Vietnam June 2021

Night of Terror Enemy Commandos Invade U.S. Base

HOMEFRONT Richard Roundtree becomes John Shaft

Green Berets Dramatic scenes of Special Forces in combat FIRST IN A FOUR-PART SERIES

A U.S. Special Forces leader directs local militiamen atop a hill in Ha Thanh.

Eyes in the Sky The pilots who directed airstrikes to save the troops below

The ’Nam

Marvel Comics enters the war

JUNE 2021 HISTORYNET.com

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JUNE 2021

ON THE COVER

A U.S. Special Forces officer leads local militiamen in an effort to retake a hill in September 1968. The hill had been overrun by enemy troops three days earlier.

AP PHOTO: INSET: PHOTO 12/ALAMY

THE ’NAM REDREW THE BATTLE LINES

A comic book created by Vietnam veterans took readers into a world where battles were fought by real soldiers, not imaginary superheroes.

By Rob Hodges Jr.

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HISTORYNET COLLECTION

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6 Feedback Letters 8 Intel June Briefing 14 Reflections A Father’s Letters 18 Arsenal Type 79 Submachine Gun

20 Homefront May-June 1971 21 Battlefront 50 Years Ago in the War 60 Media Digest Reviews 64 Hall of Valor Raul “Roy” Benavidez

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‘RAW COURAGE’

Support troops with limited combat experience faced off against an elite enemy commando force at an Army base housing engineer and aviation units. By Randy Bullock

‘CLEARED IN HOT!’

When a U.S. outpost was under assault, a pilot in a small plane stayed in the air for hours pinpointing targets for attack aircraft. By Mark Carlson

HO CHI MINH’S SHADOW GOVERNMENT

Covert Viet Cong operatives established underground village governments that operated alongside the village’s lawful authorities. By Virginia Morris

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THE GREEN BERETS

HISTORYNET COLLECTION

A photo package shows the myriad roles assigned to U.S. Special Forces in Vietnam. By Jon Guttman

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MICHAEL A. REINSTEIN CHAIRMAN & PUBLISHER DAVID STEINHAFEL PUBLISHER ALEX NEILL EDITOR IN CHIEF

JUNE 2021 VOL. 34, NO. 1

CHUCK SPRINGSTON EDITOR ZITA BALLINGER FLETCHER SENIOR EDITOR JERRY MORELOCK SENIOR EDITOR JON GUTTMAN RESEARCH DIRECTOR DAVID T. ZABECKI EDITOR EMERITUS HARRY SUMMERS JR. FOUNDING EDITOR

TARGETING ENEMIES

Pilots in small propeller planes flew over embattled U.S. troops and directed airstrikes against the enemy’s positions. This issue describes the heroic actions of one of those pilots. To read more about them, visit Historynet.com. Search: “forward air controllers.”

Through firsthand accounts and stunning photos, our website puts you in the field with the troops who fought in one of America’s most controversial wars.

Sign up for our FREE monthly e-newsletter at: historynet.com/newsletters

Let’s connect

Vietnam magazine

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ADVISORY BOARD JOE GALLOWAY, ROBERT H. LARSON, BARRY McCAFFREY, CARL O. SCHUSTER, EARL H. TILFORD JR., SPENCER C. TUCKER, ERIK VILLARD, JAMES H. WILLBANKS C O R P O R AT E ROB WILKINS DIRECTOR OF PARTNERSHIP MARKETING TOM GRIFFITHS CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT GRAYDON SHEINBERG CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT SHAWN BYERS VP AUDIENCE DEVELOPMENT JAMIE ELLIOTT PRODUCTION DIRECTOR ADVERTISING MORTON GREENBERG SVP Advertising Sales mgreenberg@mco.com RICK GOWER Regional Sales Manager rick@rickgower.com TERRY JENKINS Regional Sales Manager tjenkins@historynet.com DIRECT RESPONSE ADVERTISING MEDIA PEOPLE / NANCY FORMAN 212-779-7172 ext. 224 nforman@mediapeople.com SUBSCRIPTION INFORMATION 800-435-0715 or SHOP.HISTORYNET.com List Rental Inquiries: Belkys Reyes, Lake Group Media, Inc. 914-925-2406; belkys.reyes@lakegroupmedia.com

Vietnam (ISSN 1046-2902) is published bimonthly by HISTORYNET, LLC, 901 North Glebe Road, Fifth Floor, Arlington, VA 22203 Periodical postage paid at Vienna, VA, and additional mailing offices.

Postmaster, send address changes to Vietnam, P.O. Box 422224, Palm Coast, FL 32142-2224 Canada Publications Mail Agreement No. 41342519 Canadian GST No. 821371408RT0001 © 2021 HISTORYNET, LLC The contents of this magazine may not be reproduced in whole or in part without the written consent of HISTORYNET, LLC. PROUDLY MADE IN THE USA

U.S. AIR FORCE

JOIN THE DISCUSSION AT VIETNAM MAG.COM

STEPHEN KAMIFUJI CREATIVE DIRECTOR BRIAN WALKER GROUP ART DIRECTOR MELISSA A. WINN DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY JON C. BOCK ART DIRECTOR GUY ACETO PHOTO EDITOR

VIETNAM

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men” to go out into the open, draw fire and run back into the foliage, hoping we would go after them. The rest of the element was waiting to ambush us.

Jon Bales Glendale, California

Praiseworthy Initiative

Cover for the Point Man As a “point man,” for half of my time in Nam, I was interested in reading your article [“Walking Point With the Redcatchers,” by Tom Brooks, April 2021]. It didn’t mention the relationship between the point man and his cover. My cover man and I were bonded to each other. He was my eyes to the front, and I was his eyes to the ground. He stayed less than 6 feet behind me. The two of us were in front of our FEEDBACK group and used hand signals to warn of any dangers. While I was looking for booby traps, used trails and recent signs of enemy activity, he was scanning the area. The two of us traded off our jobs. We trusted each other with our lives, so one can understand that when he got wounded, I quit walking point. Others wanted to cover and walk point with me, but I didn’t trust them.

I was not thrown into the position of walking point. I was tutored by one of the point men who had been walking point for close to a year. He taught me signs to look for as far as hidden booby traps, what signs of bedded down grass meant, the smell in the air of the enemy, signs of recent enemy movement on trails, what different changes in colors of foliage could mean, how to silently signal the group behind, what to look for in spotting tunnels and finally, the importance of a “cover man.”

I learned that the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong would have two to three “point men” come out into the open hoping to draw fire while the main element was maybe 50plus meters behind them. They would also use these “point 6

More on War’s Controversies Regarding “Were Fears of China Justified” (December 2020): Really enjoying the new “A Controversial Question” addition to Vietnam. An examination of the foreign policy issues surrounding our Vietnam commitment is very much welcomed. Erik Villard’s contribution on the China question was excellent. Please keep this feature in upcoming issues of your fine magazine.

Bill Canfield McLean, Virginia

Long Tan’s Long Gun Regarding “Beating the Odds” (December 2020), about Australian troops in the Battle of Long Tan: You had an inset of the L1A1 self-loading rife [used by the Australians]. Nearly all who carried one would attest to its durability, but it was too long and too heavy. Especially for jungle warfare.

I’ve seen the movie Danger Close [which is based on the battle] and will say it is a great one.

Allen Mixson Portland, Oregon Email your feedback on Vietnam magazine articles to Vietnam@historynet.com, subject line: Feedback. Please include city and state of residence.

AP PHOTO/HORST FAAS

American soldiers patrol an area northeast of Saigon in June 1965.

The man out in front, “walking point” as the eyes and ears of the patrol, was in an especially precarious position.

Regarding “Tet Water Battle” (February 2021) about an Army captain who learned of a planned attack on a ship in Cam Ranh Bay, couldn’t reach upper-level commanders and decided on his own to move the ship: It’s obvious that the newly assigned Capt. Hardy Bryan made the right decision and did the right thing by taking the initiative to move the tanker Pelikan off the dock. How many times have we heard that had the German commanders at Normandy been given the authority to take the initiative to move their tanks to the beaches of Normandy, the Allied invasion would’ve been thwarted? But they didn’t because only Hitler could order the tanks to move. Junior officer Hardy’s decision saved lives, munitions and the war effort of the United States.

Rick Robinson Hampton Bays, New York

VIETNAM

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Army trucker Ronald Lee Mallory received a long-overdue Bronze Star in March 2021 for his drive through enemy fire to save wounded crewmates on a gun truck. Inset, Mallory with the gun truck “Brutus” he drove during the fight.

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VIETNAM

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U.S. NAVY

Heroics Finally Recognized

DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH; INSET: COURTESY FRED CARTER

F

ormer Army Spc. 5 Ronald Lee Mallory, who saved the lives of comrades in a truck he was driving during an ambush, was awarded the Bronze Star with a “V” for valor device 50 years after his heroic actions in Vietnam.

Brig. Gen. James M. Smith, U.S. Army chief of transportation, presented the award during a private ceremony in the U.S. Army Transportation Museum at Fort Eustis, Virginia, on March 4. Mallory, 71, is a resident of Louisa County, Virginia.

He was drafted on Jan. 22, 1970, and worked as a fuel truck driver with the 359th Transportation Company. Convoys of fuel trucks traveling through South Vietnam’s Central Highlands were frequent targets of communist forces and needed protection, which was provided by armored trucks outfitted with .50-caliber machine guns and sometimes other weapons. When the driver of “Brutus,” the name given by the troops to one of those gun trucks, was killed in an ambush, Mallory, a specialist 4 at the time, volunteered to take his seat during another convoy.

As American convoys traveled through An Khe Pass in the highlands on Feb. 23, 1971, another ambush occurred. Mallory and his crew were nearly killed by a grenade hurled into their truck. Spc. 4 Larry G. Dahl threw himself onto the grenade to protect the others. Dahl was killed and two crew members were severely wounded. To get help for comrades wounded in the fight, Mallory drove straight through enemy fire and rammed a burning tanker to get it out of the way as he sped to a point where the wounded could get medical treatment and be medevaced to An Khe. “He drove down that mountain under fire with no way to return fire,” Fred Carter, a former member of the 359th Transportation Company and witness to the event, told the Richmond-Times Dispatch. If there had been any hesitation on Mallory’s part, both of the wounded men would have died, Carter added.

Mallory was honorably discharged eight months after the battle. Although there was talk then that he would receive the Bronze Star, none was awarded. In the last several years, Mallory’s comrades and others renewed their efforts.

Mallory had resigned himself to the possibility of never receiving the award. His wife, Earline, did not give up however, and during his award ceremony Mallory credited her with inspiring him to persevere.

Mallory received his award in the museum where Dahl, posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor, is memorialized. Reflecting on their shared experience, Mallory stated he believed that Dahl was “looking down from heaven” during the ceremony, reported the public affairs office at Joint Base Langley-Eustis.

“Being awarded the Bronze Star, it’s something great,” Mallory said. “I never thought I’d see the day.”

—Zita Ballinger Fletcher

A CON T R OV ER SI A L QU EST ION

A SERIES EXAMINING CONTENTIOUS ISSUES OF THE VIETNAM WAR BY ERIK VILLARD President Lyndon B. Johnson approved the start of a sustained bombing campaign against North Vietnam in March 1965 following several Viet Cong attacks targeting American personnel in South Vietnam. The bombing program, code-named “Rolling Thunder,” was launched to destroy the North’s industrial base and transportation system with a campaign of gradually escalating airstrikes. Faced with losing its power grid, manufacturing plants, storage depots and major bridges, Ho Chi Minh’s government would eventually sue for peace, Johnson believed.

Rolling Thunder divided North Vietnam into seven zones known as route packages. The 7th/13th U.S. Air Force in Thailand flew missions in two zones covering most of the country’s northern and western parts of North Vietnam.

Carrier-based aircraft from the U.S. Navy’s 7th Fleet operated in four zones that stretched across the central and eastern sections. U.S. Marine Corps aircraft flew most missions in the remaining route package covering the territory just north of the Demilitarized Zone. The United States conducted separate though complementary bombing campaigns in Laos with titles such as Commando Hunt, Barrel Roll and Steel Tiger.

They targeted the Ho Chi Minh Trail running through the southeastern part of Laos to move communist troops and supplies into South Vietnam.

Johnson imposed strict rules of engagement on the bombing campaign to limit civilian casualties and minimize the risk of provoking a direct confrontation with China or the Soviet Union, which were giving military and economic aid to

North Vietnam. For example, most of Hanoi and the port of Haiphong remained off-limits. Over the next three and a half years, U.S. strike aircraft destroyed most of North Vietnam’s industrial facilities and transportation network—with an unfortunate consequence: North Vietnam developed an increasingly sophisticated air defense system that in 1967 alone brought down 243 U.S. aircraft.

Unquestionably, Rolling Thunder made it difficult and costly for North Vietnam to sustain its war in the South, but all of that bombing never stopped the flow of supplies from reaching the battlefield. China and the Soviet Union increased military and economic assistance to the North to offset losses caused by the airstrikes, ensuring that Hanoi could continue its war in the South indefinitely.

As a diplomatic tool, Rolling Thunder never lived up to Johnson’s hopes. The North Vietnamese agreed to participate in formal peace talks when the president ended the bombing campaign on Nov. 1, 1968, but only with the intent of stalling for time and waiting for the United States to exit the war unilaterally.

Though conducted with remarkable skill and bravery by the aircrews who flew in Rolling Thunder, the bombing campaign had little chance of compelling leaders in Hanoi to abandon their decades-long quest to reunify Vietnam under a MarxistLeninist banner.

Dr. Erik Villard is a Vietnam War specialist at the U.S. Army Center of Military History at Fort McNair in Washington D.C.

U.S. Navy A-6 Intruders from the carrier USS Constellation drop 500-pound bombs on North Vietnam in 1968. U.S. officials hoped the destructive power of Operation Rolling Thunder would stop North Vietnamese aggression.

U.S. NAVY

DANIEL SANGJIB MIN/RICHMOND TIMES DISPATCH; INSET: COURTESY FRED CARTER

Was Rolling Thunder a Failure?

J U N E 2 0 21

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THE PHOTO SOFT SPOT

Soldiers from B Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, are dropped off at Landing Zone Two Bits near An Khe in the central part of South Vietnam in October 1967.

“I think we have all underestimated the seriousness of this situation. Like giving cobalt [radiation] treatment to a terminal cancer case. I think a long protracted war will disclose our weakness, not our strength. The least harmful way to cut losses in SVN [South Vietnam] is to let the government decide it doesn’t want us to stay there.”

—Deputy Secretary of State George Ball, in response to a question posed by President Lyndon B. Johnson at a July 21, 1965, meeting with advisers, according to minutes of the meeting. Johnson asked: “Can westerners, in absence of intelligence, successfully fight orientals in jungle rice-paddies?”

