By Honor Bound Read online

  “But I simply could not find him! I moved downstream about a klick, looking in branches and overhanging limbs, and he was nowhere to be found. I was getting cold and I could only imagine that he would be getting very cold. He had gone into the river at least two klicks farther upstream from where he passed us. So I figured, he’s cold and he’s tired; I bet he pulled off into the bushes to rest upstream from me, and I simply missed him. So I turned around and began working my way back upstream looking for him. No luck. I reached Lieutenant Tho and the other Sea Commandos, and they were tired, cold, and frustrated. And I’m thinking, ‘Now I really have a problem. I went a lot farther upstream than Anderson wanted, and we had patrolled overland rather than staying in the river. Now we’d lost our pilot.’ I had no choice but to call Anderson on my radio and tell him that Clark had gotten past us. And that we couldn’t find him.

  “I had a thing about the radios. Army and Marine commanders like Anderson like to talk to their units in the field and keep up on what’s taking place. But if you’re a special-operations team sneaking around behind enemy lines at night, the last thing you want is a voice breaking squelch on your radio wanting to know your location or how the mission is going. So I never patrolled with my radio on. Today SEALs have these small radios and sound-cancelling headsets with commo earpieces. We had none of that, and the Prick 77 handset was noisy unless you had it pressed up against your ear. And you can’t run a patrol with one ear glued to a radio handset. I was out there to do a job; the radio was for me to ask for help if and when I needed it to do my job. And now I needed help. I told Anderson to have the forward air controller contact Clark on his next radio check and tell him to go to ground on the south bank of the river, and that we would be working our way downstream to him. And as you might expect,” Tom said, now chuckling and shaking his head, “Anderson wanted a full report on where we are, how long ago Clark passed our position, and other details. I hadn’t the time for this, and talking on the radio is unwise in enemy territory. So I made sure he had the instructions to pass along to Clark, and I turned off the radio. We then began moving carefully downstream.

  “I wanted to make sure we didn’t miss him as we swept the south bank of the river, so I again called Anderson and requested some illumination well east of our position. I got the illum in short order. It was from one of the Navy ships off the coast, and they put it right where I wanted it—well to the east so we could see downstream. You have to be careful when calling in illumination, as it lights up the bad guys as well as yourself. But they put the single parachute flare right where I wanted it. The flare allowed us to see a ways downstream, but still no Clark.

  “Now I had a problem. It was close to 0400 and we had to get back to friendly lines before daylight—with or without Clark. We still had plenty of darkness left, but we had to keep moving. Our searching along the riverbank made us more vulnerable to enemy patrols. But we had no choice. I was in the water along with Kiet, while Tho and the other Sea Commandos began searching along the shore and providing Kiet and me with security as we moved downstream. We were at this for about an hour, and I think we were just past where I had been on my earlier solo trip downriver. And I don’t mind saying that I was getting anxious. There was a guy, hopefully in front of us, who had been evading on the ground for several days. He was tired, cold, and scared. I was cold, and as time passed, I was getting worried. I’d run the patrol my way, and looking back, the right way, but still, I’d let him get past me. It was in my mind that I’d not followed Anderson’s instructions and I’d been pretty short with him on the radio. So there was a lot riding on our search of that riverbank, and there were a whole lotta bad guys in the area. And, of course, there was my team; I wanted to get them safely back to base. Then I saw him.

  “I was in the water, just past where I had turned around last time down. Coming around a bend in the river, I spotted this head peeking over the top of an old waterlogged, overturned sampan. I knew it was him, and Kiet saw him about the same time I did. I signaled Kiet to get behind me and I slung my rifle behind. Since it was an AK-47, I didn’t want him thinking I was an NVA soldier. I took off my hat and began to talk to him as I approached. He immediately ducked back behind cover, thinking we were the enemy. I had to keep my voice low but I kept talking. ‘Mark, I’m an American. My name is Tom Norris. I know you spent some time in Idaho and that you’ve just floated down the Snake River to get here. I’m here to take you home.’ The reference to Idaho and the Snake was part of the cryptic, clear-transmission-text instructions that got Clark into the river and moving downstream. At one time, Mark Clark was stationed at Mountain Home Air Force Base near Boise, and he was familiar with the area and the Snake River.”

