air support.

  “The Vietnamese crew of the APC was glad to drop us off and head back to Dong Ha, and the young ranger second lieutenant was not all that happy to see us arrive. His orders were to hold the position as long as he could, but he could fall back at any time if he felt threatened by main-force opposition. I think he felt that our arrival there might cause enemy tanks to again probe his position. And their three tanks were very low on ammunition with only a few rounds of main-gun ammo remaining for each tank. And they had almost no food. Colonel Anderson brought along some extra rations so we were able to give them some chow. That bought us some good will. We set up a little TOC [tactical operations center] in the bunker and I guess we sort of pushed them out. Anderson got on the radio immediately with the airborne forward air controllers. The FACs, in some ways, were airborne radio relay links. We could talk to the FACs but not to the airmen on the ground—nor could they talk to us. The FACs were in continuous contact with both of us. They made sure the downed aviators were aware of our plan to come and get them.

  “Anderson’s plan was simple and straightforward. The airmen were to make their way from their hiding places down to the Mieu Giang River. I was to take my squad of Sea Commandos and work our way upriver into enemy-controlled territory. The airmen, in turn, were to get into the river and float downstream to us, linking up on the southern bank of the river. We knew generally where they would begin their waterborne egress and could be in a position to intercept them. Then we would float with them downstream or to the east, to the outpost and safety. Anderson’s plan had us moving in the water, both upstream and downstream. Lieutenant Tho and I weren’t too sure about this. We wanted to see the terrain and check out the river. If we found the banks of the river closely guarded by North Vietnamese or the current too swift, we would patrol on foot, not in the river. Anderson and a few of the Vietnamese rangers would be down on the riverbank below the outpost to meet us and escort us back up the hill to the bunker. They’d also be there to intercept the airmen in the river if they somehow got past us.

  “So while Anderson talked with the FACs, I got my guys ready to go. It was decided that we would first try for Nail 38 Bravo—First Lieutenant Mark Clark. He was the closest and his recovery seemed like it might be the easiest to manage. Hambleton would be next if we found Clark quickly and had the time to get to him.”

  On that afternoon of 10 April 1972, the North Vietnamese were still moving troops, tanks, antiaircraft guns, surface-to-air missile batteries, and equipment south. The Paris Peace Talks to end the war were under way, and it was no secret that America was pulling out of this war. The objective of the North Vietnamese was to take as much territory as they could while the talks in Paris went on. Should there ever be a cease-fire, they wanted to occupy and hold as much territory as possible. To do this they had literally committed their entire army, and certainly all of their armor. Their plan was to surprise and overwhelm the South Vietnamese defenders along the DMZ and drive south down Route 1, through Dong Ha to Quang Tri City, and farther south toward Hue and even Da Nang if conditions allowed. At Dong Ha, the South Vietnamese defense stiffened and, thanks to John Ripley, they could not move their armor across the Dong Ha Bridge. And periodic breaks in the weather exposed them to American and South Vietnamese air power. Yet the North Vietnamese were determined. They were prepared to trade men and material for ground.

  With the Dong Ha Bridge down, the NVA swung west with their offensive and began to move armor and infantry units across the Cam Lo Bridge to build up their forces in western Quang Tri Province. This placed a good portion of the North Vietnamese Army, later learned to be about thirty thousand strong, right on top of the rescue mission. Also farther west, there were crossing points along the Mieu Giang River. So the North Vietnamese were massing forces in western Quang Tri Province where these units could be resupplied from the Ho Chi Minh Trail through Laos. As these forces grew in strength and moved south and east, they threatened to encircle Dong Ha and posed a direct threat to the provincial capital, Quang Tri City.

  The three downed airmen—Nail 38 Bravo, Bat 21 Bravo, and Covey 282 Alpha—were all on the ground in a relatively small area west of Dong Ha, east of Cam Lo, and, with the exception of Nail 38 Bravo, Mark Clark, they were north of the Mieu Giang River. All were in hiding among concentrations of North Vietnamese infantry and armor. While the battle for Quang Tri City was shaping up, there was a smaller battle taking place over these three American airmen. It was an odd twist of fate that at this stage of the war, there were two competing interests that were on the same side, but at times in opposition to each other. The Americans, including General Creighton Abrams, Commander, Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, and especially his 7th Air Force senior commander, wanted their aviators back. It was a top priority, and in many respects this priority ran up through the entire Department of Defense. On the South Vietnamese side they—and this included their American advisors—were locked in a deadly battle, with tens of thousands of troops committed to fight the North Vietnamese incursion. The South Vietnamese were sympathetic, but for them, the lives of these three Americans were but a minor consideration, certainly not a priority. Yet these considerations affect
ed the larger picture.

