Into Cambodia - Keith Nolan [65]
Captain Kaldi relayed the predicament to Claybrook and Weeks who, overhead in their command ship, were pushing him hard to reach his objective. It was decided to leave the tanks behind while Charlie Company pushed on, their crews to be picked up by Captain Muehlstedt's Alpha Company, which was following Charlie Company.
The APCs of Charlie Company, without their tank support, proceeded on and ran into an NVA gun crew, probably a delaying party left behind by the withdrawing main body who had set up their 12.7mm AAA atop a little mound in the high grass. Perhaps their weapon had jammed up because, after the rumbling, lumbering APCs finally spotted them, they had been blown full of holes before they could get off a round. Some GIs from Charlie Company hefted the heavy machine gun atop their APC, and they left the bodies for the sun since Claybrook, airborne, was again pressing Kaldi to disengage and keep moving. Everyone's blood was pumping again and Private Spurgeon of the Battalion Scouts, for one, had dropped into the crew hatch of his 'PC at the first shot. Peering past the minigun can full of ammo on the deck, what he could and could not see was typical of the fog of war:
All of a sudden, guns opened up! Now it's always a scary feeling when you can't see your lead element, but you can hear them shooting. Because now it's a chain reaction: 2-34th Armor opened up with main gun and .50-caliber machine guns. We were about third track behind the last tank, and we're going through thick woods with moss-covered boulders. One of the tank commanders hit one of the big branches, and they had to call in a dust-off for him. He must have hit it pretty fast. I guess you can get hurt that way. They actually had to put him on a stretcher. The tank was parked under a tree, and a big branch was missing, and there was smoke popped. Also, I saw two dead VC or NVA off to the right of the road and one of them–it looked like a tank ran over him. The guy was lying on his back, with his hands out, and his head and his whole body were rather flat! I figured the 2-34th Armor had some fun going through here. Well, Fm waiting for everybody else to open fire: We see a dead guy, there's got to be a live one around somewhere. And we're riding an APC that's got loads and loads of ammunition. One of the guys starts working the minigun and it lets off one burst– one belch–and that was it. She jammed. The tankers open up again with 90mm guns. I can't recall any return fire–just our fire.
Actually, not all the firing was that uncontrolled. Lieutenant Forster, preparing to abandon his mired tanks, radioed Captain Muehlstedt and asked what to do with their main gun ammo, which would make fantastic booby traps for the enemy if they happened upon the tanks during the night. Alpha Six responded, “Fire it off and then leave the tanks here tonight and come stay with us down at our position.” Forster asked where they should fire, and Muehlstedt answered, “Pepper those hillsides and tree lines. Maybe you'll flush out some NVA.” Punching off the first ten 90mm rounds was fun. The next twenty were work, but Forster's tank alone carried sixty-seven rounds. Lifting each into the breech inside the steaming, cramped turret became an all-day ordeal.
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With Lieutenant Colonel Redmond of Task Force B issuing instructions from above, Lieutenant Flowers of B Company,