  Nguyen Kiet recalled the meeting with Clark from his position closer to shore. “He was in the water with a camouflage net over his head and I could see that he had an orange life preserver on. He had a .38-caliber pistol pointed at me and for a second, neither of us moved. I turned my rifle barrel away from him so he could see I meant him no harm. Then Dai Uy [pronounced ‘Dye wee’—Vietnamese for lieutenant] Norris began talking to him and moving closer to him. When Dai Uy Tho came down the bank to the water to join us, I went on shore with the others to form a security cordon.”

  “When he finally understood that I was really an American,” Norris continued, “and a part of the rescue effort, you could see the relief on his face. He probably saw the relief on my face as well. I didn’t want to face Anderson if I failed to find Clark and get him safely back to the outpost. But Clark was all smiles—he thought he was home free. About that time, Lieutenant Tho came down the bank to the water and scared the life out of him. I said, ‘No, no, no, he’s with me—he’s on our side.’ He settled down again, and I had his full attention. Lieutenant Tho and the other guys set out around us in a security fan while I had a talk with our new Sea Commando. I told him where we were, where we had to go to be safe, and how we were going to get there. To his credit, he became a good commando trainee. I said, ‘Now listen, stay right behind me. Whatever I do, you do. If I drop, you drop; if I turn, you turn. Whatever I do, you do the same—and do it exactly when I do it. Don’t question what I do or my decisions—just follow my lead. We’re not home yet, and we got a lot of bad guys to get through before we’re safe.’ He said okay and he did just that. The guy was really good. He did exactly what he was supposed to do as we worked our way back to the outpost.

  “I was able to get a radio call in to Anderson to let him know that we had Clark and were headed back. He again had questions about our situation and location, but once he understood we had him and were returning to the outpost, I again turned the radio off. We had maybe an hour before sunrise and not much more than a klick to go to get back to the outpost—plenty of time unless we ran into trouble. Fortunately, we didn’t. I could hear enemy troop concentrations on either side of the river, but they must have felt secure, as they made a lot of noise. We heard them before they could see or hear us, and we managed to skirt these formations and keep moving east toward our outpost.

  “You have to be really careful coming back into a friendly position, so I called Anderson and we also exchanged signal lights. Lieutenant Tho and the Sea Commandos also exchanged verbal signals with the outpost soldiers. I knew those South Vietnamese rangers would be on edge, and we didn’t want to get shot by our own guys. But we made it in okay. Anderson took charge of Clark straightaway, got him up to the bunker and got him some chow. He was in very good shape, but a little dehydrated—dirty and dehydrated. With Clark safe, I collected my team and made sure that they got a meal and that they were taken care of. A long combat patrol can take it out of you and we still had two more men out there. I had to make sure they cleaned their weapons and attended to their gear and, above all, got some rest. We would all be going back out as soon as it got dark.”

  In the larger picture, the North Vietnamese Army continued to press their offensive. With Dong Ha holding on, they swung to the west, still
moving troops and armor south across the Mieu Giang River on the Cam Lo Bridge and into western Quang Tri Province. They were gaining ground, but at a price. In some sectors the South Vietnamese defense was collapsing, but there were pockets of stiff resistance and an orderly retreat. And there was American air power at work. The North’s strategy was to gain as much ground as possible in anticipation of a possible cease-fire that might come from the Paris Peace Talks. But they were trading some of their best infantry and armor units for this ground.

  By midmorning on 11 April, Lieutenant Colonel Anderson was able to pass word back through Lieutenant Colonel Lou Wagner at the South Vietnamese 1st Armored Brigade that his team was successful in rescuing one of the airmen. At ready rooms and American air bases across Vietnam and Thailand, from air crews on standby up to General Abrams, they learned that First Lieutenant Mark Clark was safe. From Anderson’s perspective, the rescue mission had been a success. For his part, Tom Norris never let on that he had gone much deeper into enemy territory than Lieutenant Colonel Anderson had intended. Neither of them had a great deal of time to savor the success of Clark’s recovery. Anderson had to get Clark ready for transport, and Tom, in addition to seeing to his Sea Commandos, was trying for a little rest himself. And both of them had to begin to plan for the next night’s mission. Then things began to come apart.

