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After Action Report
May 21, 1967 |
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First platoon, Troop K, 3rd Squadron, 11th Armored Cavalry, commanded by Lt
Michael Boyd, was conducting a normal resupply run along National Route 1 from the GIA RAY
Rock Quarry to the junction on National Route 1 and Interprovincial Route 2 on the morning
of Sunday, 21 May 1967. Shortly before, the platoon had completed clearing Route 1
for mines and VC activity between GIA RAY Rock Quarry, where the bulk of Troop K was
providing security for an element of the 595th Engineer Company, and SUOI CAT village to
the west. This distance of approximately 6 kilometers had proved in the past to be
the stretch of road most generally interdicted by VC activity. The clearing
operation had proved uneventful, and the platoon had returned to GIA RAY, picked up the
troop mess truck and Engineer jeep, and proceeded down the cleared route through SUOI CAT
village.
When passing through SUOI CAT none of the
members of the platoon noticed anything out of the ordinary. The usual civilian
traffic was on the road, farmers were tilling their fields, and children were waving to
the troopers and begging for candy. The advance guard cleared the village, crossed
the bridge over SONG RAI stream (see figure 1), and moved west without incident. The
main body followed.
The first indication of danger came suddenly at
about 0850 hrs when the advance guard, about 600 meters ahead of the main body, was
cresting a slight ridge 2 kilometers west of the bridge. The lead ACAV was suddenly
hit from the right flank with a 75mm recoilless rifle round that penetrated the vehicle
and set the vehicle’s basic load of ammunition ablaze. The two machine gunners
and the grenadier immediately abandoned the ACAV with their individual weapons and hit the
nearest ditch. SSG Pittman, the vehicle commander and acting platoon sergeant,
barely had enough time to hurriedly give a radio call of “ambush, ambush,
ambush” to the platoon before he and the driver, SP4 Steidl, were forced by exploding
ammunition to abandon the flaming ACAV. Prior to leaping from the vehicle, however,
SSG Pittman had enough presence of mind to seize a number of had grenades from the ACAV.
Likewise, SP4 Steidl quickly dismounted one of the side mounted M-60
machineguns from the ACAV and began to lay down a heavy volume of suppressive fire.
K-11, the ACAV following K-10, stopped long enough to take aboard SP4 Brush, SP4
Royball and PFC Puglisi, the crew members who had abandoned K-10 about 100 meters east of
the point where it had finally come to a halt. K-11 then fought its way through the
main part of the ambush, by passing the gutted K-10. SSG Pittman, after
dropping from his flaming vehicle, saw a group of five VC in mixed black pajama and
fatigue uniforms approximately 25 meters to the northwest of his position and engaged them
with grenades. He saw several bodies fly, but had no time to count VC casualties, as
in his words, “bullets were flying everywhere”. Pittman ducked behind the
left side of his vehicle and spotted three VC armed and turned to see 2 more VC crossing
the road to his rear. He also grenaded them and saw them fall. Pittman then
threw several more grenades to all sides to neutralize any more who might be nearby.
As soon as the lead vehicle was hit by
recoilless rifle fire, a huge volume of recoilless rifle, mortar, RPG-2, automatic
weapons, and small arms fires erupted form both sides of the road against the entire
length of the column. The rear of the column had just cleared the bridge over SONG
RAI stream when it was hit. The main body of the column extended form SONG RAI
stream to the west a distance of about1 kilometer. Dust conditions were so bad that
the vehicles had been forced almost 100 meters distance to conserve the visibility.
The platoon leader’s ACAV, K-16, was the
second vehicle in the main body. It was driven by Lt Hendrickson, a platoon leader
with the 595th Engineer Company, which manned the GIA RAY Rock Quarry. Lt
Hendrickson was returning to LONG GIAO based Camp to attend to personal business and had
expressed a desire to drive an ACAV. K-16 followed the M48A3 Tank, M-34, attached to
the platoon from Company M, 3rd Sqdn, for added fire
support.
Simultaneously, Lt Boyd the Platoon Leader,
heard SSG Pittman’s excited radio message of “ambush, ambush, ambush” and
saw the tank ahead of him take a hit from a recoilless rifle on its right and become lost
in a cloud of smoke. The crew of K-16 watched as the tank fired one round in reply
from its 90mm cannon and moved on. The tank took several more hits and began to
angle left on the road, coming to a halt 100 meters west of the point where the initial
round had struck.