  The North Vietnamese knew there were American airmen on the ground and that the U.S. Air Force was doing all in its power to recover its own. This tied up air assets that might otherwise be used to attack their units moving south in the offensive. The North Vietnamese knew the general area where the downed airmen were and had bolstered their antiaircraft guns and missile batteries accordingly. These three Americans were serving as bait to bring American and South Vietnamese ground-attack and rescue aircraft within range. Then there was the issue of the Cam Lo Bridge. With the bridge at Dong Ha down, it was being used to ferry NVA troops and armor across the Mieu Giang River. Yet in accordance with standing Air Force pilot recovery doctrine, an area around a downed airman was put off-limits to tactical air strikes. This included the Cam Lo Bridge. Had Bat 21 Bravo and Nail 38 Bravo not been in the area, the bridge would surely have been taken out earlier than it was. Would it have changed the calculus of the NVA push south? Probably not, but it did allow the enemy to more rapidly advance into western Quang Tri Province.

  Meanwhile, interest in the plight of the men on the ground and the drama that was unfolding in the search and recovery operations had been growing, especially within those Air Force units still flying combat sorties. While American ground troops had largely left Vietnam, the pilots—Navy, Air Force, and Coast Guard—were still very much in the fight. At air bases in South Vietnam and Thailand and in ready rooms on carriers off the coast, pilots and support personnel alike closely followed the plight of the downed aviators and the radio chatter of the airborne FACs that were their near-constant guardians. The three men now on the ground were becoming well known by their call signs as well as their given names. And while the airspace over the men on the ground was growing more lethal each day, a great many of these pilots were prepared to risk it all to go to their aid. Three of their own were in peril.

  It was amid these swirling events that Anderson and Norris set about their efforts to rescue the downed airmen.

  NAIL 38 BRAVO

  “Colonel Anderson was in constant communications with the FACs, and both Clark and Hambleton were told to prepare to move toward the river,” Tom said of their rescue plan. “For Clark, this was no big deal, since he was in hiding on the south bank of the river just a few meters from the water. In fact, Clark was no more than two klicks [two thousand meters] from a South Vietnamese infantry battalion, but they refused to push into NVA-occupied territory to get him. But Hambleton was on the north side of the river, and he had farther to go to get to the river. Hambleton had been down for eight days now, and he was getting weak. Also, he was fifty-three years old. Clark was younger almost by half, yet he had been on the ground almost as long as Hambleton. But since Clark was the closest and most accessible, he would be the first.

  “After Anderson assured me that both airmen were in position, or soon would be, we geared up and set out for the river. We were cammied up with faces blackened, a light combat load, and one canteen per man. We expected to be back at the outpost by dawn. Like the Sea Commandos, I carried an AK-47, a few grenades, and some signaling devices. The Sea Commandos were in their tiger-stripe camouflage blouses and blue jeans. We wore blue jeans a lot as they were quieter to walk in when they were wet than our standard-issue cammie trousers. One of the Sea Commando PFCs carried the radio. It was an AN/PRC-77 backpack FM transceiver that we called a ‘Prick 77.’ The set was waterproof if you didn’t hold it underwater for too long and had a VHF line-of-sight capability. It was our link to Anderson and the outpost, and then to the forward air controllers overhead. The Prick 77 had a range of about five miles with the short whip antenna, maybe more if you took the time to set up the longer, collapsible antenna.