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TOP: U.S. ARMY; BOTTOM: REG SPELLER/FOX PHOTOS/GETTY IMAGES

WORDS FROM THE WAR

VIETNAM

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Rennard “Rennie” Davis, a leading anti-war activist and member of the “Chicago Seven,” died Feb. 2, 2021, at age 80 in Berthoud, Colorado. Davis, born May 23, 1940, in Lansing, Michigan, attended Oberlin College in Ohio, where he became active in Students for a Democratic Society, a group involved in a variety of social issues and the anti-war movement. After graduating in 1962, he became a national SDS leader. In 1967, Davis traveled to Hanoi and returned to the U.S. for a march on the Pentagon. He was an organizer of the anti-war protest at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The protest turned into violent confrontations with police and the National Guard. Davis and other activists, known as the Chicago Seven, were put on trial and convicted of inciting a riot. He was sentenced to five years in prison, but the verdict was overturned. Davis traveled to Hanoi a second time and organized the 1971 May Day anti-war rally in Washington, which resulted in more than 12,000 arrests. Davis later became an advocate for spiritualism and worked as a venture capitalist. —Zita Ballinger Fletcher

Casualties of War

OTHER DEATHS

U.S. TROOPS KILLED AND WOUNDED The number of American troops killed or wounded during the Vietnam War totaled 211,523—about 6.2 percent of the 3.4 million who served in Southeast Asia during the years 1955 to 1975.

The tally of deaths reached 58,220, a combination battle deaths and deaths from other causes, such as accidents and illness, about 1.7 percent of those who served.

NOTE: THE NUMBER FOR WOUNDINGS EXCLUDES 150,341 NOT REQUIRING HOSPITAL CARE; SOURCE: U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS, “AMERICA’S WARS,” NOVEMBER 2020

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MANOR: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; DAVIS: © WALLY MCNAMEE/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

Leroy Manor, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant general best known for leading the 1970 Son Tay raid to rescue American captives in North Vietnam, died Feb. 25, 2021, at age 100 in Shalimar, Florida. Manor, born in Morrisonville, New York, on Feb. 21, 1921, received an Air Force commission in 1943 after graduating from aviation cadet training. During World War II, he was a P-47 pilot and flew 72 combat missions in Europe. Manor provided air support for the D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944, flying over Omaha Beach. His plane took fire from German anti-aircraft guns and he sustained injuries, yet got his aircraft back to England. In 1968, Manor took command of the 37th Tactical Fighter Wing in South Vietnam where he piloted F-100 Suber Sabre fighters and flew 275 combat missions. He accumulated more than 6,500 flying hours during his Air Force career. Manor became head of the U.S. Air Force Special Operations Force in February 1970 and commanded the task force that conducted “Operation Ivory Coast” to free American prisoners of war from the Son Tay prison camp. Although the raid was successfully executed, the POWs had been moved months earlier. Manor later was assigned to the Joint Chiefs of Staff as a deputy director for counterinsurgency and special activities. He concluded his career as chief of staff for the Pacific Command. Manor retired in 1978.

10,786 NONMORTAL WOUNDINGS

0.3%

153,303 4.5%

BATTLE DEATHS

47,434 1.4%

Number of deaths, followed by percent of 3.4 million who served from 1955 to 1975

VIETNAM

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Sh Se

LETTERS FROM VIETNAM A DAUGHTER’S DISCOVERY

By Tara Jacobi She wore a breezy skirt and gently leaned toward the officer as she talked her way out of a speeding ticket. All my dad’s friends loved talking with her.

All her friends loved laughing with her. I watched the swarm of people she could command with her raspy Marilyn Monroe-like voice. At dinner one day she said some random person asked to photograph her—in a swimsuit.

I never had the guts to flirt with men the way she could.

He wore a button-down shirt with a pocket full of pens and was always working on something REFLECTIONS that needed to be fixed. He barely noticed people in the room. He had a heart attack, and this is all he told us: “I just felt sick to my stomach and tripped taking out the garbage. Nothing to worry over.”

He didn’t focus on pain or complain. That was his way.

When I was cleaning out my parents’ Florida retirement home I found, hidden in a pink box, letters that my father, John C. “Johnnie,” Jacobi, had sent from Vietnam to my mother, Veronica Ann “Ronnie” Jacobi, on New York’s Long Island. They had married in 1963. My dad was a specialist 5 in the 66th Engineering Company. He enlisted in 1966 because he believed in serving his country and wanted to help the people of South Vietnam.

17 Jan 68 8:20 pm

“Hi Baby, “Well, here I am safe and sound in a small artillery battery in a town about 20 miles from Saigon. We have so much work to do that we have 4 men from the 569th to help. I have one of them with me. We are here to shine a light to another station. The watch tower is about 1/8 of a mile outside the campground, but we were advised not to stay out passed dark, so we don’t. We turn the light on at about 5:30pm and leave it on all night.

We have been here two nights but last night was the first night that any 14

Here was my father, a 26-year-old writing to his 24-year-old sweetheart. “I love you very much” was something I never heard him say to my mother. Neither did he say it to me in the 46 years we had together on this earth. However, I have never known a love so unconditional and unwavering.

I had always seen my father print with a neatness bordering on compulsive. His war letters, however, were written in an almost feverish script marked with cross-outs. They were sometimes extremely difficult to read.

I recall a pleasant day growing up when we were returning home from a family outing and getting out of the car. I heard the sound of a low-flying helicopter. It was buzzing almost directly over our driveway. My quiet, reserved father bolted from the driver’s side and tackled me from behind. As we fell to the ground, his body covering mine, I heard him yell, “Get down!”

He told me stories about building watchtowers in Vietnam, and we saw almost all the movies about the war. From The Deer Hunter, I learned at an early age about the deadly game of Russian roulette. We watched Full Metal Jacket several times when I was a teenager because he needed to explain—he always told me we should never forget the sacrifices made by servicemen in war.

My mother, who had wickedly insightful perspectives about people, taught me about the human condition, life and relationships. She was a nurse and saw suffering from a front-row seat.

When my parents talked about Vietnam, my

COURTESY TARA JACOBI

Johnnie and Ronnie Jacobi

work was done. We have one more or two more to do. …. “The bunker that we are sleeping in is so well sandbagged that I don’t hear the guns going off at night much and they are only a few feet away. I think that’s pretty good, if I can sleep through the firing. They say the bunker we sleep in is so strong that it will withstand a direct attack – so I don’t worry but just go about my business. …. “I received a birthday gift from my parents. I was surprised to see that my father wrote a letter. Maybe today or tomorrow I will get a chance to write them.

Nothing else to tell you right now so I’ll sign off for now and write again soon. Don’t worry about me so much because we are real careful and don’t take any chances.

Remember I love you very much and can’t wait until April when I’ll see you again. Take care of yourself and don’t worry so much.

Bye for now, Johnnie ”

VIETNAM

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looking on the bright side. Yet after my mother died in December 2012, I thought my father might die too—of a broken heart.

He had a heart attack just weeks after her death, but survived.

V. N 25 Nov 68

mother used to say, “If the military wanted your father to have a wife they would have issued him one.” She knew exactly where she stood with the Army. She considered going to Vietnam as a nurse to be there with dad but enjoyed her autonomy too much. My mother read compulsively to learn about people and history. She loved biographies and was always relating obscure facts about someone or some event from the past.

20 Jan 68 7:00 pm

“Hi Baby, “Well back safe and sound in base camp. I’m told that I’ll be remaining in base camp for a while to catch up on back work. I don’t mind staying in base camp as long as they give me a day off once in a while. I learned today that their giving the company Sunday afternoons off in place of that day, so maybe it won’t be too bad.

“I can try to tell you a little more about the job, since it was a little like being on the front lines if there is such a thing as the front lines here.

What we (a man from the 569th and myself) had to do was shine a light to another station at night. The small artillery unit we were staying with advised us not to go out to the tower past 6:00 in the evening. So we went out at 5:00 in the afternoon to turn on the light, give the signal and return in the morning, the rest of the time we mostly sat around. The camp was about the size of your father’s property on Long Island. It was part of a larger Vietnamese campground but it was barbed wired separately. Being it was small we didn’t have a place to keep out of the way so we stayed by the truck most of the time. “….. I wasn’t worried too much since the bunker we were sleeping in would stand a direct hit. The bunker was so solid that they would fire an average of 100-105 mm rounds a night and even more when support was needed. After I went to sleep I never heard one of them go off and the guns were 20-50 feet away from the bunker. The second night we were there another part of the campground was hit and two nights ago the infantry was hit by mortar fire. I didn’t know anything about it until the next morning when it was all over.”

My father always downplayed the gravity of the situation, forever 16

With the letter was a black-and-white photograph of a beautiful teenage girl with her name in thick black ink at the bottom—Zhink. She was one of the Vietnamese house girls hired to clean the barracks. My heart plummeted as I wondered what became of her. How cruel it must have been for her to know my father was at peace, safe with his love and in his country, while she was left in a war-torn country with death and destruction all around.

As I read the letters, I thought about the movies my father and I watched, mostly about male friendships during the war and deaths in combat.

“When I go, bury me with the boys,” my dad told me. When he died in April 2018 I laid him to rest at Sarasota National Cemetery. Those boys were his family. I had known to some extent, how and why I wasn’t supposed to forget. Yet, none of those movies could have prepared me for the reality I faced as Zhink’s letter shook in my hand.

Not long ago I visited my small town’s art museum and discovered an exhibit of recent photographs showing the landscape and people of Vietnam. As I gazed deeply into the eyes of the people in the photographs, recollections of my father’s experiences pulsed through my veins. I looked at them partially through his eyes. How could I not?

I remembered his words—never forget. V

Tara Jacobi is a lawyer, writer and editor on the Central Coast of California.

Do you have reflections on the war you would like to share?

Email your idea or article to Vietnam@historynet.com, subject line: Reflections

COURTESY TARA JACOBI

Spc. 5 John Jacobi served in Vietnam with the 66th Engineering Company from July 1967 to August 1968.

A Vietnamese girl, Zhink, a house cleaner at an Army barracks, wrote to him after he returned home.

“Dear Jacobi, “How are you? I write letter for today – you happy now Jacobi? Long time no write letter because I have very much work, I am sorry.

“Now you living same same formerly and do you have children – can’t I happy too.

“Jacobi are you happy now, because you not have to comeback to Viet Nam all right. …..

“I can’t write I’m sorry. I hope family happy.

“Sister small housegirl yours formerly, “Zhink thi Zhank.”

VIETNAM

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Easy reach

The safety and fire mode selector on the right side of the receiver was adjustable for semiautomatic or burst fire.

Odd operation

Instead of using the blowback system found in most submachine guns, the Type 79—similar to the Soviet Kalashnikov assault rifles—employed a short stroke gas piston and a rotating bolt.

Steady options

The extended housing for the box magazine could also serve as a forward grip.

Ammo glutton

The gun’s 1,000-roundper-minute rate of fire required user vigilance with a 20-round magazine.

CHINA’S TYPE 79 SUBMACHINE GUN

By Jon Guttman

18

Round: 7.62 mm Magazine: 20 rounds Weight: 3.86 lbs.

Length: 29 in.

Rate of fire: 1,000 rpm Muzzle velocity: 1,690 ft. per second Maximum range: 200 meters (220 yards) Effective range: 100 meters (110 yards)

GREGORY PROCH

The wars in Indochina were fought with a dizzying array of international weaponry, ranging from homemade Viet Cong pistols and rifles to mammoth U.S. “Daisy Cutter” bombs capable of creating widespread destruction. Among the weapons to see combat in Vietnam was the Chinese Type 79 submachine gun, unfamiliar to most Americans because it was fought in a different Vietnam war—one waged between erstwhile allies Vietnam and China after U.S. forces left.

On Feb. 17, 1979, the Chinese sent some 200,000 troops into Vietnam in response to the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia to overthrow Pol Pot’s Chinese-allied Khmer Rouge government. Another sore spot was the Vietnamese seizure of the Spratly Islands, a contested archipelago.

That war was the first test for the Chinese 1979 Nianshi Chongfeng Qiang (1979 ARSENAL year type submachine gun). The gun’s introduction also coincided with a falling out between China and the Soviet Union, which traditionally licensed weapons for Chinese production.

Seeking to create a submachine gun for military and police use, the 208th Research Institute of China Ordnance Industry began development of the weapon in 1970. Torture tests in 1971 and 1975 necessitated complete redesigns, largely because the chamber could not handle the pressure of its steelcored 7.62 mm Tokarev Type 51 bullet. Ultimately the committee produced a compact, lightweight gas-operated weapon adjustable for semiautomatic or burst fire, with a folding stamped metal stock.

Type-classified in 1978, the weapon entered preliminary production in 1979.

The Type 79 was intended for jungle operations. The first guns were used during the incursion into Vietnam, which ended with China’s withdrawal on March 16. The limited numbers of Type 79s were used primarily on reconnaissance patrols. The 1979 war and intermittent border clashes with Vietnam until 1989 provided ample combat evaluations. A series of improvements led to mass production in 1981. More than 200,000 were produced before cessation in 1992. V VIETNAM

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May 1 Amtrak, officially the National Railroad Passenger Corp., runs its first train: a 12:05 a.m. departure from New York for a trip to Philadelphia, one of 184 trains a day for the government owned and subsidized service created by the Rail Passenger Service Act passed in October 1970.

May 9 At the Emmy Awards, Jack Klugman is named best actor in a comedy series for his role as Oscar Madison in The Odd Couple, about the humorous conflicts that arise when two divorced men, always messy Oscar and obsessively neat Felix Unger (Tony Randall), share an apartment.

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1971

May 3 Proclaiming “If the government won’t stop the war, we’ll stop the government,” protesters tried to block rush-hour traffic in Washington but were overwhelmed by police and military forces. About 7,000 were arrested. Demonstrations through May 5 raised the total to more than 12,000, the largest mass arrest in U.S. history.

May 5 William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist is released. In the novel, 11-year-old Regan MacNeil is possessed by a demon, and a priest, Father Damien Karras, tries to drive the evil spirt out through an exorcism. A horror classic, The Exorcist has been touted as the scariest novel ever.

20

June 17 President Richard Nixon announces that “public enemy No. 1” is drug abuse and vows to “wage a new, all-out offensive,” condensed in public discussions to the punchier “war on drugs.” He set up a “Special Office for Drug Abuse Prevention” in the White House.

VIETNAM

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June 18 Frederick W. Smith, a two-tour Marine officer in Vietnam, founds Federal Express Corp. in Arkansas to provide overnight delivery of important packages. The first deliveries were on April 17, 1973, when 14 planes left Memphis, Tennessee, to fly 186 packages to 25 cities.

June 19 Carole King has the No. 1 single, which is billed as having two A-sides, with “It’s Too Late” on one side and “I Feel the Earth Move” on the other. The songs appeared on her top-selling Tapestry album, released in February.

June 25 Shaft premiers with Richard Roundtree portraying John Shaft, a Black private detective who has a run-in with the Mafia. It’s the most prominent early example of the Blaxploitation genre—films that show Blacks in strong, heroic roles but also play to racial stereotypes.

May 3 A Harris Poll finds 60 percent oppose the Vietnam War. The question asked whether U.S. troop withdrawals should continue even if it meant South Vietnam would BATTLEFRONT fall. Also, 58 percent agreed it was “morally wrong” to be fighting in Vietnam, a majority for the first time since the question was asked. Louis Harris judged, “The tide of American public opinion has now turned decisively against the war in Indo-China.”

May 21 A rocket fired by the North Vietnamese Army strikes a bunker at Firebase Charlie 2, built 4 miles south of the Demilitarized Zone, killing 30 men in infantry, artillery and engineer units of the 5th Infantry Division (Mechanized) and wounding 33—with 15 of the deaths in infantry units. This was the last incident in which U.S. infantrymen suffered casualties so high.