The Platoon Leader’s initial reaction was
to try to radio the four trail ACAV’s which he did not think were yet in the killing
zone. He instructed them to go south along SOUO RAY stream and set up a base of fire
while he attempted to fight through the ambush. Boyd did not know whether his trail
ACAV’s received his message since he did not receive an answer from any of them.
K-16 itself went forward, stopping momentarily at the tank. There was no sign
of human activity at the tank. Boyd assumed that the crew was either dead or had
abandoned the vehicle. As automatic weapon and small arms fire was starting to build
up in this area from both sides of the road, K-16 moved on around the tank and continued
west on the road. Boyd tried to contact his Troop Headquarters at GIA RAY by radio
and give information on his increasingly desperate situation, but by some fluke, his
radios had ceased functioning at this critical moment.
After passing the tank, K-16 moved west for
about 60 meters before it too was hit by a recoilless rifle round from the left. The
round penetrated the vehicle directly under the radio, wounding the entire crew, and
spinning the ACAV to the left. Lt. Hendrickson quickly regained control of the
vehicle and aided by heavy suppressive fire from the two side mounted M-60 machineguns
manned by SP4 Mace and SP4 Shelton and the fires of PFC Henry and SP4 Poorman, rammed his
way through the ambush to where SSG Pittman and SP4 Steidl were fighting beside the
burning K-10. The ACAV suffered two more recoilless hits in the rear during this
dash which further injured the crew members. Between the tank and K-10, the crew
members of K-16 had counted no less than six recoilless rifles with crews and numerous
RPG-2 teams. All the Viet Cong seemed to be dressed in black, and all appeared to be
unconcerned about the fire directed against them. This fact, noticed by many
survivors of the platoon gave them the impression that the VC were “doped up”.
K-16 halted by K-10, picked up Pittman and
Steidl and overtook K-11 which was still moving to the west. Boyd hailed the ACAV,
and it stopped. Pittman mounted K-11, and both vehicles then turned back into the
ambush, K-11 leading and K-16 stopping periodically while Boyd sprayed both sides of the
road with his caliber 50 machinegun.
The rear portion of the column was also
undergoing its special little hell. With the Platoon Leader’s loss of
communications and the Platoon Sergeant’s loss of his vehicle, all concerted action
as a Platoon ceased and the fight degenerated into a series of undirected actions on the
part of single vehicles and individuals. The Troop K mess truck, K-4, followed the
Platoon Leader’s ACAV. In it were the driver, PFC Gregory, and the Troop Motor
Sergeant SSG Jackson.
As soon as the ambush was sprung, Jackson and
Gregory jumped from the truck with their M-16 rifles and hit the ditch to the south of the
road. They saw about 20 VC in mixed uniforms kneeling behind some shallow mounds and
firing. The VC seemed to be more interested in plugging holes in the truck than
firing at Jackson and Gregory; some of the VC were exposing themselves unconcernedly and
firing from a standing position. A heavy machinegun was also raking the truck from
the woodline to the south of the road. Jackson and Gregory fired at the VC to their
front until they had only half a clip of ammunition left apiece. Between them they
had dropped several VC and the incoming fire had subsided somewhat because the heavy
machinegun had been neutralized. They decided to return to the truck and attempted
to make a run for it.
Upon leaving the truck, Gregory had forgotten
to turn off the engine. Miraculously, when they returned to it the truck was still
operational and the engine running. They moved down the road through a hail of small
arms fire for about 50 meters before an RPG-2 round hit the truck in the middle of the
drivers seat. Gregory only avoided being killed because he was hunched down in the
seat in order to avoid small arms fire, only his eyes peering over the dash board.
His flack jacket protected him from the shrapnel effect of the blast, but he was stunned
and lost control of the vehicle. It veered to the left, ran off the road, and came
to a halt about 60 meters to the left rear of the tank, Jackson leaped from the vehicle
and tried to get to the tank, but was cut down midway between the truck and the tank by
Viet Cong small arms fire from the south. PFC Gregory jumped from the truck and as
he hit the ground was struck by fire from a group of VC standing about 20 meters
away. He fell to the ground, and his 45 caliber pistol dropped about 2 feet from his
body. Still alive, Gregory decided that the best course of action was to play dead.
