Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [166]
Chapter 32: RUNNING ON EMPTY
The reconnoitering mission north to the Prek Chhlong River by C Troop, 3d Squadron, 4th Cavalry, 25th Division, had been slow because of the terrain, and unnerving because of the number of mines and rocket-propelled grenades. When the column hit yet another mine, Staff Sergeant Work, the TC of the command APC, suddenly shouted, “I can't take it!” Work had been there a long time, and he threw off his helmet, jumped to the ground, and was pacing around, almost hysterical, as Captain Schulcz tried to calm him down. Schulcz eventually had Work reassigned to the rear.
When the 25th Division had first entered Cambodia, the roads and trails–which, until that moment, had been used by the enemy–were clear of mines. By the fifth week, though, when 3-4 Cav began moving north to the Prek Chhlong River, which defined the politically allowable limit of their advance, mining had become an almost daily occurrence. One could go down a road in the morning without trouble, and return that evening to have a freshly planted mine explode in the middle of the column. It was unpredictable and sudden, a psychological pressure made worse by the RPG teams that haunted the jungle trails leading to the Prek Chhlong. Before long, the cav troops were dragging disabled Sheridans and APCs with them, a difficult task considering the marshy terrain and the blown-off road wheel arms. At one point, two platoons and the headquarters of B Troop laagered in a clearing near the river while the third platoon, which had been towing their downed vehicles and had been unable to catch up before night fell, laagered in on its own on the trail leading north.
After midnight, the NVA hit the isolated platoon.
Captain Connor, newly assigned as CO of B Troop, was under harassing fire in the troop laager, but the lieutenant commanding the isolated platoon reported that he was under heavy fire from the trees surrounding his clearing. The NVA had a recoilless rifle, and several of the lieutenant's APCs had been hit. Casualties were heavy. Calling Lieutenant Colonel Knotts on the secure radio, Connor was talking when an RPG suddenly detonated on impact with the chain-link rocket screen staked in front of his command track. The explosion boomed through the radio as the shrapnel sprayed harmlessly across the track.
Meanwhile, communications with the besieged platoon became fouled, and while Captain Schulcz of C Troop, laagered perhaps ten kilometers away, could hear the lieutenant on his radio, Knotts could not. Schulcz spent most of the night relaying messages from platoon to squadron. In the confusion, the single mede vac that pushed through the misty black landed not in the platoon laager but in the troop laager, where there were no casualties. Captain Connor rushed to the pilot's door and gave directions to the isolated platoon while a squad's worth of soldiers were ordered aboard the medevac as reinforcements to the platoon laager. As twilight came and artillery began thudding and gunships thumping, Connor and the rest of B Troop drove in: They had lost three men killed and twenty-three wounded.
The next evening, a platoon from A Troop taking the same route into the same night ambush position for the second night in a row was itself ambushed as it came out of a rubber tree grove. Four RPGs simultaneously flashed across the clearing from the opposite tree line into the lead Sheridan, which burst into flames, as did the APC coming from behind. More RPGs thumped in, killing four men and wounding four others. The rest of the platoon madly returned fire as artillery and gunships were brought in. When the smoke cleared, only one enemy body was found. The fire of the burning Sheridan could be seen from the squadron command post all night long.
Six hours after the ambush on A Troop, an hour and a half after midnight, B Troop came under mortar