Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [104]
The line battalions operating between the ocean coast and the Central Highlands of II CTZ had been returning to Camp Radcliffe (An Khe) to refit and resupply since 2 May 1970, the day that Maj. Gen. Glenn D. Walker, commanding general, 4th Infantry Division, received his orders from I Field Force Vietnam. He was directed to strike across the imaginary line into NVA Base Area 707. This area, home to the NVA B-3 Front since 1965, sat just below Laos and was the first complex along where the Ho Chi Minh Trail ran into Cambodia, with branches running east toward Pleiku. The demarcation lines of this tri-border corner were indistinguishable from the vantage point of a helicopter. It was all just an uninhabited wilderness of valleys and mountains turned a lush green by triple-canopy jungle. The attack into this jungle complex, which would be the northernmost of the incursions, was called Operation Binh Tay by the 22d ARVN Division, which was also going in, and Tame the West by the U.S. 4th Division. General Walker was attacking with less than a division since the HQ of his 3d Brigade and some of his line battalions had already been withdrawn. His Cambodian task force utilized almost every combat outfit that remained in the division: 1st Brigade, 4th Division (Col. Harold D. Yow –3-8 Infantry, 1-14 Infantry, 3-506 Infantry,1 and 6-29 Artillery; 2d Brigade, 4th Division (Col. William E. Conger)–1-12 Infantry, 1-22 Infantry, 2-35 Infantry, and 4-42 Artillery.
For General Walker, there was an element of emotional release in the concept of the new operation. He was, after all, an old soldier of old-fashioned values who had no time for the political restraints previously imposed. He had served with the 4th Division from Utah Beach to being wounded in the Hurtgen Forest. His Vietnam duty began in 1965 when, as ADC of the 25th Division, he accompanied the deployment of their lead brigade from Hawaii to the Central Highlands. They were the first American unit in the area, later reinforced by the 4th Division, which Walker then joined as their ADC, having extended his tour into 1967. In 1969, Walker returned to the Central Highlands as CG of the 4th Division, so that by May 1970, he had literally flown a thousand times that section of the imaginary line protecting NVA Base Area 707. And a thousand times he had wished he could cross it.
It was galling to fight an enemy that would slip across the border in great numbers to maul an isolated company patrol, then immediately fall back to their sanctuary. However, the directive that finally removed the border from the 4th Division maps could hardly have come at a worse time. Not only had the division lost a brigade, but only a month earlier, as part of Vietnamization, the HQ of the 4th Division had moved east on Highway 19 from Camp Holloway (Pleiku) to Camp Radcliffe (An Khe), turning over the western slopes of the Central Highlands to the 22d ARVN Division. The 4th Division no longer had any installations of their own along the border from which they could leapfrog across the line into the enemy's territory. A Special Forces outpost named Plei D'Jereng near the border had an airstrip, and would be a good place to bring up long-range artillery to support the combat assaults across the border. The enemy, however, had Plei D'Jereng under surveillance, and the fear existed at HQ, 4th Division, that when the enemy saw the deployment of such artillery, the division's intentions would be obvious and the NVA would rush reinforcements to every potential landing zone on their side of the border. Because of the hills and thick jungle, natural landing zones were rare in the area. Even rarer was the clearing that could accommodate four lift ships at once. Therefore, head-quarters