His ordeal of terror had just begun.
For what seemed to him an eternity, PFC Gregory
lay beside the truck as the VC fired at him and the truck thinking that so long as the VC
were firing in his direction they would not come over to determine if he were still alive.
Finally the firing ceased and a group of Viet Cong approached Gregory. One VC
turned Gregory over on his back and calmly fired two shots into his left side. He
was already so numb with pain that he did not react physically to this indignity.
The Viet Cong then sat on Gregory’s face and rifled his pockets while the other VC
explored the truck. As luck would have it, the truck carried a 55 gallon drum of CS
crystals in its bed. Sometime during the firing, bullets had penetrated the CS drum
and the tear gas began to permeate the area in overwhelming waves. This drove the VC
from the area. Gregory, because of his low position was not overly bothered by the
tear gas fumes and lapsed into unconsciousness. He awakened slightly and half
remembers the tank firing on the opposite side of the truck. He was rescued by the
Troop K relief force about 20 minutes later.
The four rear ACAV’s which bore the brunt
of the ambush, had varying fortunes. K-14 stopped behind the halted 2 ½ ton
truck after the ambush warning and took up a temporary firing position to the left facing
south. K-14 could not close upon the tank to the direct front of the 2 ½ ton truck
because of heavy recoilless and RPG-2 fire. The ACAV quickly sustained an RPG-2 hit
on the right side about midway on the track.. Sgt Dickinson, the vehicle commander,
then jumped from the TC hatch over the drivers compartment, seizing the driver’s M-16
and, disappeared to the left of the road. His body was later found riddled by small
arms fire.
SP4 Ates, the driver, and PFC Walker, the right
machine gunner, by natural inclination started to follow Sgt Dickinson, but were knocked
back into the vehicle by a second RPG-2 hit. Walker then climbed into the TC hatch
and the whole crew settled down to the business at hand. The initial round had come
from the north of the road, but the main threat soon developed to the south as the crew
could see large numbers of VC milling around and firing small arms and RPG-2’s at the
ACAV’s. There were still many civilians lying prone in the field between the
two engaged forces. One of the most startling sights was three small babies lying on
a blanket under a tree between the firing lines. The group of VC that had initially
engaged from the right had shifted to the rear of the column and had infiltrated the
village of SUOI CAT from which they fired on the ACAV’s with small arms and
RPG-2’s.
ACAV number K-13 following directly behind
K-14, was hit by a recoilless rifle in the first burst of firing. The entire crew
was wounded and everyone disabled except PFC Miller, a machine gunner. He was
knocked inside the vehicle, and as he attempted to get up, another recoilless round hit
the left side mounted machinegun and knocked it off. Miller found a box of
hand grenades and started throwing them in an arc around the vehicle to prevent the VC
from closing with the vehicle. He would pop his head out of the vehicle just long
enough to throw a grenade and then duck back into the vehicle as protection against the
intensive small arms fire. Miller saw tree VC lying behind a mound about 20 meters
to his south. Two of them were armed with rifles and one carried a radio. He
tried to grenade them but could not reach them as his right arm had been severely injured
by shrapnel. The ACAV was then hit again by a recoilless round and Miller was blown
out of the vehicle, losing consciousness. The next thing he remembers is his Troop
Commander arriving with the relief force. He was the only survivor of ACAV number
K-13.
ACAV number K-17 and ACAV number K-18 were the last two vehicles in the
column.. Sgt Lee, the vehicle commander of K-17 received Pittman’s message of
“ambush, ambush, ambush”, just as he spotted a large number of VC on his left
and alerted his crew with the words “VC on the left”. The crew immediately
began firing right and left. Lee saw K-13 take its initial recoilless hit in front
of him and thinking the vehicle lost, ordered the driver PFC Timberlake to move on through
the ambush. K-18 followed K-17. As the two ACAV’s passed K-14 firing from
its position to the south of the road, K-18 sustained a recoilless hit that disabled the
vehicle. It ground to a halt directly west of K-14 and took several more recoilless
kits. There were no survivors from K-18.
