Death Valley_ The Summer Offensive, I Corps, August 1969 - Keith Nolan [65]
This lifer, Allison thought, is too damn reckless.
The platoon crossed the shallows of the Song Lau River and was moving across the several hundred yards of open paddies to the ville when an AK suddenly cut loose, sending everyone to the ground. Gayler, down the trail with his RTOs, radioed the buck sergeant in charge of the zapper squad, “Sick ’em!” The men were all volunteers and it didn’t take long; they spotted the sniper, pinned him down with M16 fire, then crept close enough to pitch a few frags at him. Then the stocky sergeant sauntered back to report a body count of one.
He held up the AK47 for Gayler’s inspection.
The company halted in the small ville, which was about a hundred meters square and raised several feet from the surrounding paddies like a brushy island. There was a handful of Vietnamese around the hootches—an old man, some women, a few children. As reward for the kill, Gayler told the zapper squad to secure an LZ in the ville for their evening hot meal and to haul out the rice cache. For totally different reasons, he also told Lieutenant Maurel’s platoon to stay behind to secure the area and guard their rucksacks, which everyone was gladly unshouldering.
The company continued along the path up to the foothills, approaching another tiny hamlet. Lieutenant Monroe’s point squad spotted two men with AK47s across the paddies and opened fire. The NVA disappeared among the hootches. By the time Gayler moved up, Monroe was down along a dike with one of his squads; they were firing cover for another squad as it maneuvered toward the ville through a tree line. One hootch was already afire from an M79 grenade. In the middle of this firefight, Captain Gayler suddenly received a frantic call from Lieutenant Maurel. His voice was two octaves higher than normal: he was taking fire from all sides, including automatic weapons, rocket grenades, and mortars, and had heavy casualties.
Gayler had Monroe rein in his attacking squad and, with Sergeant Allison’s platoon turned around to be point, they made a fast walk back down the trail. The NVA attack had ebbed back—all the time invisible in the trees and dikes leading up to the hamlet—and Bravo Company was able to reenter without drawing a shot.
Lieutenant Maurel’s report was not good.
After Gayler had moved on with Monroe and Allison, the zapper squad set up on one side of the ville. To escape the heat, they strung their poncho liners from bamboo and clustered under this pathetic shade. Some rested; some toyed with their captured AK. All in all, no one was paying attention when expertly camouflaged NVA moved right up to their perimeter. One of the survivors later told of seeing moving bushes a second before the NVA signalled their attack by sending an RPG through their poncho shelter. Two men were killed instantly and two others were wounded as the rest scrambled for weapons, or cover, or both. Then came the Chicoms and a complete ring of AK47 fire. A mortar tube was also employed, dropping accurate preregistered fire on the ville. Maurel and Sheppard kept their heads, got their platoon into a tight three-sixty, and raked the surrounding brush with fire. It was enough to keep the invisible enemy temporarily at bay.
Seven GIs had been killed in the initial assault.
The rest of Bravo Company was taking up positions on the ragged perimeter—and dragging in the bodies from the zapper squad—when the mortar began firing. Then the AKs and Chicoms began all over again. They were coming from all sides and, from what Gayler could discern in the cacophony as he pressed into the dirt, it sounded like an NVA battalion was around them.