May 30 The Battle of Snuol (just inside Cambodia), which began Jan. 5 between 8,000 troops from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and 20,000 NVA soldiers, ends when demoralized ARVN forces recross the border.

Official ARVN losses are 37 killed, 74 missing and over 300 captured. Hanoi claimed the casualties were higher.

The ARVN reported 1,043 NVA killed.

June 13 Beginning a series of articles, The New York Times publishes information from the top-secret “Pentagon Papers,” United States-Vietnam Relations 1945-1967, a 7,000-page, 47-volume study of U.S. policy by a task force that Defense Secretary Robert McNamara formed. Daniel Ellsberg, an analyst on the task force, gave photocopies of 43 volumes to The Times. He withheld four dealing with sensitive negotiations in the peace talks. The documents he provided showed how the U.S. government deceived the public about the nature of American involvement and the prospects for success.

MAY 1: GUY ACETO COLLECTION; MAY 3: STUART LUTZ/GADO/GETTY IMAGES; MAY 5: HISTORYNET ARCHIVES; MAY 9: BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES; JUNE 17: AP PHOTO; JUNE 18: HISTORYNET ARCHIVES; JUNE 19: GUY ACETO COLLECTION; JUNE 25: JOHN KISCH ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES

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VIETNAM

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PHOTO CREDITS

PHOTO CREDITS

Sappers, the term for elite communist commandos in Vietnam, lie dead at the perimeter wire of a base at Kham Duc in northern South Vietnam on Aug. 8, 1970—a scene reflective of the attack on Dong Ba Thin on Nov. 30, 1969, when soldiers in noncombat jobs beat back a group of sappers who sneaked into the base.

“RAW COURAGE” HOW CLERKS, COOKS AND MECHANICS REPELLED A SAPPER ATTACK

PHOTO CREDITS

PHOTO CREDITS

By Randy Bullock

J U N E 2 0 21

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Air Force base

CA M R A N H BAY Army port facilities

Dong Ba Thin Base Camp, the site of a sapper attack on Nov. 30, 1969, was part of a massive complex of Army, Navy and Air Force facilities nestled around Cam Ranh Bay. Units at Dong Ba Thin at the time of the attack included the 18th Combat Engineer Brigade and several Army aviation operations involving a variety of aircraft.

Demilitarized Zone

S OU TH VIETNAM Dong Ba Thin Saigon

I

T

hat night was an important night in all of our lives. We remember it as if it happened yesterday. The sappers struck Dong Ba Thin at 11:30 p.m. The moon was at two-thirds full brightness. Normally, those weren’t suitable conditions for a successful sapper attack. The moon seemed too bright. We could see the perimeter wire clearly. And the hour was too early. Many of our men were still awake, alert and likely to spot

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COURTESY 243RDFREIGHTTRAIN.ORG; COURTESY RANDY BULLOCK

Dong Ba Thin Base Camp

PREVIOUS SPREAD: CHRISTOPHER JENSEN/GETTY IMAGES; MAP: JON C. BOCK

SOUTH C H I NA SEA

have distinctive memories of that night, Nov. 30, 1969. First, time seemed to slow down. That often happens to people in life and death situations. A person’s reflexes become extraordinarily sharp. After the life and death experience is over, sometimes the person’s mind goes into a kind of mental fog, which in my case lasted about a week.

I was not supposed to be in that situation. I was trained to be a clerk and stationed “behind the lines” at Dong Ba Thin Base Camp near Cam Ranh Bay, about 200 miles north of Saigon. Men in the infantry, artillery and armored units on the front lines bore the brunt of combat and suffered most of the casualties. They did not do all the fighting, however.

Seven months after I entered the Army, I found myself behind an M60 machine gun when the enemy penetrated our perimeter while I was on duty in a guard tower as a private first class with the 18th Engineer Brigade (Combat).

We were attacked by sappers, the most highly trained of all North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong forces, similar in toughness to our Special Forces. Sappers (in Vietnamese “dac cong,” meaning “special task”) reported only to a sapper command, which in turn reported to North Vietnam’s Politburo ruling body. Their specialties were explosives and stealthy infiltration tactics. Sappers built mock-ups of each base they targeted and rehearsed every mission down to the tiniest detail. Each sapper knew exactly what he was supposed to do in the mission and always had a specific target. Sappers were not there to be killed. They were there to accomplish their mission and quickly escape. In our case, they wanted to plant a devastating bomb in the base.

The major units at Dong Ba Thin were headquarters 18th Combat Engineer Brigade, headquarters 35th Engineer Group, headquarters 10th Combat Aviation Battalion, 183rd Aviation Company, 243rd Assault Aviation Company, 92nd Assault Helicopter Company and 608th Transportation Company. The 18th Combat Engineers had about 225 enlisted men and 53 officers. The other units had about 50 to 70 men.

The sappers who sneaked into our base carried a Bangalore torpedo (a tube with explosives) about 5 to 6 feet long with 75 cakes of powerful C-4 plastic explosives lashed in with vine. C-4, a precious commodity to our communist opponents, was usually stolen from U.S. forces.

Many of us believe the sappers’ intention on Nov. 30 was to place this powerful explosive under the trailer of Brig. Gen. John W. Morris, commander of the 18th Combat Engineer Brigade, sleeping 100 yards behind my guard tower. This bomb was powerful enough to flatten half a city block. Three experts, including combat engineer Master Sgt. Tony Lawson who was well trained in C-4, told me the bomb would have had an effective lateral killing range of about 100 yards, especially from its planned space beneath a trailer.

Jerry Laws, a captain in 18th Combat Engineer Brigade’s aviation section (and future brigadier general), told me, “That bomb would have taken out our whole officers’ area.” The blast would have killed Morris and most, if not all, of the 53 officers sleeping in our area and many of the 225 enlisted men asleep nearby.

18th Combat Engineer Brigade 183rd Aviation Company

Sapper Attack

Randy Bullock’s tower Butch Graef’s tower

Nov. 30, 1969

COURTESY 243RDFREIGHTTRAIN.ORG; COURTESY RANDY BULLOCK

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Communist sappers approached Dong Ba Thin through tall elephant grass near the tower of Randy Bullock of the 18th Combat Engineers and then turned west toward the tower of Butch Graef of the 183rd Aviation where they broke through. After being pushed out by the defenders, the sappers returned to the elephant grass, hoping to escape into the hills on motorcycles stashed at a creek. The Americans found the sappers’ wounded leader the next morning and killed him.

the intruders before they could plant their explosives.

I was in the guard tower playing with my rifle’s Starlight night scope, which fascinated me. I was constantly aiming it into the area around my tower. Sappers were trained to slip between guard towers and move when both guards were looking away from them. If a guard turned their way, they would freeze. A sapper lying flat and motionless could not be seen by a guard at a hundred yards—unless the guard was using his Starlight scope.

The next morning I learned that the entire squad of sappers had mashed down the elephant grass a hundred yards to my right and planned to come in at a point that was barren and dark with no troop quarters. Instead, they decided to move 300 yards to my right. Perhaps they saw me using the scope and moved out of my range.

It turned out to be a bad move. The sappers came in directly behind the sleeping quarters and showers of the 183rd Aviation. Spc. 5 Jim Benoit was taking a late shower as the sappers headed straight toward Morris’ trailer.

Benoit made a noise that spooked one of the unseen sappers into chambering a round in his AK-47 assault rifle. Spc. 4 Butch Graef, a mechanic with the aviation company, manning the guard tower to my right, instantly recognized the distinctive “double-click” sound as the weapon’s bolt opened and slammed shut. He immediately threw a spotlight on the noise.

The sappers knew their mission was fatally compromised but had a plan for a quick escape. They threw a hand grenade at Graef, fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the latrine next to Benoit’s shower and immediately set off satchel charges (several pounds of high explosives carried in a canvas bag) in several hootches and under the 183rd Aviation Company’s generator.

They wounded both guards on duty with Graef—Spc. 4 James Dorough and

Sapper leader killed

Sappers first came through elephant grass

Motorcycles parked at creek

Randy Bullock, a personnel clerk in the 18th Combat Engineer Brigade, normally worked behind a desk shuffling papers at Dong Ba Thin, but guard duty one night put him on the front lines of a battle firing an M60 machine gun.

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tar rounds that we became numb to the sound of those explosions. We were frequent targets because our base was close to the hills, which meant the enemy could quickly fire mortar rounds into the base and then disappear.

Dong Ba Thin was a particularly attractive target because it was full of helicopters, which the enemy hated because of their firepower. Sometimes the communists would fire as many as 50 mortars and six rockets at one time. On at least one occasion we were hit twice in the same night.

We feared the rockets the most. One night a rocket destroyed the 92nd Assault Helicopter Company’s mess hall. This blow would have killed and wounded many men if the mess been occupied. Other times we weren’t as fortunate. We frequently lost men to rockets and mortars, and many were wounded.

Morris, in his memoirs, recalled that Viet Cong fired a couple of rounds at us every couple of nights and wrote: “We suffered more casualties than any unit in Vietnam three of the 12 months I was there.”

I had been in Vietnam only one week when I experienced a mortar attack on my very first night of guard duty. A few minutes before 6 p.m. I was looking out over my company when I saw the first mortar explode, about a half second before I heard it. The shell hit near the mess hall, close to where several soldiers were walking.

Another evening a visiting lieutenant general was eating in the officer’s mess hall with Morris when the Viet Cong fired six rockets at the mess hall. I was standing nearby. The rockets flew directly over my head and exploded about 250 feet away. Thankfully they missed the general. If you have ever heard a rocket whistle, it’s a sound you can never forget. Even today, every time I hear a car backfire or the first bolt of lightning, my heart races and I often duck.

The sappers who attacked Dong Ba Thin on Nov. 30 knew that when we got hit by mortar fire we would dive for the ground and hug the concrete until the “all clear” blare from our sirens signaled us to run for positions on The sappers entered the base at Dong Ba Thin near the section that housed 183rd Aviation Company, which flew reconnaissance missions with O-1 Bird Dog planes. By the time of the sapper attack, the tents had been replaced with new buildings.

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COURTESY DARYL FOUTZ; PATCH: HISTORYNET ARCHVES

Spc. 4 Frank Robertson—as well as Capt. Allen Hodgson of the 183rd Aviation Company and two others.

At first, my comrades and I thought we were getting bombarded by mortars. A satchel charge explosion sounds like a fired mortar round. The sappers used satchel charges the night of the attack not only to kill and wound but also to deceive us into thinking we were just under another mortar attack. We had been hit with so many mor-

TOP: HISTORYNET ARCHIVES: BOTTOM: COURTESY JIM MCHANEY (2)

The Starlight scope, commonly mounted on rifles, magnified the light of stars and the moon to illuminate objects several hundred yards away. They were introduced in Vietnam in 1965.

The scope also could be used as a hand-held device—the way Bullock used it the night of the sapper attack.

This sapper’s eye view of a base perimeter similar to Don Ba Thin’s perimeter, protected by wire barriers and guard towers, shows the challenges the invaders faced and overcame to get inside.

the perimeter. That night the sappers wanted us to hug the concrete for a couple of minutes to allow them to escape through the holes in the wire they had cut earlier.

COURTESY DARYL FOUTZ; PATCH: HISTORYNET ARCHVES

TOP: HISTORYNET ARCHIVES: BOTTOM: COURTESY JIM MCHANEY (2)

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heard a few rifle rounds fired, but thought they were firecrackers. Laws, our aviation captain, instantly recognized the noise as rounds fired from an AK-47. Although the sirens were still blaring for all soldiers to hug the concrete during a mortar barrage, he knew we were under a direct assault by enemy foot soldiers.

Laws donned his flak jacket, grabbed his rifle and helmet and raced to the guard tower to my left. He started firing the tower’s machine gun, clearly indicating that we were under a sapper attack, not mortar fire. Thanks to Laws’ quick action, our attack helicopters got in the air quickly.

Graef, in his tower, was also firing a machine gun. When it jammed, he stood up in the tower with an M14 rifle (we did not get the newer M16s until two months later) and took on 10 sappers.

Anyone who has been in combat knows how much guts that takes. Graef ’s extraordinarily brave decision to stand and fight the sappers

saved the lives of many American soldiers.

The sappers who infiltrated the base escaped through the perimeter wire and ran back toward the elephant grass. Graef shot one of them in the knee before the sappers got to the wire. Trails of blood seem to indicate that others were hit before they got to the elephant grass. The man wounded in the knee was the sappers’ leader. He was also a South Vietnamese army captain. Supposedly one of our allies! We had been teaching him to be a pilot. He visited the base many times and knew the layout well. Now he had revealed his treacherous intentions.

The other sappers tried to drag him to motorcycles hidden a short distance from the base for a fast getaway along a nearby creek. The sappers’ efforts to save their leader and the wounds of others slowed their escape. Just two extra minutes would have given them time to vanish into the hills. But the rescue attempt had cost them too much time.

Laws, Graef, Spc. 6 Leo Farrell, Spc. 4 Mike Buttolph, Spc. 4 Mark Mitchell, Spc. 5 Terry Hackney, Spc. 4 Wesley Smith and many others fired rifles and machine guns into the elephant grass.

18th Engineer Brigade Inactivated in 1963, following service in World War II, the 18th Engineer Brigade was reactivated at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, on July 16, 1965, and arrived in Vietnam in September. It constructed port facilities, airfields, fuel and ammo storage structures, communications centers and roads. The brigade was inactivated in Vietnam on Sept. 20, 1971.

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Another distinctive memory of that night is Many of us the moment when two of our attack helicopters at Dong Ba found the enemy and fired their miniguns into Thin believe the small area for about five minutes.

I knew then that the fight was over and was the date and very glad. But I also knew we had just killed time were men who would never return home. Nine sappicked to pers died that night. Their wounded leader was coincide with found the next morning. Three of our men an event killed him.

Several soldiers of the 183rd Aviation Comtaking place pany, including Benoit, Mitchell and Hackney halfway volunteered for a perimeter sweep. During the around the sweep Mitchell stumbled upon the huge Bangaworld. lore torpedo, hidden under matted-down elephant grass. The sappers had tried to take it with them after the aborted mission at our base. If Graef had not blown out their leader’s knee and slowed their rush to the hills, the attackers would have escaped with all of that C-4 to use against American soldiers somewhere else.

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ad the sappers been successful, they might have killed our general and killed or wounded possibly 53 officers, as well as 100 or more enlisted men, making the battle at Dong Ba Thin the worst attack

on a U.S. base during 1969. Families back home would have been devastated. Those of us in support positions rather than combat units were thought to be behind the lines. Our families believed we were relatively safe.

Because we thwarted the sappers’ plans, the fight at Dong Ba Thin is not well known today, even among historians. However, I believe it is an important event in the war based on research I did to answer questions that troubled me.

Why did the sappers attack at 11:30 p.m. and not 2 a.m., when the moon would be waning and more of the base would have been asleep? Especially when they were outnumbered 100 to 1.

They were clearly at a tactical disadvantage. And why did they, or rather their North Vietnamese leaders, choose Nov. 30, 1969, to mount such a risky attack?

I analyzed 25 sapper attacks during the Vietnam War and compared them using an astronomical website that provides data on past moon phases. Only one of those sapper attacks occurred during a bright moon. Furthermore, none of the 25 attacks happened at a time as early as ours.