K-17 kept moving. SP4 Force, the platoon
medic, was manning machinegun. He saw VC to the south of the road firing small arms
and several VC behind a barn about 75 meters from the road firing crew served automatic
weapons. He engaged all targets he could see and saw several VC fall.
Civilians were lying all over the fields. The small arms fire was extremely heavy
and accurate, causing Force to fire through his gun shield and allowing him only a very
limited view of the battleground. In moving a distance of 400 meters., the ACAV was
hit 4 times by RPG-2 rounds. K-17 had not suffered much damage, but the shrapnel
from the last blast had caused Forces machinegun to malfunction and superficially wounded
most of the crew members. The driver halted the ACAV temporarily. Force
applied immediate action to his weapon as SP5 Centers, the platoon mechanic, provided
covering fire with his M-16 rifle. Force finally gave up on the machinegun and
grabbed his M-16 to engage the numerous VC to the south. Over the din of battle
Force heard SP4 Williamson, the right machine gunner, cry “hand me ammo”.
Force handed him a box of 7.62mm machinegun ammunition but Williamson said “no,
M-16”. His machinegun was inoperable also.
The driver moved the ACAV out through the
gauntlet again, dodging and weaving to avoid the hail of anti-tank rockets directed at the
track. Sgt Lee was still firing his caliber 50 machinegun to the left and
right of the road, and Force, Williamson, and Centers were blazing away with their rifles,
while SP4 Wheeler, an ex-cook newly assigned to the platoon, handed them ammo from inside
the vehicle. However, K-17 kept sustaining hits. Williamson was hit in the
stomach with a burst of shrapnel from an RPG-2 round that penetrated the right side of the
track. Finally an RPG-2 round penetrated the driver’s compartment, killing the
driver, Timberlake and Sgt Lee. The ACAV stopped. Force leaped up to the top
of the TC hatch to attempt first aid on Lee, but was knocked off the track by another
RPG-2 round that hit the front of the TC cupola. He was slightly wounded by
shrapnel, but still held grimly on to his rifle. He tried to regain the ACAV but
could not because of the heavy volume of small arms fire directed against it. Force
crawled into the ditch paralleling the road and stated crawling south looking for other
GI’s. He heard the ACAV take at least three more RPG-2 hits. Force
remained alone in the ditch desperately hoping he would not be discovered by the VC
until the relief column arrived. He then returned to K-17 and found Wheeler still
alive in the vehicle and gave him first aid. Centers’ body was found 25 meters
to the rear of the ACAV riddled by small arms fire.
It had initially appeared to LT Boyd that the
M48A3 tank M-34 leading the main body of the column, had been critically damaged and
abandoned by its crew. This was far from the case. The tank was a little late
in getting into the battle, but when it did, it made its presence felt. The tank
crew had just received Pittman’s warning, and Sgt Wright, the tank commander, had
notified SP4 Blancarte, the driver, of the situation, when a recoilless round hit the TC
cupola a glancing blow and destroyed the 50 caliber machinegun. The tank was about
400 meters west of SUOI RAI stream at this time. PFC Loisel, a recent replacement,
who had never been under fire and disdained any real VC threat, was tank loader. He
was riding on the tank equipment rack and was severely wounded by the blast from the first
recoilless round.
The tank replied with one round of 90mm
canister fire to its right side and continued to roll. It moved another 100 meters
before a second recoilless round hit the underside of the tank’s front slope and
knocked Blancarte, the driver unconscious. The tank rolled to the left of the road
and halted. Simultaneously, a third round penetrated the front turret lacerating the
face of SP4 Nelson, the gunner, and disabling the coaxially mounted M-73 machinegun.
As Loisel was severely wounded and lying on top of the tank exposed to heavy small
arms fire, Wright manhandled Loisel through the TC’s cupola into the tank.
Nelson helped fit Loisel into the relative security of the gunner’s seat and slid
over to the loader’s position just as another recoilless rifle round took the left
range-finder cover off the tank.