  “The South Vietnamese rangers and tank crews were all sitting around resting and playing cards when the first mortar round landed,” Tom recalled. “It was maybe a hundred yards west of us. It got my attention, but they didn’t seem to care. They’d been fighting for so long that a stray mortar round didn’t mean much to them. Then another round fell just to the east, and I knew we’d been bracketed. I yelled for Lieutenant Tho and the others to take cover, and we did just that. But the rangers and the tank crews didn’t move; they just didn’t see the danger. Then a round dropped right in the middle of us. It was coming from across the river, and in short order we were getting hammered by mortar and rocket fire. Anderson was on the radio trying to get air support or some suppressing artillery or naval gunfire. There was a low cloud cover, so it was hard to get any accurate air support, and for some reason he couldn’t get anything else. Clark was safe in the bunker, but Anderson was on top of it on the radio, exposed and trying to get help. It was a mess. The tank crews got in their tanks and buttoned up, and the rangers scrambled for what cover they could find. Some of them went to shallow foxholes they’d dug, while others managed to crawl under the tanks, but they started taking casualties. I was yelling at the tankers to return fire at the North Vietnamese across the river. I was also working with the ranger officer to get his men ready to repel an enemy attack. It was in my mind that the rockets and mortars were a prelude to an infantry ground attack.

  “It went on for an hour and a half and it was all pretty confusing. Lieutenant Tho and I were treating casualties and trying to direct the outpost defenses while Colonel Anderson was doing his best to get us some support. Then he got hit with a piece of shrapnel right above his right eye. It knocked him down, but he was still conscious. I examined the wound, but there was no way to tell how far the shrapnel had penetrated into his skull. All I could do was bandage him and try to get him evacuated to a medical facility. We got him into the bunker, where the South Vietnamese officer was on his radio trying to get help. I even got on Anderson’s radio, but initially had no luck. The only help in sight were two APCs [armored personnel carriers] that had come from Dong Ha to get Clark. They were sitting on top of a hill about a klick away, but they weren’t going to come in as long as we were under attack.

  “I moved outside to try to get better radio reception and some air support. There with Lieutenant Tho, we watched mortar rounds splashing around us. We moved to the base of the bunker, just as a round landed where we’d been standing. Unfortunately, a piece of shrapnel tore into the Vietnamese lieutenant’s arm, wounding him seriously. I bandaged him up, gave him a shot of morphine, and was finally able to get an Air Force forward air controller, or FAC, on the radio. Suddenly, the shelling stopped.

  “The tank crews seemed to be okay, but the platoon of rangers had been hit pretty hard. Three of them had been killed and close to half of the others were casualties. Anderson was still down and Lieutenant Tho was out of action. The APCs finally came in about noon, and we loaded them up with the dead and wounded, and First Lieutenant Mark Clark. Petty Officer Chau also left to help tend to Lieutenant Tho. They moved back east along Route 9 toward Dong Ha. That left me and the three Sea Commandos, Petty Officer Kiet, and the two PFCs to carry on. I was now supported by the three tanks, a very nervous South Vietnamese second lieutenant, and about a dozen very scared Vietnamese rangers. And they had orders to pull out if things got worse. I still had two airmen out there, but I wasn’t sure that if I went back out, the battered outpost would be in friendly hands when I got back. As for my three Sea Commandos, they had done well the previous night, but now they were without their leaders. I was now the only American at the outpost. But I had Anderson’s radio, also an AN/PRC 77, but with a better antenna. I could still reach Lieutenant Colonel Wagner at the ARVN 1st Armor Brigade, but more importantly, I had a better link with the Air Force FACs. Still, I had to be careful with what I said, as neither my radio nor the one Anderson left were equipped with encryption. The bad guys were listening in.”