COURTESY JIM MCHANEY; OPPOSITE, TOP: COURTESY JIM MCHANEY; BOTTOM: HISTORYNET ARCHIVES

The damage wreaked by the sappers at Dong Ba Thin included the destruction of living quarters that housed two captains of the 183rd Aviation Company. OPPOSITE TOP: The invaders also blew up a latrine. OPPOSITE BOTTOM: The sappers brought with them weapons such as blocks of explosives wrapped together for carrying in a satchel and tube-shaped Bangalore torpedoes, shown here at a different site.

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COURTESY JIM MCHANEY; OPPOSITE, TOP: COURTESY JIM MCHANEY; BOTTOM: HISTORYNET ARCHIVES

Many of us at Dong Ba Thin that night believe the date and time were picked to coincide with an event taking place halfway around the world.

On Dec. 1, 1969, the U.S. Selective Service System conducted the first Vietnam draft lottery at its headquarters in Washington—a momentous event in the history of the war. The lottery was President Richard Nixon’s effort to make the draft fairer and quiet the anti-war demonstrations. Protests against the war were at their peak in November 1969, and the North Vietnamese did not want them to diminish.

It seems clear that North Vietnam intended to launch a high-casualty attack that would gain more attention in the press than the introduction of a more equitable draft procedure and thus fuel more anti-war protests. The sappers likely struck earlier than usual because it would take about 14 hours for the news to reach the United States, get printed and delivered to front doors. Despite the

Vietnam War’s reputation as the “first television war,” daily newspapers were still the dominant news source for the American public.

In two long telephone conversations, Laws discussed what he believes is another reason for the Nov. 30 attack. The North Vietnamese wanted to use it as leverage in the Paris Peace talks. North Vietnam may have believed that a ferocious attack against an American base would force Nixon to soften his hard-line position to reach a deal that would get all American forces out of Vietnam. They also knew that Nixon might do just the opposite: Respond with overwhelming force, escalating the war. However, North Vietnam’s leaders had decided to endure whatever force Nixon might throw at them.

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e were lucky that night. I spent 65 nights, a total of 780 hours, on a guard tower in Vietnam, and I know how lucky we were.

Good soldiers and good luck averted a massive tragedy in November 1969.

Capt. Paul Walker, the 183rd Aviation Company’s information officer, ended his after-action report this way: “Charlie [the sappers] had been repelled, but not by a combat infantry force. He had been stopped by cooks, supply personnel, mechanics, clerks and courage. Yes, by raw courage, for there was magnificent courage displayed in the face of the enemy.”

Walker’s comment reminds me of what we were all told in basic training. The sergeants said that when we entered combat each one of us would do one of the “three F’s”—freeze, flee or fight. They added that it was their job to teach us to fight. Our sergeants had done their job well.

Graef was awarded the Bronze Star for valor.

There was talk that he deserved a Silver Star. I wholeheartedly agree. Although more than 50 years have passed, he could still be recommended for a Silver Star.

Buttolph also received a Bronze Star. He was honored for exposing himself to enemy fire while carrying a machine gun to Graef ’s tower after the guard’s machine gun had jammed.

Walker’s assessment was correct. Laws, Graef, Benoit, Mitchell, Buttolph and a lot of other men showed a lot of raw courage that moonlit night. Although unknown to us at the time, we may also have had an important part in keeping that awful war from escalating. V

Randy Bullock served in Vietnam Nov. 15, 1969-Nov. 4, 1970, as a private first class, then a specialist 4. For the first three months, he was a personnel clerk with the 18th Combat Engineer Brigade, then was transferred to the brigades’ aviation section where his duties included manning radios and occasionally flying as a door gunner on Huey helicopters. After the war, he was a residential contractor, building homes and garages. He lives in Killen, Alabama.

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HO CHI MINH’S SHADOW GOVERNMENT VIET CONG SYMPATHIZERS BEHIND THE SCENES WERE KEY TO THE COMMUNIST STRATEGY IN SOUTH VIETNAM

By Virginia Morris

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ropagandize the masses to build the Revolutionary Infrastructure, arm the revolutionary masses to build a People’s Army.”

That was the communists’ motto throughout their wars with the French and Americans in Vietnam. While the People’s Army was one in which everyone from a child to an adult could be recruited to serve, its most prominent section, commonly called the North Vietnamese Army during the U.S. war, provided the visible firepower that drove out the French in 1954 and forced Saigon to surrender in 1975. However, unseen subversives operating in the shadows permeated the Southern government and weakened it from the inside, easing the way for the North’s military forces.

The Ho Chi Minh Trail, That shadow government was called the Revolutionary Infrahere in 1969, funneled structure by the communists and l’infrastructure Clandestine supplies and troops to Viêt Minh by the French secret service. It is better known by the communist forces in South Vietnam, aided American term, the Viet Cong Infrastructure. When Saigon fell by a network of couriers and the communists took total control of the country, the Viet traveling different routes along the trail.

Cong Infrastructure was no longer needed. However, adherents of the concept are operating in other places today, notably Afghanistan. After the Soviets invaded in 1979, local Islamic fighters, the Mujahedeen, developed a similar infrastructure, as did the Taliban movement that still operates against a U.S.-led coalition deployed there after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks to destroy al-Qaida terrorists hiding in the country.

The Viet Cong Infrastructure largely comprised three elements: Communist Party “cells” (small teams of revolutionaries), linked by “couriers” using corridor routes, and “guards,” sympathizers among the masses or specific units that protected the courier routes. The communists had cells at the hamlet, district, provincial and national level—from the post office to the presidential palace.

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Communist leader Ho Chi Minh said the couriers and courier corridors were “the most important element for victory, because they serve the revolution in much the same way as blood vessels and a nervous system serve the human body.”

At the local level, the shadow government was a covert organization of communist party members and revolutionary sympathizers who set up a government structure paralleling the administrative functions of the noncommunist government that was the official authority in the area. The communists gained control of villages through popular social services programs or force. The shadow government’s functions included administering the war effort and controlling the local population. It also provided services related to land control, agriculture, schools, “reeducation” (a euphemism for communist indoctrinaHo Chi Minh, pictured around 1950, began tion), medical facilities, a legal system and developing his system management of the local economy. The shadow of an underground shadow government government even had its own system of taxation.

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on a military Boeing 707. They told her to start a relationship with someone who worked at Tan Son Nhut Airport in Saigon. She picked a South Vietnamese officer who worked in logistics.

“The flight to be targeted had been chosen from information gathered by our network inside the base,” Nguyet said. “They had heard that a group of American officers were to leave Vietnam.

My boyfriend then found out what type of suitcases they had purchased, and we went and

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he infrastructure system was born in the early days of Ho’s efforts to free Vietnam from the French rulers who had occupied parts of the country since the mid-19th century.

In June 1911, Ho sailed for Marseilles, France, and in following years traveled to many other countries, including the United States. Reading the French newspaper L’Humanité in 1920, Ho saw Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s Thesis on the National and Colonial Questions and claimed it converted him from a socialist thinker to a Leninist revolutionary. Ho later went to China, where he trained his first couriers in 1925. Known as giao thong, “communications agents,” they needed not only the traditional courier skills for transporting documents and guiding people but also the abilities of fighters, spies and propagandists.

Ho’s first official courier was Ly Phuong Duc, trained in Guangzhou, China, in 1925. “I remember how he began our first session by opening a map of Guangzhou and asking us to pinpoint where we now lived and worked,” she said. “Once we had done this, [Ho] then went on to explain how to reach these locations via alternative routes, so that the enemy could not detect a pattern in our movements. He then asked us to find other key locations, such as newsstands, parks and theatres. This gave us a variety of meeting points to completely confuse the enemy.”

In the late 1930s, two courier sections emerged. One consisted of “legal” and “semi-legal” couriers who conducted subversive actions while engaging in legitimate activities using identification permits, such as those issued by Saigon authorities during the Vietnam War. Others were “illegal” couriers operating almost entirely out of sight and performing duties that involved limited interactions with officials on the other side.

A good example of a legal courier is Nguyen Van Lem, who had a permit to trade car tires in Saigon. With that cover, Lem used tire shipments to smuggle weapons and explosives for the revolutionaries. During the communists’ Tet Offensive attacks in 1968, Lem was caught and shot at pointblank range by South Vietnamese Maj. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan. His execution was captured by Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams and became an iconic image of the war.

Another legal courier was Le Thi Thu Nguyet, who later became an elite fighter as well. “I conveyed secret letters written in invisible ink and coded,” she said. “On many occasions the text was just a concealed line in a newspaper or on a small piece of paper hidden in my shoe or hair.”

In 1963, Nguyet’s superiors asked her to arrange for a bomb to be planted

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in the 1920s during the initial moves toward independence.

He tapped like-minded Vo Nguyen Giap, below, to implement his strategy.

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BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES (2)

bought the same type from the market. We knew from experience that when the Americans boarded the flight they handed their cases to the Vietnamese staff to load them on to the plane. It was at this point, when my boyfriend loaded the cases, he simply switched one of them for our case with the bomb inside.” The bomb did not go off midflight as planned. It’s thought that atmospheric pressure stopped the timer, which restarted when the plane landed in Honolulu. ABOVE: Vietnamese supporters in Hanoi carry By the time the bomb exploded, the Ameri- the flag of Ho’s Viet Minh independence movement cans had left the plane. the August 1945 Semi-legal couriers worked in legitimate during uprising, which led to a (legal) jobs, but some noncommunist associ- war with France. RIGHT: ates knew they were revolutionaries and used Giap, top left, and Ho, center, meet with military them as go-betweens to deliver messages to leaders in the 1950s. communist leaders—and in turn the communists used them as liaisons with the South Vietnamese and Americans.

For example, in early 1968, the communists sent semi-legal couriers to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon to indicate Hanoi’s receptiveness to the idea of peace talks after receiving messages sent by Americans implying an interest in leaving Vietnam. However, Hanoi’s overtures were a ruse to distract the Americans from the Tet Offensive the communists were planning. Semilegal operatives were vital just before the capture of Saigon, when they probed to determine the likelihood of U.S. reintervention.

Couriers serving in the illegal sphere generally did their work at night to reduce contact with their opponents. Typically, they were people who previ-

ously worked legally or semi-legally but had been uncovered by the other side. They couldn’t be moved to another region to protect themselves because their value lay in their knowledge of the local terrain. Nor could they be issued new fake identification papers once the Americans created computer files on communist suspects, making it harder to work with false papers.

The exact number of communist couriers during the Indochina wars is unknown. Most revolutionaries had experience as couriers. A large number were unpaid peasant women.

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Before the attack, Viet Cong embedded in the base gathered intelligence on troop numbers and arms.

CIA analyst Samuel A. Adams wrote in a top-secret 1969 report that the U.S. government devoted too many resources to attacking the enemy’s army when it should have focused on the Viet Cong Infrastructure, the shadow government.

LEFT: Viet Cong soldiers are shown purportedly firing weapons during the 1968 Tet Offensive.

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nist he first met in 1940 while both were in China to accelerate the Vietnamese independence movement. When Japan occupied Vietnam with French acquiescence during World War II, Ho instructed Giap in the early 1940s to build a courier network from Cao Bang province, bordering China, toward the Red River Delta, where Hanoi sits. Giap established various units to protect his network.

Trainees for guard positions fell into three categories. In the first were those who did not want to serve far from home. They returned to protect their villages and find others to join the cause. In the next category, trained revolutionaries skilled in guerrilla warfare were allocated to “self-defense teams” or “honorary fighting teams.” The self-defense teams defended the corridors. The honorary fighting teams killed or used other methods to stop spies and informers who got too close to the corridors. The third category, the very best trainees, formed paramilitary groups called “advancing propaganda teams,” who traveled across Vietnam to spread the message of nationalism. They also opened courier routes and guided revolutionaries along existing lines.

This infrastructure spread from hamlet to hamlet like an oil spill on a map, helping Ho come to power during the August Revolution of 1945 following Japan’s surrender, announced on Aug. 15. He declared independence on Sept. 2. The guard system Giap designed to protect the courier network became the building blocks for the People’s Army that went to war against the French. Ho made Giap his top general and commander of the new regular army.

Despite its importance, little is recorded about the Viet Cong Infrastructure. Le Trong Nghia, who oversaw communist Vietnam’s in-

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n late 1940, the Communist Party created “corridors” of courier lines. In a corridor, several courier lines ran in parallel but were isolated from each other, which enabled a courier to go out on one line and return on another, complicating the efforts of noncommunist forces trying to predict which route couriers would use. Along the route were “safe houses” for sharing intelligence and receiving instructions.

Explaining how the system worked, Phan Nam, one of Hanoi’s top infrastructure operatives in Hue, gave the example of his trip to the house of a fellow communist, “Mrs. An.” To enter her house safely, he said, “I knew from experience that at 6:30 p.m. the BBC broadcast their Radio World Service [news]. For security reasons I had to arrive right on time at my destination. I could not hang around outside the house. I calculated that it took me 10 minutes to cycle to Mrs. An’s house from where I was coming. On arrival I rode past the house once.

If she was listening to the BBC news, it meant I could enter. If I heard no news it meant that something had happened, and I had to go to the next safe house and so on until there was a secure place for me—like an aircraft trying to land in a bad storm! Each place had a different system. I used a coded message to enter a house.” He added: “Conveniently, the BBC aired this just about rush hour, so I went around unnoticed as one of the crowd.”

The guard component, the third element of the Viet Cong Infrastructure, evolved from Ho’s partnership with Vo Nguyen Giap, a young commu-

telligence service from the early 1950s to 1968, attributes the dearth of records to the organization’s decentralized nature: “Because many of the people involved were recruited and run locally by individual heads, when that head died, their network went unrecorded. Therefore, no one person will ever thoroughly grasp this paramilitary system, not even me!”

In 1945, Ho asked Giap to complete corridors that were started in the early 1940s and became part of the Trans-Indochina Link, which eventually ran through Laos, Thailand and Cambodia.

Giap used those corridors when his army and supplies advanced on Cochinchina (the name for the southernmost region of Vietnam during French rule). Part of that route formed the Ho Chi Minh Trail during America’s war. A similar development occurred with the Trans West Supply Line, a landsea route through Cochinchina, Cambodia and Thailand during the French war. The ports and wharfs of that route became part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail Sea Route.

Hoping to block Giap’s push into Laos, which included military and infrastructure campaigns, the French put a base in his way at Dien Bien Phu. That didn’t stop Giap. The French, badly beaten in May 1954, surrendered and signed a treaty that ended their rule in Indochina.

ABOVE: On Feb. 1, 1968, during the Tet Offensive, South Vietnamese Maj. Gen Nguyen Ngoc Loan executes Nguyen Van Lem, commander of an elite unit that attacked the headquarters of South Vietnam’s marines. Before Tet, Lem was a Saigon tire dealer and undercover Viet Cong courier who used his business to smuggle weapons for the revolutionaries.

Members of a South Vietnamese counterinsurgency team stand near a suspected Viet Cong courier killed in the Mekong Delta area.

They are affiliated with the Phoenix Program, an effort to track down and capture or kill leaders of the Viet Cong Infrastructure.

TOP: AP PHOTO/EDDIE ADAM; BOTTOM: © TIM PAGE/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

SOVFOTO/UNIVERSAL IMAGES GROUP VIA GETTY IMAGES; INSET: AP WIREPHOTO

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n March 1965, the first U.S. ground combat units arrived and remained until March 1973.