By this time, all the tank sights were
inoperative because of recoilless hits. Wright came up from the Tank
Commander’s cupola and saw two VC at a distance of about 100 meters to the left rear
of the tank. Thinking that the tank’s entire fire control system was
destroyed, Wright used the only weapon available, his caliber 45 service pistol. The
results were predictable, he missed. Nelson then came up with his caliber 45
submachine gun and emptied two clips of ammunition at the VC with no greater success than
Wright. At this time, the tank was hit by another recoilless rifle round that
pierced the turret wounding Loisel again.
Loisel became hysterical and lapsed into
incoherency. Wright dropped into the turret to check on him and noticed that the
90mm gun light switches were on. Hoping that the main gun might function, Wright
yelled to Nelson, “Let’s try it”, Wright hit the switch and the main gun
fired. Nelson and Wright then began to fire south of the road from east to west
traversing the gun slightly after each round until they had completed an arc covering the
south of the road. While this transpired, the tank suffered four or five more
recoilless rifle hits, one of which temporarily blinded Nelson who just kept on loading.
Wright was firing from his TC override; however, Loisel at one time came out of
shock long enough to fire two rounds from his gunner’s switch.
After completing this maneuver, Wright came up
and began to engage targets of opportunity. About 125 meters directly to his west,
straight south of the road Wright spotted two VC with a 57mm Recoilless rifle firing at
the tank. There was no way for him to aim the gun, so he just pointed and fired.
The white phosphorous round landed about 50 meters short, so Wright made a visual
adjustment as Nelson loaded a canister round and fired again. The gun position was
destroyed. The tank then received two more rounds of RPG-2 fire from the two VC to
the left rear that Wright turned the main gun and fired two rounds of canisters at them.
The tank received no more fire from this direction.
Wright could not see any GI’s on the road
when he looked out of the tank, all he could see were two burning ACAV’s, one 200
meters to his west and another 300 meters to his east. He also spotted two VC at
about 150 meters distance, crossing the road to his east, carrying a litter. He
repeated his previous maneuver and fired a canister round and had the satisfaction of
seeing the VC’s and the litter go flying. The tank fired two more times with
unknown results in the general direction from which it had received recoilless rounds.
Before the relief column arrived, Wright could remember firing his 45 pistol at a
VC in the ditch 75 meters to his West. When the relief element arrived, Wright and
Nelson saw for the first time SSG Jackson’s body midway between them. The tank
had sustained a total of 14 hits from recoilless weapons, not including
numerous other glancing hits and near misses. But the tank would still run and all
the crew members had survived the battle, although Loisel died of wounds shortly
afterwards.
As the battle progressed in the vicinity of
K-14, SP4 Walker, now manning the caliber 50, saw a VC caliber 50 firing at the truck and
jeep in front of him from a position in the woodline to his south. He and PFC Fails
on the left M60 machinegun took it under fire with about 100 rounds apiece and silenced
it. The crew noticed a VC officer dressed in fatigue shirt and camouflage trouser
carrying a 45 pistol followed by a woman radio operator emerge from the woodline to
the south. As both Fails and Walker were loading their weapons, they could not fire,
and the strange pair quickly faded into the woods again. At this time, the VC who
had infiltrated the village, opened up again with RPG-2’s and scored two glancing
hits on the back ramp but obtained no penetration. In quick succession a mortar
shell scored a direct hit on the left machinegun, destroying it and wounding SP4 Dickenson
the grenadier and team leader, and heavy small arms fire was directed at the vehicle from
both sides of the road.
All the crew members were pinned down by the
fire and could not operate their weapons. Sensing their opportunity, four VC
advanced from the left and 3 VC advanced from the right. One VC was dressed in an
ARVN uniform complete with web gear and steel helmet. Another, the lead man on the
right carried 8 M-26 hand grenades on his belt. In this desperate situation, SP4
Ates, the vehicle driver rose to the occasion. Employing his driver’s
periscope, he thrust and M-16 from his hatch and fired to the left and right felling
several VC and driving the rest back. The crew returned to their positions and
resumed the battle. Walker noticed the K-18 track that had stalled in front of his
ACAV and saw a VC dressed in fatigue trousers and black shirt and armed with an M-16
climbing on the track. He quickly tore him to pieces with the 50 caliber. SP4
Hutchins was still alive and fighting on K-18 at this time.