  DRY HOLE

  “By late afternoon of 11 April, things had quieted down at the outpost. The Vietnamese officer and his remaining rangers were taking turns on guard duty, and the tank crews were staying pretty close to their tanks. Generally two of them would be sitting on top of the tank while the other two slept under the tank. My three Sea Commandos managed a few hours of sleep, but not much more than that. I got none. With Anderson gone, I was both the TOC [tactical operations center] officer and the recovery patrol leader. I needed the rest, but I also had to stay up with the FACs who were monitoring the location and condition of our guys still out there on the ground.”

  In anticipation of a possible pickup the previous evening, Lieutenant Colonel Gene Hambleton, Bat 21 Bravo, had moved south from his previous hiding place down to within fifty yards of the Mieu Giang River. On his radio he had followed the FAC-chat and knew that Nail 38 Bravo had been rescued and was now safe. Hambleton had now been on the ground for nine days. He was becoming desperately weak, but the safe recovery of Mark Clark bolstered his spirits. Farther north, First Lieutenant Bruce Walker, Covey 282 Alpha, had been on the ground now for four days. He too was trying to make his way south, but there were sizable troop concentrations in his area. He managed to move east for about a klick, but he could get no closer to the river.

  In addition to the movement of NVA troops and armor through the area, the NVA were setting in antiaircraft guns and SAM batteries along the north side of the Mieu Giang River. There were also a number of small villages and fishing hamlets on both sides of the river. Most of the civilians had fled or were preparing to flee the fighting and bombing. Many of these villages were deserted, yet in others there were those who were unable or unwilling to abandon their homes. These civilians often clogged the roads and made it difficult for the North Vietnamese to move vehicles by road and for American pilots to search for military targets among the noncombatants. As time wore on, there were fewer civilians on the roads and more completely abandoned villages.

  “Late that evening, the FACs gave me Hambleton’s approximate location on the river. They could not give me the location in the clear, but I had a map with predesignated reference points along the river to serve as a guide. They told me that he was now missing some of his scheduled radio transmissions and that his speech was becoming slow and disjointed. Our plan was that we would patrol up to a point on the south side of the river, across from his location, and then have him try to cross the river to us. If he couldn’t cross the river, then I’d go across after him. That evening, Kiet carefully briefed the Vietnamese outpost officer on when we might get back to the outpost and
reviewed the signals we’d exchange when we did. Working through Kiet, I got my commandos saddled up and we headed off. Like the previous evening, we went down close to the water, then turned west.

  “All of them understood a little English, and, of the three, Kiet was the most conversant. And I could speak a little Vietnamese, so we managed. The two Sea Commando privates were relatively new and now looked to Kiet as their leader and to explain things to them. Kiet understood things far quicker than the others, and it was easier for me to make myself understood to him. As we talked through the mission, I would tell Kiet and he would tell the other two. This night I began walking point for the four of us, with Kiet bringing up the rear. The Sea Commando right behind me had the PRC 77 radio, and, of course, once I left the outpost, I turned it off. Initially, we followed pretty much the same route as we did the first night out. After a while we moved in more of a straight line, as we didn’t have to follow the bends and twists of the river. Again the going was slow, as there were enemy patrols out. We’d move fifty yards or so, then stop and listen. On the occasions when we spotted an enemy patrol, we just had to wait for them to move on so we could continue moving west.

  “To get to a place on the riverbank across from where Hambleton was supposed to be, we had to go a lot farther than the previous night. All told, we had moved some three and a half klicks in a westerly or northwesterly direction—about two miles. It was just before midnight when we got back to the southern bank of the river that was our objective. Hambleton was supposed to be on the north bank of the river, about a klick east or downstream from the Cam Lo Bridge. I couldn’t see the bridge from where we were on the south bank, but I could hear the truck traffic moving north to south, so I knew we were in the right place. And I knew we were about a klick from the bridge. I called the FAC who was in contact with Hambleton, and he told Hambleton in their cryptic radio-speak that he was to step out from the shore and into the water where we could see him. Again, I had no direct radio contact with Hambleton. But I think he was too weak to move out to the river or that he just stood up where he was on the bank. But we couldn’t see him. So we started moving up and down the southern bank, looking across the river for him, but we just couldn’t find him.