The 1968 Tet Offensive is generally considered the turning point of the Vietnam War. Attacks across the country on Jan. 30-31 received heavy media coverage, especially in Saigon, where Viet Cong breached the U.S. Embassy compound, and Hue, where U.S. Marines were pinned down.

Little remembered is a communist attack just a few months later on the night of Aug. 22-23 at Forward Operating Base 4/ Command and Control North, a top-secret outpost near Da Nang.

That night 17 U.S. Special Forces soldiers were killed in the heaviest one-day loss for the Green Berets during the war and by some accounts the deadliest in Special Forces history. On the other side, more than 30 enemy troops were killed.

The high Special Forces death toll resulted from “embarrassing breaches of security,” according to John “Tilt” Stryker Meyer, a Special Forces team leader in Vietnam who has studied the battle. “During a lengthy guerrilla war, even the best of troops and their commanders can become lax, an error the NVA dramatically exploited.”

Before the attack, members of the Viet Cong Infrastructure, embedded within the base, gathered intelligence on troop numbers, arms and J U N E 2 0 21

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he scope of the Tet attacks shocked the American public and gave the communists a propaganda victory, but militarily they lost heavily, and vast parts of the Viet Cong Infrastructure were destroyed. Additional blows to the infrastructure came from the joint U.S.-South Vietnamese Phoenix Program, implemented in July 1968 to collect intelligence on individuals working within the communist network. Those Viet Cong members were to be killed, captured, arrested, induced to desert or compromised.

The Phoenix Program was one of the most controversial operations of the Vietnam War. Much of the American public saw it as an unnecessary illegal assassination program that mostly targeted civilians, whereas U.S. officials

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TOP: Head bowed, South Vietnamese President Duong Van Minh leaves the Presidential Palace on April 30, 1975, after surrendering to the North Vietnamese.

ABOVE: Afghanistan’s Mujahedeen used some of Ho’s strategies in fighting the Soviets during the 1980s.

TOP: AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; BELOW: JOSÉ NICOLAS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

camp security. American veterans of the battle said the communists knew the camp layout well and had placed machine guns to create clean lines of fire down key pathways. It was obvious that infrastructure members had conducted a propaganda operation inside the camp because some Vietnamese security men openly cooperated with the communists while others turned a blind eye to invaders crawling through the barbed wire.

deemed it a legal program that was successful in neutralizing an enemy infrastructure.

Although the infrastructure suffered serious damage in Tet gun battles, it sustained the heaviest losses as a direct consequence of American counterespionage strategies, former Viet Cong members acknowledge.

Mrs. Phuong (declined to give full name), a South Vietnamese army lieutenant assigned to the Phoenix Program, looked at various “indicators” to ascertain if someone was the enemy. “An indicator can be pretty much anything,” she said, “such as if a man is home every night apart from Wednesdays. Why? This is an indicator. He might have been seeing his girlfriend or that might be the night that the Communist Party meets. Who did he go to school with? Are any of them now out in the forest? Does he have scratches on his legs, and if so, where are they from? If you think that the scratches are from the forest, only VC go there. Sometimes we just asked them if they liked the government, or we said that we didn’t like the government, and we observed how they reacted.”

That process could take months. Someone tagged with a lot of indicators would likely be designated as part of the Viet Cong Infrastructure.

While Tet and Phoenix eliminated many senior communists, there was always a willing person to fill a vacant position. But after 1968 the underground wasn’t able to operate as effectively as it had. The infrastructure’s knowledge base had eroded. Replacements lacked the experience needed for the posts they held. They were uneducated in revolutionary methods and in some cases disruptive. Those unpredictable replacements damaged the revolutionaries, and their irrational behavior also created more danger for U.S. personnel trying to destroy them.

In January 1969, Samuel A. Adams, a CIA analyst, drafted a top-secret report titled Intelligence Failures in Vietnam: Suggestions for Reform. He noted that a “basic failure has been—until very recently—the relative neglect by US intelligence of the wellsprings of the enemy’s power, the Communist Party and its related bureaucracies, collectively called the ‘infrastructure.’ … In misunderstanding where the enemy’s main strength lay, the US devoted a disproportionate share of its resources to attacking the enemy’s army … The Allies’ best conceived and most ambitious scheme to attack the infrastructure, the Phoenix Program, did not begin to get off the ground until some time last year.”

By spring 1975, the infrastructure was depleted in strength but had not been neutralized. When the last president of South Vietnam, Duong Van

Minh, surrendered on April 30 after just two days in office, he knew he had no choice. The infrastructure ran straight through his cabinet and formed an operational web across vast areas of Vietnam. Minh himself had been proselytized from the early 1960s by the communists and was now pro-revolution.

COURTESY CLIVE A. HILLS (3)

TOP: AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES; BELOW: JOSÉ NICOLAS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES

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hen Saigon fell, the rest of the world saw the war’s symbolic end—North Vietnamese tanks crashing through the gates of the Presidential Palace as conventional communist troops annihilated the conventional troops of South Vietnam. But something else equally significant happened. The underground infrastructure surfaced, bringing masses of people with it. Clandestine revolutionaries revealed themselves and took over the southern regime’s military and administrative apparatus. The shadow government was no longer needed and unofficially disbanded.

Similar insurgent infrastructures have appeared elsewhere in the world, including Afghanistan in the 1980s. An Afghan sympathetic to the Mujahedeen’s fight against the Soviet invasion noted that local forces had used Mao Zedong’s, Ho’s and Giap’s revolutionary strategies, integrating them into their own fighting TOP: The Ho Chi Minh approach and ancient tribal systems.

Trail in Laos in the late During the 1980s, Soviet draftees beset by 1990s, with hiker Clive A. Hills. MIDDLE: Virginia CIA-supplied Afghan rebels called the insur- Morris talks with Vo gents “ghosts” because they could never quite Nguyen Giap and Dang Bich Ha grasp and hold their enemy, similar to the Viet professor (his second wife) at their Cong’s shadow government. The CIA and Mu- Hanoi home in 2004. jahedeen repulsed the Soviet invaders in 1989. BOTTOM: A statue placed in Ho Chi Minh City After al-Qaida’s attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, commemorates couriers the U.S. and its allies invaded Afghanistan to and military postmen. destroy the Taliban, an insurgency with an effective shadow government that ruled most of the country and was believed to have harbored al-Qaida. In its fight against the Taliban, the U.S. adopted key features of its Vietnam-era Phoenix program, renamed “kill/capture.”

The kill/capture program generally targeted mid- and high-ranking officials. However, Taliban operatives were entrenched after generations within Afghan society and hard to detect, much like the Viet Cong. The ones eliminated were often replaced by uncontrollable and untested radicals.

Debates waged by U.S. officials trying to combat the Viet Cong’s shadow government continue today as leaders across the globe confront terrorist shadow networks. Some researchers believe a Phoenix or kill/capture approach would be useful as part of a wider strategy. Others contend that addressing grievances in society will decrease the appeal of terrorist groups.

Marc Sageman, a former CIA operations officer who worked with the Mujahedeen and advised the U.S. government on terrorism issues, suggests approaches that establish strong homeland security and take the glory out of terrorism by, for example, demilitarizing the conflict and treating the terrorists as common criminals.

The Revolutionary Infrastructure in Vietnam was developed solely for one country, and that war is long over. Nonetheless, it is important to research Ho’s network while people who designed and used it are still alive. If we don’t, it will always be an enigma and a missed opportunity to better understand how to destroy shadow government systems that threaten us today. V Virginia Morris is an author with a doctorate in engineering. Over many years, she has written books and articles on the wars in Vietnam, focusing on interviews with veterans and visits to the region. This article is adapted from her second book, Ho Chi Minh’s Blueprint for Revolution, In the words of Vietnamese Strategists and Operatives.

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An AC-4 7 Spooky fires one of its guns at the enemy during a rare daylight mission. A Spooky gunship was among the aircraft that responded to a call for airstrikes by Air Force Capt. John P. Calamos, flying in a small Cessna spotter plane monitoring the battle at a besieged Special Forces base in 1968.

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‘CLEARED IN HOT!’

A PILOT IN A SMALL CESSNA TOOK DEATH-DEFYING RISKS TO SAVE A SPECIAL FORCES BASE FROM ANNIHILATION

By Mark Carlson

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load of 10 white phosphorus rockets used to mark enemy targets for American planes coming in with bombs. The radios—set to communicate with the air base, ground forces and strike aircraft— could only be used one at a time. Fast reactions were required to flip from one radio to another while calling in airstrikes and keeping both the air base and ground units informed. An FAC had authority to request airstrikes on the enemy. If ground units were in danger of being overrun, he could even divert aircraft involved in other operations.

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een eyes, a steady hand on the controls and a quick mind were essential to assessing an evolving situation. Those were the qualities that earned Air Force Capt.

John P. Calamos a reputation as one of the top forward air controllers of the war. Serving with the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron at Da Nang Air Base, he flew some 400 flights as an FAC and logged more than 1,000 hours in the air. One harrowing night over Thuong Duc Special Forces base in September 1968 assured his place in the history of the Vietnam War. Calamos, the son of Greek immigrants, was born in Chicago and had “only flown once or twice” growing up, he said. “The idea of someday flying jets in formation seemed like a pretty good accomplishment.”

He enrolled in the Air Force ROTC at the Illinois Institute of Technology and earned his commission in 1963. Calamos went on active duty in 1965 and got his pilot training at Webb Air Force Base in Texas. “I had aimed to be a fighter pilot, but was assigned to fly B-52s,” he

The Da Nang Air Base, here in December 1966, was home to numerous Army, Air Force and Marine units during the Vietnam War, including the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron. Calamos and other pilots of the 20th TAAS flew missions to spot enemy troop movements, call in airstrikes and support rescue operations.

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OPPOSITE: DAVID A. SCIACCHITANO; THIS PAGE: U.S. AIR FORCE; PATCH: GUY ACETO COLLECTION

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uring the Vietnam War, the skies were filled with fast jet fighters, huge bombers, droning transports and thudding helicopters. They were hard to miss. Other aircraft, less noticed but no less important, provided neither guns, nor bombs or transportation but something that was just as crucial to men fighting the ground war—a pair of eyes in the sky. These planes, piloted by forward air controllers, flew above the battlefield looking for enemy forces and then directed bombers or fighters to strike them.

The Vietnam War’s FACs were the legacy of a concept that originated during the Civil War. In 1862, the Union Army used hydrogen-filled balloons to scout and report the positions of Confederate troops and artillery on the York-James Peninsula in Virginia. Aerial observers were also in the open cockpits of wood-and-fabric biplanes over the Western Front during World War I, taking note of enemy troop movements, artillery emplacements and other useful details.

Since then aerial observers have had a nearly unbroken history in warfare stretching through World War II, Korea and Vietnam—on into the 21st century. Tiny, slow and fragile airplanes carrying a single aviator who could assess an evolving ground battle and decide what air action to take became essential elements in modern warfare, even in the age of the jet.

Hundreds of FACs in the Air Force, Navy, Army and Marines provided vital assistance in Vietnam. They were the link between friendly ground units and the “fast movers,” the tactical air fighters. If a Marine, Special Forces or other Keen eyes, Army unit needed help from the skies, the a steady FAC climbed into his little Cessna O-2A Skyhand on the master observation plane and flew into socontrols and called “Indian Country.” As he drew closer, a quick the pilot established radio communication with the ground unit to learn where the enemind were my was and more important, where the essential to friendlies were. assessing an The FAC, on call at any time and place, had evolving no real weapons, other than his sidearm. His situation. most important tools were three radios and a

OPPOSITE: DAVID A. SCIACCHITANO; THIS PAGE: U.S. AIR FORCE; PATCH: GUY ACETO COLLECTION

The Cessna O-1 Bird Dog was the first plane flown by forward air controllers of the 20th TASS. It had limited capacity for weapons, motivating the Air Force to seek a replacement aircraft. The low altitudes and loitering necessary for FAC missions put the pilots in constant danger of being shot down.

said. His wing was stationed at Beale Air Force Base in California.

Calamos did not get to spend much time in the big B-52 Stratofortress. “I was ordered to go to Vietnam as a forward air controller,” he said.

After going through FAC training in Florida, he arrived at South Vietnam’s Da Nang Air Base in May 1968. “It was quite a shock to go from the biggest bomber in the Air Force to the little Cessna 0-2A,” Calamos said.

The Air Force set up operations at Da Nang Air Base in 1962 to support U.S. military forces and South Vietnam’s army. Originally used for troop transport aircraft, the Da Nang facility had expanded by 1965 into one of the largest combined air bases in the Far East. Dozens of Air Force, Army and Marine transport, tactical bomber, reconnaissance, attack and tactical fighter units were stationed there.

On May 8, 1965, Da Nang became home to a new unit, the 20th Tactical Air Support Squadron. Originally slated to receive 30 aircraft, the 20th TAAS spent most of the summer of 1965 with fewer than 20 Cessna O-1 “Bird Dog” observation planes because of slow aircraft deliveries by the Army.

After the pilots assigned to the squadron completed a series of familiarization flights, they were given various duties in the region.

One of the assignments was to fly interdiction missions to spot enemy troop movements, call in airstrikes and support air rescue operations over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos, an operation des-

ignated Tiger Hound. At least three forward operations bases—Khe Sanh, Kham Duc and Kontum— were established to support the FAC mission.

In July 1966 the 20th TASS was assigned to what were called Tally Ho interdiction missions in the Operation Steel Tiger area of Laos, extending 30 miles north of the Demilitarized Zone separating North and South Vietnam.

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20th TASS

y the time Calamos arrived at Da Nang in May The 20th Tactical Air 1968, the 20th TASS had abandoned the O-1 Support Squadron was a Bird Dog, whose origins went back to 1947, new unit organized at Da and was flying the more capable Cessna 0-2A, a mili- Dang in May 1965 to fly reconnaissance and tary variant of the civilian Model 337 Skymaster. In forward air control late 1966, the 20th TASS was the first squadron to re- missions. It operated in ceive these planes. The Air Force contracted for 350 Vietnam until January 1973. The squadron was 0-2A Skymasters in all.

Nicknamed the “Oscar Deuce,” the O-2A had twin inactivated in April 1973.

During the war more engines with a propeller on the nose and one at the than 70 pilots were rear, known as a tractor-pusher configuration, under killed and more than a high wing between twin tail booms. With large, 100 planes were lost. slanted windows providing excellent visibility, the 0-2A was perfect for the FAC role, yet provided nothing in the way of pilot protection. The O-2A’s most valuable asset was its excellent range. At a cruising speed of about 140 to 160 mph, the Cessna could fly more than a thousand miles. It was retired when the more advanced North American-Rockwell OV-10 Bronco light attack and observation plane entered service in 1969.

The O-2A, with its low cruising speed, could “loiter” over and around a relatively small battle area, which helped the pilot stay abreast of the situation on the ground. McDonnell F-4 Phantom II fighter-bombers and North American F-100 Super Sabre fighters moved far too fast for accurate bombing when there was less than a few hundred yards between enemy J U N E 2 0 21

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tack aircraft what the target was and which direction to approach from.

Downed airmen and friendly infantry carried various colors of smoke flares that enabled the FACs to locate them under dense forest canopy. However, the North Vietnamese Army used flares too, in an effort to confuse the American forces.