  “It was about 10:00 P.M. when we left the bunker. There was a solid cloud cover and a moon above the clouds that provided for some illumination. Once at the river, I immediately checked the temperature and the current. Anderson’s plan was for us to move upstream, wading or swimming, for no more than a half klick or just five hundred meters. This would put us west of the outpost along the river and inside enemy-controlled territory. But the river was very cold. You don’t think of cold water in Vietnam, but this water was draining out of the central highlands, and it was more than a little chilly. We SEALs know how to deal with cold water, but I wasn’t sure how the men that we were going to rescue would handle it. With the rainy season just behind us, the current was too swift to swim against. Wading was out of the question; wading upstream in the shallows would have made a lot of noise and made us too good of a target. Lieutenant Tho and I talked it over and came up with a new plan.

  “We moved a few meters south away from the river and began to work our way west on foot toward the enemy lines. There was good coverage with stands of nipa palm, bamboo, and elephant grass. There were open areas and an occasional rice field, but we were able to skirt those. The thing about moving at night in enemy territory is that you have to move from cover to cover. When you’re in good cover and safe, you need to wait and listen—maybe even as long as five or ten minutes—before moving on to the next stand of cover. It’s the way to move in enemy territory and even then, it’s only safe to move at night. Also, noise is a big issue. We were very strict about moving quietly and periodically stopped the patrol to listen.

  “It didn’t take us long to find advance elements of the NVA. They were all around us. We’d gone no more than two klicks when we crossed a shallow rise and saw a column of North Vietnamese vehicles in the distance crossing the Cam Lo Bridge and turning east toward us along Route 9. I thought, ‘Uh oh, here they come.’ I was about to call in an air strike on them, but they were too close to us and probably too close to Clark. Fortunately, they turned south onto a secondary road, and we continued moving west. We moved slowly in a squad file with Kiet, the junior Sea Commando petty officer, on point. He was very experienced and he moved well. We skirted several North Vietnamese patrols without difficulty. They were sloppy and made a lot of noise. There were a number of enemy troops in the area, so it made for slow going on our part. Another thing that made for slow going was that we had to look for friendly ordnance on the ground. When a pilot goes down in enemy territory, we put in a cordon of protective ordnance in the form of cluster bombs—little bombs that sow a mini-minefield around the downed airman. Some of these are bomblets that are armed with explosive, anti-personnel charges—others disperse chemicals that can incapacitate anyone who trips over them. There were none reported in our area, but still we wanted no part of them. Again, we had to go slow. We also had to stay close to the river because Anderson had preprogramed air strikes and artillery to confuse and disrupt any enemy troop movements that might have learned what we were doing in the area.

  “After patrolling for a little more than two hours, I took over on point. We had turned back north, and I was looking for a place along the river where we had good cover but could see upstream to catch Clark as he floated down to meet us. But it was hard to find the right spot and we went upstream farther than Anderson had wanted us to. Actually, a lot farther. He was very emphatic about us going no farther than five hundred meters from his position just downhill from the outpost. We were probably closer to three klicks upstream from Anderson when we found a good place on the bank to wait for Clark. Once we were in position, we settled in to wait for our airman to come to us. I knew we were still downstream from about where Clark would enter the river, and I knew that about this time he would just be getting into the water. If he kept to schedule, we were in position to catch him coming downstream, and that was all that mattered.

  “It didn’t take Clark long to get to us. Because of our vantage point on the bank of the river, we easily saw him coming. And because the river was cold, we could hear him breathing as well; he was a-huffing and a-puffing. It was now a little after 0100 [1:00 A.M.]. Just as we were getting ready to move down into the water’s edge to get him, here comes a North Vietnamese patrol. I glanced down the squad file, and my Sea Commando
s had their weapons at the ready. They were looking at me and all I could see were blackened faces and wide eyes. There were six NVA soldiers in the patrol and we could have easily taken them out, but then that would have alerted all the enemy troops in the area. So I decided we would not fire unless they spotted Clark in the water. They didn’t. So we watched Clark float by and waited for the NVA to move on. They were making a lot of noise as they moved through the vegetation so they neither heard nor saw Clark.

  “Once the patrol had passed, I told Lieutenant Tho and his men to stay hidden while I went after Clark. He was floating and I figured that if I was swimming, I could quickly catch him, so into the river I went. Again, it was cold—really cold. My thinking was that when I got to him, I could stash him in the vegetation along the riverbank, then go back and link up with my commandos. Then we would patrol back to Clark’s position, collect him, and work our way back along the southern bank of the Mieu Giang to where Anderson was waiting near the outpost.