A strange thing then happened. Lt Boyd,
having had no communications since the fight began, suddenly came over the radio of K-14
loud and clear, saying “move out, move out!”. It was later determined that
Boyd had been talking to his own driver, and by some chance, had accidentally transmitted
this message. K-14, however, quickly complied, but immediately took a recoilless hit
that penetrated the left side, wounding both Fails and Walker. The ACAV, however,
moved out and soon took another hit from the left through the driver’s compartment
just as it passed the tank. Ates, the driver, was hit in the hand and foot and
temporarily lost control of the vehicle. It swerved to the right, but Ates quickly
regained control and sped on down the road. Walker remembers seeing Nelson firing
his sub machine gun at the VC as K-14 passed the tank.
K-14 continued down the road spraying the VC
lining the road and behind the mounds to the left and right of the road with machine gun
and M-16 fire. The crew engaged one group of 8 VC carrying three RPD light
machineguns with unknown results. Finally, K-14 was out of the ambush. It
continued slowly west on the road for another few kilometers until its engine quit.
As the crew looked behind them, Lt Boyd pulled his ACAV up directly behind them. He
loaded the crew on his vehicle and took them to the XUAN LOC dispensary.
The Engineer jeep following the K Troop Mess
Truck received the warning to “ambush, ambush, “ over its vehicle mounted radio.
The driver PFC Heppen decided to make a run for it even though numerous VC along
the road and behind the low mounds beside the road were firing small arms at the jeep.
SP4 Curz was riding “shotgun”, and SP4 Friend was manning the M-60
machine gun mounted in the rear of the vehicle. Both men sprayed the sides of the
road with fire. The dust and smoke on the road were so heavy that none of the jeep
occupants could see. They made it a distance of about 500 meters before a recoilless
round hit the right front of the jeep and smashed it into the ditch at the right of the
road.
Heppen was killed by small arms fire at this
time. Cruz and Friend were hurled from the jeep into the adjacent field. Cruz
recovered and crawled west in the ditch until he was picked up by Lt Boyd’s ACAV on
its initial run through the ambush. Friend was dazed when he was thrown from the
jeep and had some trouble regaining his senses. He went to the road and saw an ACAV
about 100 meters to his west. Friend tried to run towards it and saw two VC behind a
mound of dirt to his right with rifles aimed at him. He hid his head in his arm and
ran on past them. Strangely, the VC did not fire, but only looked at Friend
bewildered. Friend ran on a few feet more and found his path blocked by another VC
carrying a rifle at sling arms. As he had lost his rifle when the jeep was
destroyed, Friend was unarmed except for a hunting knife. He quickly unsheathed it,
without losing stride and drove it into the VC’s belly with an underhand stroke.
The VC crumpled on the road, and Friend hurried on until he found SP4 Steidl
standing beside K-10, firing his M-60. Steidl and Friend were also picked up by
K-16.
Just as K-16 and K-11 had turned back into the
ambush, several of the crew members of K-16 faintly recall seeing K-14 move past them
heading west. It appeared to them as though all the crew members were wounded.
K-16, stopping to fire as it moved down the road to the east, soon lost sight of
K-11. K-16 picked up several wounded and engaged a large number of VC on the road.
Hendrickson remembers passing two burning ACAV’s, the 2 ½ ton truck and the
jeep as he drove into the ambush. Boyd was still attempting to reach his troop
headquarters on his radio and was calling for air and artillery, but he had negative radio
contact with anyone. The crew sighted large numbers of VC firing at them from both
sides of the road, The VC, dressed in mixed black pajama and fatigue uniforms,
seemed unconcerned and moved very slowly and deliberately.
K-16 moved to a position slightly east of the
tank, which was obscured by smoke and dust. Neither Boyd nor Hendrickson could see
any signs of life at this point, so the decision was made to turn around and fight their
way out. As the ACAV turned around a recoilless round smashed into its side,
wounding Boyd’s hand. Directly to the front of the ACAV Boyd spotted a
recoilless rifle with its two man crew attempting to close the breech on the weapon.
It was located just off the road. Boyd had lost power in his hand and could
not fire his caliber .50. Hendrickson, knowing he had to act immediately, gunned the
ACAV and ran over the rifle, crushing it and its crew. He spun the ACAV back on the
road and ran over a wounded VC dressed in fatigues who was dragging himself across
the highway. K-16 then proceeded west through heavy small arms and automatic weapons
fire until it was clear of the ambush. K-16 continued west until it pulled up behind
K-14. The wounded crew was loaded into K-16, and it moved west again until it met an
ARVN column near the junction of Routes 1 and 2.