Calamos had once received a call from an infantry unit that was under attack by NVA troops deep within a forest.

“I was on the radio with the jets and the guys on the ground,” he recalled. “I needed to pinpoint where they were, and the guy says, ‘I’ll send up some red smoke.’ Suddenly there were two red smokes coming up from the woods. That meant the enemy was listening in and using [red] flares to make it hard for any rescue attempt. So then the guy says, ‘I’ll send up green smoke!’ Then I saw two separate green smokes.”

Calamos knew the North Vietnamese soldiers were copying the flare color. On the ground, the American infantry Calamos, who flew B-52s with the 23rd Bombardment figured that out too and tried something else. “While this was Squadron in the U.S., receives an Air Medal. He was awarded happening the jets orbited nearby, waiting for their cue,” Calamthe Distinguished Flying Cross for his actions in Vietnam. os continued. “Then the guy radios, ‘Sending up yellow smoke!’ and friendly forces. Pinpoint precision was para- And only one yellow smoke comes up. At that point the infantry guy said: mount in airstrikes when American and allied ‘I don’t have yellow smoke! Get them!’ Then I radio ‘Cleared in hot! Target is the yellow smoke!’” forces were close by.

FACs orbited within sight of the target while the jets moved in and “The FACs orbited the area, controlling the airstrikes by firing white phosphorus rockets to dropped their ordnance. One at a time the bombs went off, obliterating the mark the target,” Calamos said. “We knew where FAC’s view of the impact zone, but when the smoke cleared, he had to the friendly and enemy ground units were. That’s decide whether to call in another bomb run. Often many bomb runs were what the rockets were for. The jet fighters could required to finish the job against tenacious North Vietnamese troops.

The low altitudes and loitering that were necessary in their work put the not drop unless we told them that they were ‘cleared in hot,’” meaning the target was clear of FACs in almost constant danger of being shot down and captured. “We friendlies and could be hit. The FACs told the at- tried to stay clear of groundfire,” Calamos said, “remaining above fifteen

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U.S. AIR FORCE

Crew: 1-2 Engine: Two Continental 10-360D engines, 210 horsepower each Wingspan: 38 ft.

Length: 29 ft., 2 in.

Height: 9 ft., 5 in.

Weight (loaded): 4,900 lbs.

Max speed: 199 mph Range: 1, 060 miles Ceiling: 19,300 ft.

Armament: Rockets, flares, 7.62 mm miniguns, light ordnance

TK; U.S. AIR FORCE

Cessna O-2A Skymaster

FACs in Cessna O-2A Skymasters orbited over battle areas and directed airstrikes by firing white phosphorus rockets to mark targets and pinpoint precise locations for bombers.

hundred feet and not flying straight and level for too long. There was often a lot of groundfire, even small arms stuff. When we fired the rockets we had to descend to make sure we hit our target, but right after that it was back to fifteen hundred feet again.”

By 1968 the FACs were performing a variety of vital air support roles, almost always alone.

They collected intelligence on NVA movements, weapons and strength, and acted as communications links between ground and air units.

U.S. AIR FORCE

TK; U.S. AIR FORCE

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Two regiments of NVA infantry stealthily moved mortars and artillery to surround the camp and its outposts.

hen Calamos was flying FAC missions in the fall of 1968, the Special Forces camp at Thuong Duc, established in late 1965, was one of the many Green Beret fortifications the U.S. military had constructed in South Vietnam near the Laotian border to monitor NVA activity in the region. They were manned by A-Teams of the 5th Special Forces Group and paramilitary units from the region’s Montagnard tribes, one of South Vietnam’s ethnic minorities.

Camp A-109 at Thuong Duc was in a river valley about 25 miles southwest of Da Nang. The Special Forces team occupied the camp’s center compound, connected by a complex network of communications and land routes to an outer ring of Montagnard camps and outposts. The camp was well-positioned along two ridges with a commanding view of the river

valley below. The nearby Da Nang Air Base added to its tactical importance. The camp also was on one of the major routes used by the NVA for attacks on U.S. installations in the region. The North Vietnamese were determined to eliminate it at any cost.

Even though Special Forces camps had mortar and artillery crews, they relied heavily on what is now called “close air support” and during the war was dubbed “calling in the whole world.”

The FAC’s job was to identify the enemy and bring whatever aircraft were needed to counter the threat. “There were about six of us at Da Nang,” Calamos said. “We were assigned sectors around Quang Nam [province], which included the Thuong Duc camp.”

In September 1968, NVA forces began preparing a major assault on Da Nang—and the first place on their hit list was the Thuong Duc camp.

Two regiments of NVA infantry, about 3,000 troops in all, stealthily moved mortars and artillery to surround the camp and its outposts on three sides. The assault began 2 a.m. on Sept. 28 when elements of the NVA 21st and 141st regiments attacked and overran outposts Alpha and J U N E 2 0 21

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The Distinguished Flying Cross is the highest award for aerial achievement by personnel in all branches of the military. It was established by Congress in 1926. One of the earliest recipients was Capt. Charles Lindbergh of the Army Air Corps Reserve, honored for his 1927 flight from New York to Paris. During the Vietnam War 21,647 members of the armed forces received the medal.

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planes, which dropped a steady stream of parachute flares to illuminate the battlefield in an eerie stark white light.

Calamos asked the base at Da Nang, which had been launching airstrikes during the day, to send in more jets loaded with ordnance. Phantoms and Super Sabres streaked in low and disgorged cluster munitions and general-purpose bombs. Calamos assessed the damage and effectiveness of each strike. The bombs detonated in bright yellow and white flashes that left spots in his eyes.

Small fires flared, adding to the macabre night landscape and revealing an inferno of bodies and weapons. Yet the remnants of the two NVA regiments refused to give up. They continually probed to find a weak spot in the American and Montagnard perimeter. Calamos spotted those attacks. More white rockets streaked down as his call of, “Cleared in hot!” came over radio frequencies. The FAC called for a second full strike on the determined enemy.

“The weather was poor, and it sometimes interfered with my being able to see what was happening,” he said. “The second strike came in and hit right where I had put my rockets.”

Calamos’ call brought in one of the truly remarkable aircraft of the Vietnam War. Nick-

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U.S. AIR FORCE (2)

Flying Award

Bravo, around 600 yards from the camp perimeter. The Special Forces troops and Montagnards led successful but bloody counterattacks to retake vital outposts.

The NVA increased the pressure throughout the day with mortar and artillery attacks on local villages to establish more concentrated fire on the camp. This vicious tactic cleared an area so NVA could move its short-range mortars closer to the camp. The Special Forces and Montagnards continued to repel the attacks as night fell.

That was when Calamos, call sign “Lopez 58,” was sent to relieve the FAC who had directed airstrikes during the day. By this time the enemy had lost the initiative but still pushed hard to break through the American perimeter.

In the darkness of night, Calamos, in his little “Oscar Deuce,” watched the ground for flashes of gunfire, tracers and explosions. “I had tracers coming up at me,” he said. “I could not see the enemy troops, but I knew where they were from the groundfire.”

The opposing forces were just 200 feet apart, according to Calamos, who was getting his information from the Green Berets. “The bad guys were too close for the jets to hit with any precision,” he said. “The night made it even more risky.” More light was needed. He called in flare

U.S. AIR FORCE (2)

The pilot in this O-2 has identified his target and fired a white phosphorus rocket (to the right of the gun sight’s crosshairs) to guide arriving gunships during a 1969 engagement near Phan Rang in the central coastal area of South Vietnam.

A Spooky gunship of the 4th Air Commando Squadron deploys on another mission. A crewman stands at the rear cargo door of the aircraft, nicknamed “Puff the Magic Dragon.” BELOW: An AC-47’s minigun, firing at a rate of 6,000 rounds per minute, opens up on Viet Cong positions in November 1966.

named with typical American humor as “Spooky” and “Puff the Magic Dragon,” the Douglas AC-47 was the ultimate gunship at that time. This converted C-47 transport plane carried three 7.62 mm General Electric rotary miniguns mounted in the left side cargo door and two windows. Each gun had six rotating barrels, like a Gatling gun, and fired 2,000 to 6,000 rounds per minute from a 5,000-round belt.

The AC-47 often hauled a combat load of 24,000 rounds.

Spooky’s pilot controlled the guns as he peered through crosshairs on his left-side window. The plane circled in what is known as a counterclockwise “pylon turn,” in which the pilot was able to keep the stream of hot lead aimed in a cone of fire at an area about the size of a football field.

Groundfire and mortar explosions gave the pilot a clear aiming point. At night the tracers looked like orange laser beams, making aim easier. The steady stream of bullets literally tore through the foliage, leaving death and carnage wherever it touched. That concentrated firepower inflicted heavy casualties on the NVA troops the night of Sept. 28.

U.S. AIR FORCE (2)

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A

fter four solid hours of orbiting over the battle at Thuong Duc and calling in every aircraft that could be of help, Calamos was relieved at 2 a.m. on Sept. 29 and flew back to Da Nang. The Special Forces camp was later secured and the NVA driven away. It had been a long and bloody fight. At least 68 NVA were killed in direct assaults on the camp, while hundreds more were killed in the airstrikes. U.S. and friendly casualties were light, although exact figures are unavailable. The FACs working with Air Force and Marine aircraft played a major role in protecting the Thuong Duc camp and surrounding area from an NVA assault that threatened to overrun the American and Montagnard forces.

Calamos’ outstanding work over the battlefield earned him the Distinguished Flying Cross, awarded to personnel in all branches of the armed forces who display “heroism or extraordinary achievement while participating in an aerial flight.”

“I flew over 1,000 hours during my tour in Vietnam,” Calamos said, and

“833 of those hours were in combat.”

After rotating back to the States in May 1969, Calamos returned to B-52 bombers, based at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota. He spent five years on active duty and 12 more in the Reserves flying Cessna A-37 attack planes.

One can’t help but wonder what the Air Force had in mind when it took Calamos from B-52s and made him an FAC in the O-2A Cessna, then put him back in the Stratofortress. Regardless, the Special Forces soldiers who served at the Thuong Duc camp are very glad the Air Force did that. V

Mark Carlson is a regular contributor to over a dozen military history magazines and the author of The Marines’ Lost Squadron—the Odyssey of VMF-422 and Flying on Film—A Century of Aviation in the Movies 1912-2012. He lives in San Diego.

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COURTESY OF THE JASON WINN COLLECTION / COURTESY OF DON LOMAX PHOTO CREDITS

PHOTO CREDITS

THE ’NAM REDREW THE BATTLE LINES IN THE MID-1980S MARVEL COMICS REFOUGHT THE VIETNAM WAR

By Rob Hodges Jr.

COURTESY PHOTO CREDITS OF THE JASON WINN COLLECTION / COURTESY OF DON LOMAX

PHOTO CREDITS

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opular culture interest in the Vietnam War reached a peak in the 1980s, which saw a string of war movies like Platoon, Full Metal Jacket, Hamburger Hill, Off Limits and others along with TV series such as Tour of Duty and China Beach.

Some shows, such as Magnum P.I. and The A-Team, although not set during the war, featured Vietnam veterans as protagonists. Comic books were no exception to the trend. Marvel Comics introduced the highly regarded The ’Nam mid-decade as well as Semper Fi, which featured several Vietnam War stories. Other comics of the era included In-Country NAM and Vietnam Journal.

In 1982, Larry Hama, an Army veteran of the Vietnam War, volunteered Don Lomax, a Vietnam veteran, became the The ’Nam’s writer in to write stories for Marvel’s comic book G.I. Joe: A Real American Hero. 1992 and based stories on his own Hama’s task was to create background for all characters in that comic, and experiences. AT LEFT: Issue No. 1 he made several heroes Vietnam vets. One of the most popular characters, of The ’Nam, debuted in December 1986 with Pfc. Ed Marks of the 25th Snake Eyes, had gone on long-range reconnaissance patrols in Vietnam and Infantry Division as its lead character. some of the stories go back to his time there.

A few years later, Hama collaborated with writer Doug Murray, a wounded noncommissioned officer who served two tours, to create a Vietnam war story, “Fifth to the First” for the October 1985 issue of Marvel’s Savage Tales. The story was well-liked, and Hama suggested Murray submit a proposal to Marvel for a war comic set in Vietnam. To Murray’s amazement, Marvel accepted. Murray, editor Hama and Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter developed Marvel’s The ’Nam in 1986 as a highly realistic war comic written from the perspective of the average infantry “grunt.” The ’Nam’s creators didn’t want a comic built around superheroes or indestructible Rambo-type characters.

The ’Nam team decided to focus the stories on actions at the squad and platoon level during the main combat years, 1966-73, and present them in chronological order for a planned 96 issues, with each issue corresponding to one month in Vietnam. Characters would return to the States when their one-year tour was complete, and new ones would be rotated in to take their place. Murray wanted to attract and educate younger readers about the war, so he got the industry’s self-imposed Comics Code seal of approval, which J U N E 2 0 21

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gave distributors the go-ahead to send the books to mainstream sellers and let advertisers know they could run ads aimed at minors. But it also meant no sex, drugs and profanity.

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COURTESY OF THE GUY ACETO COLLECTION

The ’Nam was noted for its realistic portrayal of war, including the nature of combat and equipment used, while shying away from the usual superheroes. The comic also was willing to address controversial topics, such as media coverage, war protests and racial tensions.

COURTESY OF THE JASON WINN COLLECTION

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n the December 1986 premiere issue of The ’Nam, readers met Pfc. Ed Marks, a clean-cut young man with a fear of heights who boards a plane in January 1966 at McChord Air Force Base in Washington, bound for South Vietnam. He was assigned to the 4th Battalion (Mechanized), 23rd Infantry Regiment, 25th Infantry “Tropic Lightning” Division.

On his first day in-country, Marks goes to Cu Chi base camp, the division’s home, about 25 miles northwest of Saigon, where he meets a corrupt first sergeant expecting a bribe. Marks introduces himself to the men of his squad, who in turn, introduce him to the “you can tell its Mattel” rifle, a common reference to the M16 because it was lightweight and made of plastic components, like toy guns. Marks had trained on the older wood-stocked M14.

The next day Marks and his squad embark on a search and destroy mission that includes a firefight in a village. Back at Cu Chi that evening, the 4th Battalion men are watching Major Dundee on an outdoor screen when Viet Cong rockets slam into the base. Marks jumps to his feet, but no one else moves. His comrades assure him that the enemy won’t rocket their part of the base because the VC want to watch the movie too.

During his tour, Marks survives a terrorist attack at a Saigon hotel and combat actions in the bush. He accompanies a “tunnel rat,” a soldier who went down into tunnels hunting for Viet Cong hidden there. On one patrol, Marks and his squad are doused with the poisonous herbicide Agent Orange, used to clear vegetation that could provide cover or food for the enemy.

Disgusted by what he considers the U.S. media’s biased portrayal of the Vietnam War, Marks decides to study journalism and become a war correspondent. In issue No. 70, spring 1972 in the chronology, Marks returns to Vietnam as a journalist and his editor sends him to a firebase to cover the story of a Special Forces A-Team.

The ’Nam dealt with many topics and issues including fragging (killing officers with grenades that explode into fragments), prisoners of war, river patrol boats, downed pilots and rescue missions, war protesters and racial tensions, including fistfights caused by misunderstandings.

