Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [11]
The border between Quang Nam and Quang Tin Provinces ran a twisting but generally horizontal line from Laos to the South China Sea. The TAOR of the 1st Marine Division ended on the northern side of this line. The TAOR to the south was the responsibility of the U.S. Army and, in the summer of 69, that meant the 196th Infantry Brigade (Col Thomas H. Tackaberry) of the Americal Division (MG Lloyd B. Ramsey). The 196th had four line battalions: 2–1 Infantry to the north on LZ Ross and to the east near the coast on LZ Baldy; 3–21 and 4–31 Infantry in the center of the brigade area on LZs East, Center, West, and Siberia; and 1–46 Infantry to the south on LZ Professional. The other two brigades of the Americal Division operated even farther south in an area of guerrilla ambushes and booby traps; it was the 196th which made the nose-to-nose contacts with the communist regulars. There were two main areas of NVA infiltration in the 196th AO—both valleys below the Que Sons. Hiep Duc Valley consisted of cultivated rice fields with a Que Son spur (the Nui Chom ridge line) to the north and an unnamed spur to the south. This second spine provided the northern frontier for a deserted area called the Song Chang Valley for the river that ran through it.
Hiep Duc was the AO of the 4th Battalion of the 31st Infantry, Song Chang the AO of the 3d Battalion of the 21st Infantry; the battalion rears were at Landing Zone Baldy (along Highway One on the coast) but the grunt companies operated from small, bunkered hilltops along the southern ridge. They were situated successively inland across the forested spine: East, Center, West, and the fourth and newest fire base, Siberia, named in deference to its isolation and to the 31st Infantry Regiment’s combat expedition during the Russian Revolution. LZ Siberia was the last outpost into the Que Son Mountains, and it overlooked the Hiep Duc Resettlement Village. It was beautiful land, undulating down from the canopy of lush greenery to the artfully terraced rice fields. Everything was brilliantly green and alive and, because of its rambling thickness, very dangerous for men on ground patrol.
“It was forbidding terrain, the most scary I was ever in,” commented Capt Jerry Downey, a company commander and staff officer in the 196th InfBde. “One could feel the presence of the enemy or the ghosts of those who had gone before whenever one moved through. It was positively eerie.”
Many new ghosts would come in the summer of 69.
The hamlet where the Hiep Duc Resettlement Village was eventually erected had been overrun by the VC on 17 November 1965. Communist revolutionary justice took effect; as one reporter noted, “Officers who flew over the town Wednesday saw no sign of life. They saw the bodies of the district officials impaled on tall spikes around the headquarters building.” ARVN troops retook Hiep Duc after tough fighting, but due to a lack of manpower, they abandoned the prize.
It wasn’t until November 1967 that Operation Wheeler/Wallowa began finally to destroy the enemy stronghold. The push was spearheaded by the 1st Squadron, 1st Armored Cavalry, Americal Division, and supported by infantrymen of the 196th Brigade. Elements of the 1st Air Cavalry and 101st Airborne Divisions were also committed. Casualties were heavy but Hiep Duc was finally “pacified” in November 1968 after a final action along Nui Chom involving the 4–31. In March 1969, the civil affairs section of 4–31 had the Resettlement Village constructed in the ashes the NVA had left behind. LZ Siberia was also bulldozed out of the nearest hilltop for the village’s security, and the former inhabitants were trucked and helicoptered in from refugee camps at Tam Ky and Nui Loc Son. Others were forced in from the tiny hamlets that still dotted the valley. There were 4,000 residents and the place garnered