As K-11 moved down the road to the east ahead
of K-16, it sustained several close-in hits from RPG-2’s, one of which entered the
rear of the vehicle and killed SP4 Royball and PFC Saenz. When passing the tank, a
VC stepped into the road and fired an RPG-2 round head on into the ACAV. The
round penetrated the engine compartment, but the driver, SP4 Christianson kept gunning the
engine, rolling over the VC. Midway between the gutted hulks of K-13 and K-18,
another round stuck the transmission of K-11 and it ground slowly to a halt just east of
K-13. During his ride back into the ambush, Pittman had finally contacted GIA RAY
radio relay and appraised them of his situation. This was not the first notification
of ambush that had been received, however, and a relief force was already on the way.
As soon as the ACAV halted, the crew began to
abandon the vehicle heading for cover behind a woodpile, just south of the road.
Small arms fire was coming in on the small group from all directions, but Pittman realized
that salvation lay in unloading enough weapons and ammunition from the vehicle to make a
fight with. So, while Christianson seized one of the side mounted M-60’s and
lay down covering fire, Pittman, SP4 Edwards, SP4 Moline, PFC Puglisi, and SP4 Brush threw
ammunition boxes from the ACAV to the woodpile.
Then the six men settled down for a last stand.
One M-60 was positioned on the right, covering southwest; the other, on the left,
covering northwest. The remaining four men lay between the machine guns with rifles.
The enemy could not be seen very clearly but the small arms fire directed at the
six GI’s was heavy and accurate. Whenever a VC firing position could be seen,
Pittman directed his men to fire on it with all they had. Luckily there were no VC
to the east of them and they could direct the entire attention to the west. The
small group fought a touch and go battle for about 20 minutes before VC fire began to
slack. Soon afterwards, the first elements of the relief force arrived and their
fight was over.
In retrospect, it cannot be said that the
platoon would have been saved if certain things were done differently, but, after
investigation two points are worthy of discussion. Number one, the elements of the
platoon lost radio communications with each other and ceased functioning as a platoon.
Also, the platoon lost communications with its troop headquarters. It was
only by chance that Lt Boyd’s voice came over the troop net at 0910 excitedly saying
“hard right, hard right, move out!”. Lt Burr, the troop exec, speculated
from the highly excited tone of his voice and the fact that he had no other communication
with him, that Boyd was in an ambush. On this basis alone, Captain Hoffman, the K
Troop Commander, committed his other two platoons as a relief force. Perhaps, if
SSG Pittman, the acting platoon sergeant, had been riding in K-17 the platoon
sergeant’s vehicle with its dual radio capability, he could have notified his troop
headquarters of the situation earlier. As it was the fight had been going on some 15
to 20 minutes before Captain Hoffman received notification and committed his relief force.
Number two, both Pittman and Boyd were at the
head of the column. There was no strong directing hand among the four rear
ACAV’s who took the majority of the casualties. If Pittman had been with
the main body rather than the advance guard (no place for a platoon sergeant in the first
place), he might have been able to organize them and coordinate their maneuver.
However, the Battalion (+) size ambush and the huge volume of anti-armor weapons employed
by the VC in what was basically an ambush by fire would probably still have overcome any
action the platoon might have taken.
The ambush in itself was
thoroughly planned and devastatingly executed by the VC. Against a single cavalry
platoon, unsupported by either air, artillery or friendly ground forces, the result was a
foregone conclusion. That as many men survived as did is a tribute to the courage
and initiative of the individual American soldier.
* Staff Sergeant Walter Stephen Simpson is counted among the 16 K
Troop members who was killed as a result of the ambush of May 21, 1967. His date of
death is listed in several reliable data bases as being May 22, 1968 - a year and a day
after the ambush. His body was not recovered. The Department of the Army
listed him as Missing In Action. After a year and a day, he was reclassified as
Killed In Action. His name is not mentioned in the After Action Report but so are
several others who are included in the list of "16". If you have
information about Sgt. Simpson, please send feedback..