Although the main characters in the featured squad are fictional, they see real historical figures and events. Bob Hope and his ubiquitous golf club visit Cu Chi with a USO tour group on Christmas Day 1968. Ann-Margaret joins him on stage just as she did in real life. Actress Chris Noel, who risked her life visiting landing zones in forward areas, made the cover of issue No. 23.

Issue No. 24 deals with communist attacks throughout South Vietnam during the 1968 Tet Offensive. The cover shows photojournalist Eddie Adams snapping one of the most famous photographs of the war: Maj. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a communist prisoner. The fictional men of the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry, are ordered to Saigon where they help defend the U.S. Embassy compound. Afterward, they participate in the fighting at a Saigon radio station and later witness Adams taking his Pulitzer Prize-winning photo. Squad leader “Ice” gives his cynical response to the photo: “Front page of every newspaper in the States!”

Continuing the story of the Tet Offensive, the next issue sees two fictional heroes visiting Marine friends at Khe Sanh in northern South Vietnam when the base comes under heavy attack. The two fictional characters assist the Marines as they retake Hue in one of the largest battles of the war. Houseto-house fighting eventually puts the Marines in control of southern Hue and they discover a mass grave of civilians murdered by the communists.

Issue No. 29, which covers a busy June 1968, is chock-full of real people

and events. It opens with the Paris peace talks while ensuing panels depict the heated exchange between diplomats Xuan Thuy of North Vietnam and Averell Harriman of the United States. At the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, Sirhan Sirhan fatally wounds presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy.

On another page, Gen. Creighton Abrams replaces Gen. William Westmoreland as head of Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, in charge of all U.S. combat forces in South Vietnam. In a Boston courtroom, Dr. Benjamin Spock is found guilty of encouraging men to violate draft laws.

In another issue, as Marks watches TV in the battalion’s club facility, CBS News anchor Walter Cronkite is reporting on the war. Marks observes that Cronkite exaggerates Vansant successes at Da Nang: “You’d think grounded his communist the whole corps was wiped out.” illustrations The issue covering October 1968 pictures in extensive President Lyndon B. Johnson announcing a halt research, to all B-52 bombing strikes against North Vietnam. The 75th issue looks at the My Lai Massasetting his work apart cre in a four-story, 48 page-special edition highthe March 16, 1968, atrocity involving from lack of lighting 2nd Lt. William Calley and elements of two rifle realism in companies who killed Vietnamese civilians. older comics.

Readers were unhappy when the storyline veered too far from the fictional heroes and were incensed when The ’Nam ventured into the greater Marvel universe in issue No. 41. Captain America, Ironman and Thor appear on the cover—but to be fair, the superheroes exist only in the imaginations of the grunts reading about them. Ice and Martini, another recurring character, daydream about what would happen if the superheroes were in Nam taking on the “commie dupes.” In their dream world, the superheroes snatch Ho Chi Minh, fly him to Paris and force him to sign the peace treaty.

COURTESY OF THE GUY ACETO COLLECTION

COURTESY OF THE JASON WINN COLLECTION

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he ’Nam, noted for its historical accuracy and good writing, also enjoys a well-deserved reputation for highly detailed artwork. Several artists worked on various phases of a single issue. The penciler drew each panel. The inker went over the drawing with ink and maybe added more highlighting. A colorist then applied the colors. Finally, the letterist inserted the dialogue, thought balloons and sound effects.

Artist Michael Golden penciled 12 of the first 13 issues. Although the characters appeared slightly cartoonish at first, Golden set the standard for realistic detailing of military uniforms and equipment. Other artists worked on The ’Nam over the years, but Wayne Vansant, who served in the Navy during the war, penciled the lion’s share of the comic, drawing for 58 issues. Uninterested in superheroes, Vansant built his career on military history subjects including the Battle of Gettysburg and the Red Army in World War II. Vansant grounded his illustrations in extensive research, setting his work apart from the lack of realism he saw in older comics. For example, a World War II Sherman tank that appeared in Marvel’s Combat Kelley and the Deadly Dozen might resemble a Sherman, but aspects of it are completely wrong.

DC Comics’ Our Army at War, later titled Sgt. Rock, fared better with Shermans, but the detailing isn’t on par with the tanks in The ’Nam. Many of the comic’s illustrations have details the casual reader might miss, but veterans appreciated. When the series begins, the men in the 4th Battalion, 23rd Infantry, wear the bright red “electric strawberry” patch of the 25th Infantry Division. As the war progresses, the bright colors of their shoulder patches and rank insignia are replaced with muted colors. Vansant drew the famous UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” helicopter so finely that in many

Although the main characters were fictional, the comic incorporated historical events and people into its storylines. Issue No. 24 depicts photojournalist Eddie Adams snapping his Pulitzer-winning photo of Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong prisoner.

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panels we can see the pedals and pilots’ feet through the plexiglass nose.

In another example, a soldier mails a rifle piece-by-piece to his wife in the States. She is seen holding up a metal part, which people familiar with the weapon would instantly recognize as the bolt assembly. One character, Spc. Daniels, the squad’s radio man, carries a realistically sketched PRC-25 backpack radio, with dials, knobs, switch and retaining straps visible. In some panels the cloth bag that holds the handset and spare antennas is visible.

Civilian products are also realistically portrayed. Ice carries a perfectly rendered pack of Marlboro cigarettes under his helmet camouflage band.

Vansant liked to model characters’ faces from real people. “I’ve killed off my brother-in-law lots of times,” he jovially claimed in Marvel Age, an inhouse publication where contributors discussed their projects.

The ’Nam was much more than a kids’ comic book with interesting stories. Most issues included a letters to the editor section, “Incoming,” a place where veterans and civilians still hurting from the war could write about friends and family they had lost or how the war had affected them personally. The comic also mentioned veterans organizations and their reunions.

Readers were not shy about pointing out mistakes, which Murray quickly corrected. But some comments put him in a fighting mood. One reader compared American GIs in Vietnam to Nazi death camp guards at Auschwitz and concluded that Vietnam vets didn’t deserve a “ticker tape parade.” In an angry response, Murray said there was no excuse for the way returning vets were treated and considered the comparison of American servicemen to death camp guards as beneath contempt.

Issues usually included “’Nam Notes,” a glossary of GI lingo and Vietnamese phrases, such as Sky Pilot (military chaplain), Charlie (Viet Cong, the enemy), White Mice (South Vietnamese military police), Didi Mow (get out quick) and Titi (a little bit). Murray listed the number of officers, enlisted men and weapons in a typical rifle company. He also provided the organizational structure from squad to brigade level.

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COURTESY OF DON LOMAX

Vietnam Journal, written and penciled by Lomax before Marvel tapped him to write The ’Nam, told its stories through the eyes of journalist Scott Neithammer, nicknamed “Journal.” Like The ’Nam’s writers, Lomax wanted his comic to be a realistic representation of the Vietnam War.

COURTESY OF DON LOMAX

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n 1987, Marvel named a new top editor for The ’Nam. Tom De Falco took over as editor-in-chief in issue No. 10 (September 1987). The following year Don Daley became the new series editor, beginning with No. 21 (August 1988). The new editors wanted to make changes such as dropping the chronological order, branching out beyond the single squad and inserting Marvel’s popular Punisher character, a Vietnam veteran who served in the Marines. Those changes did not take place right away, but eventually caused Murray to leave. His last issue was No. 51 (December 1992).

Several writers subsequently joined the team including Roger Salick, who wrote a two-part Punisher tale giving the backstory of Frank Castle, aka the Punisher. Of all the Marvel characters, the Punisher seemed a logical choice for The ’Nam. The prolific Chuck Dixon came onboard for 18 issues and penned a three-part Punisher story in addition to a well-received five-part saga about the war’s mental toll on a Marine named Joe Hallen. Dixon’s writing typically carried a darker tone than Murray’s did, and he often focused on snipers and special operators. Most of his stories involved Marines.

The series finished with Vietnam veteran Don Lomax as the writer for 18 issues. Lomax had written and penciled another comic about the war, Vietnam Journal, published by Apple Comics. Impressed with Lomax’s work, Marvel editor Daley approached him in 1992 to write for The ’Nam. Lomax, a draftee, served with the 98th Light Equipment Maintenance Company as a wheel and track vehicle mechanic from fall 1966 to fall 1967.

He went to mechanic school at Aberdeen Proving Grounds in Maryland and finished second in his class.

“I graduated not knowing a spark plug from a CD850 tank transmission,

but it didn’t matter,” Lomax said in an interview for this article. “I ended up in a chemical platoon among others servicing flamethrowers and patching fuel bladders in addition to convoying supplies up the An Khe Pass to Pleiku for the 1st Air Cav,” in an area of South Vietnam’s Central Highlands.

He also repaired typewriters, drove trucks, burned human waste and butted heads with his lieutenant. Lomax was a specialist 4 “with an attitude,” he said. “Being a draftee, my lieutenant didn’t expect me to toe the Army line. He often would threaten to bust my ass, and I would rip off my Spc. 4 patches and hand them to him. He would just shake his head and walk away. By the time I left Vietnam I didn’t have a patch or rank insignia on a single uniform.”

A fan of war comics, Lomax hoped to write one with more realism than those he read in his youth. “Being a truck driver, delivering supplies to a few sticky places I got the opportunity to listen to a lot of stories,” he said. Some of those stories came from men in special operations units “who told about the more freaky individuals they had run into out in the bush. These all became fodder for my Vietnam Journal and later The ’Nam for Marvel.”

Lomax brought back Marks, in issue No. 70 (July 1992), as a war correspondent with a journalism degree from Columbia University. Lomax also included “Stateside” shorts to tell the stories of several popular characters.

Although the strict chronological scheme had been dropped, several flashbacks expanded on the 1968 Tet Offensive and the Battle of Hue. Issue No. 76 features a touching story called “The Paymaster.” A lieutenant risks his life to deliver the payroll to troops at the front. The officer is totally dedicated to his mission, and the forward troops regard him as one of their own: a combat vet. When his chopper lurches unexpectedly, the lieutenant loses the payroll money, which he is responsible for. His new friends sign papers stating that they got paid, even though they hadn’t.

Lomax based that story on a friend. “It was a dangerous job, choppering in to make sure the troops got paid,” Lomax said. “He won a Bronze Star for valor. He took his job seriously, though at many of the forward support bases there was no place to spend it anyway.”

The ’Nam never made it to the proposed No. 96. Marvel executives axed the project in 1993, one year early, making No. 84 (September 1993) the final issue. Sales were down, and management wanted to focus on superhero comics.

The final story is told from the communist perspective. A 5-year-old girl sends a letter to her father, a North Vietnamese soldier who has gone south to fight the Americans. Through a series of strange events the letter changes hands many times and ends up with Marks, who is holding it in the last page of the last issue. The letter contains only a stick figure drawing of the girl’s family members beside their house and water buffalo.

When the series ended, Lomax was a freelance writer not under contract to Marvel. “One day Tim Tuohy [one of The ’Nam editors at the time] called and said No. 84 would be the last,” Lomax remembered. “Sayonara old stick. That was pretty much it for me at Marvel.”

One of the best war comics ever made did not have global conflicts like World War I or World War II as its canvas. It focused on ordinary soldiers in the ’Nam—and it was to a large extent created by Vietnam veterans themselves. V

Born and raised in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley and surrounded by Civil War battlefields, Rob Hodges Jr. developed a passion for military history.

He also writes literary fiction, science fiction and poetry. His books can be found on Amazon.

COURTESY OF DON LOMAX

COURTESY OF DON LOMAX

Vietnam Journal Vietnam Journal, a black-and-white war comic book, debuted in November 1987 when Apple Comics Publisher Mike Catron gave freelance writer Don Lomax, who worked with a variety of comics including Apple, the green light to do a series about the Vietnam War. Vietnam Journal tells the story of Scott Neithammer, a war correspondent better known as “Journal,” who travels across Vietnam meeting grunts in forward areas and covering their stories. The journalist angle allowed Lomax to highlight a variety of units, battles and locales.

Lomax, who not only wrote the script but also inked the comics, sketched realistic details that made equipment easily recognizable.

Vietnam Journal featured a “Back in the World” page on historical events outside of Vietnam during the war. One page was dedicated to a real-life serviceman missing in action. It included a photo and instructions on what readers could do to help get information to MIA families.

Vietnam Journal ran for 16 issues, ending in April 1991, amid waning sales. The comic continued into the 1990s with spinoffs published in a small number of issues, such as Vietnam Journal Tet ’68. The original Apple editions were reissued as graphic novels published from 2009 through 2011. Beginning in 2017 Caliber Entertainment put out all-new “Journal” stories as graphic novels, and Lomax plans to write more.

—Rob Hodges Jr.

Vietnam Journal, a comic initially published in 16 issues between 1987 and 1991, is still active today in the graphic novel format.

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THE GREEN BERETS U.S. SPECIAL FORCES TEAMS EXCELLED IN SOME OF THE ARMY’S MOST DANGEROUS JOBS

By Jon Guttman

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PHOTO CREDITS

First in a series of four photo features on U.S. Special Operations units in Vietnam.

PHOTO CREDITS

In a typical team effort, U.S. Army Special Forces and Army of the Republic of Vietnam Rangers confront Viet Cong at an unstated location in South Vietnam.

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PHOTO CREDITS

PHOTO CREDITS

S. Army Special Forces, popularly known as Green Berets, became famous for their exploits in Vietnam but trace their roots to World War II’s 1st Special Service Force (which had an arrowhead-shaped shoulder patch adopted by the Vietnam generation), the Office of Strategic Services and Alamo Scouts. In June 1952 the 10th Special Forces Group was formed under the command of Col. Aaron Bank. The unit was reorganized in May 1960 as the 7th Special Forces Group. Formed too late to play a significant role in SPECIAL OPS the Korean War, the Special Forces honed their skills and doctrine in the crucible of Vietnam. Directly subordinate to U.S. Special Operations Command, the Special Forces troops were ready and able to operate with other allies as circumstances demanded. Their extensive training enabled them to perform a variety of functions that ranged from establishing village medical facilities to engaging in covert or overt combat.

What makes the Special Forces “special,” in large measure, is the multitude of specialties they have to master, among them an array of weaponry (including the enemy’s), airborne operations and foreign languages. Special Forces units have limited, but highly focused capabilities that allow the Army to use them as an economy of force tool. The Special Forces were recognized as a separate branch of the Army in 1987. They are prepared to take on a variety of missions wherever they are sent, from Laos in 1959 to Afghanistan in 2021. V

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Green Berets

A Special Forces Capt. Vernon Gillespie Jr., working with troops from Vietnam’s Montagnard ethnic group, calls his outpost by walkie-talkie radio in 1964. B At Nha Trang, a school operated by the 5th Special Forces Group puts trainees through a three-week course in the techniques of long-range reconnaissance patrolling in 1967. C The green beret, designed in 1953, was approved as part of the Special Forces uniform by President John F. Kennedy in 1961. D Special Forces troops under Gillespie train a South Vietnamese strike force on the .30-cal.machine gun.

E Col. James Lilland, center, Special Forces commander, works in the field with local militiamen on Oct. 1, 1969.

C

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PHOTO BY LARRY BURROWS/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES; AP PHOTO/DANA STONE

F A medic attends a wounded Special Forces soldier as South Vietnamese and Montagnard troops attack to retake an outpost overrun by the Viet Cong near Ha Thanh on Sept.1, 1968. G Gillespie supervises cleanup after a banquet of buffalo meat for his troops and their Montagnard hosts. H Gillespie contacts his base camp while South Vietnamese soldiers burn a Viet Cong hideout. I After two days of combat, U.S. Special Forces and South Vietnamese troops reoccupy a hilltop outpost near Ha Thanh on Sept. 3, 1968.

AP PHOTO: LARRY BURROWS/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

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Green Berets J Capt. John Gantt rides an elephant before Montagnard villagers in Tra Bong on April 2, 1968. Gantt led an effort to transport elephants 200 miles via cargo plane and helicopter to the mountainous area for work in a lumber mill. K In a rehearsal for one of many noncombat roles they played in Vietnam, Special Forces troops build bridges and new water pipelines for remote villages during a joint disaster relief exercise in Taiwan in April 1972.

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USMC Ret. Master Gunnery Sergeant Bob Verell takes a moment to honor those commemorated on the replica Vietnam Memorial Wall. Photo by Thomas Wells

Return to Saigon Marine’s Photo Journal of Tet Anniversary

HOMEFRONT Big day for Robert Plant’s Led Zeppelin

SWA SH B U C K L I NG P I L O T R O B I N O L D S TA K E S C H A R G E

Bolo’s Bad Boy WWII ace leads F-4 fighters in Operation Bolo

Tet and the Press

Journalists’ impact on public opinion

War Dogs

They saved lives, but were left behind

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Return to the places you served

We can take you there.

2022 Tours:

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AP PHOTO/EDDIE ADAMS; AP PHOTO/HORST FAAS

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U.S. Marines take a rations break in a photo taken about 1966.

Decades later a group of Marine vets who meet monthly at a Colorado steakhouse reexamined those days, and their thoughts were compiled into a book.

By Robert L. Fischer BookCrafters, 2020

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Grady Birdsong, a writer whose nearly 60-page entry is the longest one.

Guenther developed 10 questions that the veterans answered while writing their entries. Most focused on the first one: “Describe your role, including the duration and place of your Vietnam tour, and several significant events that you think are representative of that experience.”

Former Pfc. Bill Purcell, who served with the 1st Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, in Vietnam from September 1967 to February 1968, provides a detailed account of his 13 days of street combat in the 1968 Battle of Hue during the communists’ Tet Offensive. His tour ended abruptly when a mortar shell dropped into the middle of Purcell’s platoon and he “got thrown up in the air, slammed down into the pavement and knocked out cold.” Purcell suffered severe injuries and was medevaced out.

Guenther, who served in Vietnam for 19 months with the 1st Marine Division’s Fleet Ma-

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Echoes of Our War: Vietnam Veterans Reflect 50 Years Later

Ten Vietnam veterans, members of a group of Marine vets from all recent wars who meet for lunch monthly at a steakhouse near Denver, ruminate on their wartime service and the war itself in Echoes of Our War: Vietnam Veterans Reflect 50 Years Later. Retired Marine Col. Bob Fischer, a 1955 Naval Academy graduate who served as an adviser to a South Vietnamese marine battalion in 1966-68, selected these 10 veterans—nine Marines and a Navy corpsman—to share their stories because, he writes, “it is time to examine and reevaluate precisely what happened to them and the many thousands who served MEDIA honorably in a confusing war that DIGEST was anything but honorable.”

Fischer had significant help in editing the book from Mark Hardcastle, an Air Force Academy graduate who served in the 199091 Gulf War. He also received editing assistance from two Marines whose stories are told in the book: the novelist and poet Dan Guenther, and

LARRY BURROWS/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

GROUP OF FRIENDS GIVE THEIR ANSWERS TO WAR’S QUESTIONS

rine Force, vividly recounts his tour as a lieutenant with the 3rd Amphibious Tractor Battalion and later with the 1st Motor Transport Battalion at the 1st Marine Division headquarters. Like all of the other entries, Guenther’s contains in-country photos, along with a list of his awards.

Birdsong was a corporal with the 1st and 3rd Marine divisions from February 1968 to November 1969. He gives an extensive response to Guenther’s question: “As you look back, what are some of the thoughts and feelings you have about the war?” His answer jibes with those of virtually every Marine in the book. He castigates Gen. William Westmoreland and other “generals at the highest levels of command” and “politicians at the highest levels of government” for seriously mismanaging the war.

“Militarily, we had the war won,” he writes. “We could have finished the job. …We simply walked away, washed our hands and left [the South Vietnamese] to their fate.”

The veterans were also asked: “Was the Vietnam War a waste?” Purcell answered: “A complete waste.” In response to another question about whether the Vietnam War was morally wrong, he concurred with the views of other Marines in the book. “I firmly believe what we were doing was right,” Purcell said. “Granted, there were events, some documented and some not, of immoral acts. But it was war.”

The “real immorality,” he added, “was our elected leaders in D.C. trying to dictate how the war should be prosecuted.” Westmoreland, he said, was a “pompous showboat and a fool.”

—Marc Leepson

BETTMANN/GETTY IMAGES

LARRY BURROWS/THE LIFE PICTURE COLLECTION VIA GETTY IMAGES

In First Test of New Concept, Air Cavalry Charges NVA On June 15, 1965, the U.S. Army introduced a new approach in combined-arms warfare when it established the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), which redefined the cavalry concept to supplant horses with UH-1 Iroquois “Huey” helicopters. The division used coordinated air assault troops, artillery and helicopters in scouting, transport and ground attack roles to outmaneuver, encircle, fix and destroy enemy forces. Deployed by itself or in cooperation with other U.S. Army and South Vietnamese units, the Air Cav offered unprecedented mobility to the allied forces in Vietnam.

U.S. intelligence estimated in July 1965 that 7,500 North Vietnamese Army soldiers were in South Vietnam—distinct from 245,000 South Vietnamese communist guerrillas, or Viet Cong. In November 1965 the 1st Cav had its first head-on encounter with the NVA. The bloody four-day battle in the Ia Drang Valley gave each side the opportunity to take the other’s measure at a heavy cost for both.

In US Air Cavalry Trooper versus North Vietnamese Soldier, military historian Chris McNab skips that first contact, which has received more than its share of coverage. He compares the men, equipment, strategy and tactics of both forces in the many clashes that followed from 1965 to 1968, when NVA strength in the South had risen to 55,000—and would continue to grow.

Essentially a light infantry force, the NVA had few vehicles and no aircraft in South Vietnam. Nevertheless, the North Vietnamese adapted their tactics to make the most of the terrain and set up ambushes that allowed them to fight at close quarters, reducing the Americans’ ability to bring in their air power, including the choppers, which would face the NVA’s formidable 12.7 mm machine guns. The ambushers then broke up into small units to escape the area and regroup later.

The different strengths of the two combatants are analyzed in Operation Masher (Jan. 28-Feb. 3, 1966), Operation Crazy Horse (May 16-June 5, 1966) and the Battle of Tam Quan Troops from the 1st Cavalry Division (Dec. 6-20, 1967), all of which ended in tactical (Airmobile) take off after conducting victories for the Air Cav, but strategically did litoperations against communist forces near Dak To in South Vietnam’s Central tle to stop the NVA over the long term. US Air Highlands during November 1967.

Cavalry Trooper versus North Vietnamese Soldier helps explain that paradox.

—Jon Guttman

US Air Cavalry Trooper versus North Vietnamese Soldier

By Chris McNab, Osprey Publishing, 2020

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An assault group is stuffed into a C-130 transport plane participating in a November 1970 raid to free American captives held in a North Vietnamese prison at Son Tay.

Who Will Go: Into the Son Tay POW Camp

By Terry Buckler (with Cliff Westbrook, foreword by Roger H. C. Donlon) Palmetto Publishing, 2020

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In a variation of an old medical joke, the bottom line of Who Will Go: Into the Son Tay POW Camp is this: “The operation was a success…but the patient was a ‘no show.’” Author Terry Buckler gives readers an inside view of the meticulous planning, execution and disappointing outcome of the famous Nov. 21, 1970, Operation Ivory Coast, the U.S. Air Force-Army Special Operations mission targeting North Vietnam’s Son Tay prisoner of war camp 23 miles west of Hanoi. Buckler, a U.S. Special Forces sergeant, was the youngest participant in the raid, conducted to free the POW camp’s 65 American captives—who, unfortunately, had been moved to a different location four months prior.

This massive U.S. intelligence failure made the tactically successful raid an abysmal strategic failure, which provided ammunition to President Richard Nixon’s critics in the media and Congress.

However, the planning and execution phases were outstanding, and all of those involved truly deserved high praise. The raid went like clockwork.

Unexpected glitches inevitably popped up, proving the old military axiom that “no plan survives first contact with the enemy,” but quick thinking and instinctive reactions by the raiders and their leaders won the day.

Although several books have been published on this high-profile raid—Ben Schemmer’s The Raid (1976) and raider John Gargus’ The Son Tay Raid (2007) come to mind—Buckler, a Silver Star recipient for his actions that day, provides a collection of personal accounts, numerous photographs and informative articles that, when read along with one of the broader accounts, helps flesh out the historical record.

The words of the Son Tay raiders, their faces in photographs and insights gleaned from Buckler’s narrative provide a more complete picture of what happened in the Vietnam War’s most famous American raid. Who Will Go is not a standard historical account of the Son Tay Raid, although it covers all aspects of the operation, but it is, in effect, a comprehensive “yearbook” of the participants and their activities.

Finally, as Buckler’s book shows, the “successful” Son Tay Raid can be seen as somewhat of a parable for America’s involvement in the entire Vietnam War. Extremely competent and superbly trained U.S. forces, like those that carried out the raid, “won” every major battle they fought, but the “wins” proved irrelevant to the final outcome.

—Jerry D. Morelock

SON TAY RAIDERS ASSOCIATION

An Inside Account of a Bold Raid to Free POWs

VIETNAM

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4/7/21 11:42 AM

Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964-73: Steel Tiger, Barrel Roll, and the secret air wars in Vietnam and Laos

SON TAY RAIDERS ASSOCIATION

By Peter E. Davies, Osprey Publishing, 2020

In the mid-1960s North Vietnamese Army troops were sent into South Vietnam to supplement the communist Viet Cong guerrillas.

By June 1968, in the wake of the Tet Offensive, which was disastrous for the Viet Cong, the NVA numbers had risen to about 100,000, achieving a more significant presence than their beleaguered southern comrades-in-arms. Most of the NVA troops and equipment arrived via a network of vehicular roads and bicycle paths that ran partly through Laos and came to be called the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

American forces believed they could thwart NVA advances by cutting off the supply routes along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. That strategy led to the “secret war” in northern Laos, an officially neutral country. In Operation Barrel Roll, CIA operatives and local mercenaries targeted the Laotian road networks. They were supported by elderly A-26A Invader bombers and T-28 Trojan attack planes, whose slow speed made them more effective than jets.

Farther down the trail in the south, Steel Tiger sought to disrupt the enemy traffic using technology, including electronic sensors dropped throughout the area and monitored by aircraft. Also deployed were minigun-equipped strafers such as the AC47 Spooky, AC-119 Shadow and AC-130.

In Ho Chi Minh Trail 1964-73, Peter E. Davies explores the variety of weaponry VIE-210600-003 Bob Moody.indd developed to stop the NVA infiltration, as well as the special hazards encountered by hunters and prey alike in what became a deadly cat-and-mouse game. He also explains why the campaign ultimately failed and yet—as with so much technology tested in Vietnam—left behind a formidable arsenal of techno-weaponry still used effectively today.

—Jon Guttman

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ENEMY FIRE DURING AMBUSH

By Doug Sterner

“He’ll never walk again.” That was the 1966 diagnosis of a soldier whose broken body was evacuated to Fort Sam Houston in Texas. An adviser to Vietnamese soldiers, he had stepped on a mine and suffered grievous wounds.

He was at the hospital to be treated and receive a medical discharge.

Life had often been difficult for Raul Perez “Roy” Benavidez, born in Cuero, Texas, on Aug. 5, 1935. His father, a Mexican farmer, died from tuberculosis when Roy was 2 years old. His mother, a Yaqui Indian, suffered the same five fate years later. Roy was raised by his grandparents. His youth included instances of racial prejudice, picking crops in California and Washington, and struggles in school.

Benavidez dropped out at 15 to help support his family.

HALL OF At 17 he enlisted in the Texas National Guard and in 1955 VALOR transferred to the Regular Army. He married and served with the 82nd Airborne Division before his near-fatal first tour in Vietnam.

During recovery at Fort Sam he was determined not only to walk again, but also to return to uniform. At night, he slipped out of bed, crawled to a wall and used its perpendicular surface to pull himself upright and walk unaided.

Within months, he was back with the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. Amazingly, when he was 32, Benavidez was accepted for the rigorous Special Forces training and returned to Vietnam to serve with Detachment B-56, 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne).

On May 2, 1968, Benavidez, a staff sergeant, passed a communications bunker when he heard a call for help over the radio. That morning the en64

Doug Sterner, an Army veteran who served two tours in Vietnam, is curator of the Military Times Hall of Valor database of U.S. valor awards.

U.S. ARMY

RAUL ‘ROY’ BENAVIDEZ SERGEANT REPEATEDLY BRAVED

emy had ambushed a team of three Green Berets—leader Sgt. 1st Class Leroy Wright, Staff Sgt. Floyd Mousseau, radio operator Spc. 4 Brian O’Connor—and nine militiamen from local Montagnard tribes on a reconnaissance mission 10 miles inside Cambodia.

Benavidez, without orders, grabbed a first-aid bag and hopped aboard the helicopter of Warrant Officer Larry McKibben, preparing to take off and fly into the hailstorm of enemy fire. While McKibben hovered as close as he could to the embattled team, Benavidez leaped out and raced 75 yards to the desperate men. He was wounded in his right leg, face and head, but reached the team and repositioned them for extraction.

Benavidez got on the team’s radio to direct strafing attacks and popped smoke to guide helicopters to his position. He dragged and carried wounded Montagnards to McKibben’s helicopter and then ran alongside it to provide cover fire while pointing the pilot to other team members.

As Benavidez reached Wright’s body, he was pelted by grenade fragments in his back and small-arms fire in the abdomen but got the body and classified documents to the helicopter. He was hit by an AK-47 rifle round and fell to the ground just before other rounds killed McKibben.

Benavidez returned to the overturned helicopter and formed the survivors into a defensive perimeter. He called in airstrikes to reduce the enemy fire so another helicopter could get in.

Meanwhile he treated the wounded and suffered another wound of his own, in the thigh, just before the helicopter arrived. He then directed or carried his comrades to the chopper.

Benavidez was attacked from behind by an enemy who clubbed him with a rifle and wounded him with a bayonet in hand-to-hand combat, which ended with Benavidez’s knife in his opponent. Two enemy soldiers rushed the aircraft. Benavidez shot them both and made a final return to the perimeter to ensure all team members and all classified documents had been recovered.

Benavidez, who saved at least eight lives, was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross, which McKibben, Wright and Mousseau received posthumously. (O’Connor survived.) After attempts

by Benavidez’s commander to upgrade his award, President Ronald Reagan presented Benavidez with the Medal of Honor on Feb. 24, 1981.

Benavidez died Nov. 29, 1998, at age 63. He was buried at Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery. V

VIETNAM

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