Chapter One: Arrival
When we deplaned at Pleiku Air Base, the first impression was the summer heat and the oppressive humidity -- our uniforms stuck to us like bandages. On the deuce-and-a-half ride across the city to Camp Enari (named for a lieutenant killed in one of the Cong's all too efficient ambushes), we got a glimpse of Asian culture. The people were attractive, oval-faced and almond-eyed, smaller in stature than Caucasians and graceful in motion. They welcomed us as guests, instead of as a foreign army. They smiled and waved as the trucks went by, and there was a lot of "Hi, GI," from the kids. The road out of the city and up to the camp gates was a familiar sight to any foreign-duty trooper. All the regular stores had been bought out, and had been replaced with the usual collection of soldier-oriented businesses, each designed to separate a serviceman from his pay as quickly and painlessly as possible.
The camp entrance, however, indicated that all was not sweetness and light. A heavily sandbagged bunker covered each side of the entrance, and armed MPs kept a wary eye on all traffic. Each bunker was equipped with an MG nest, and was part of a barbed-wire bunker line that encircled the post.
The replacement depot was the ordinary work-detail/local-indoctrination operation that we'd all been through. Presently I found myself in a jeep, headed for a tank company. The assignments NCO in the repple-depple hadn't been too encouraging.
"Tank crew, huh? Congratulations, you just became a professional mine detector."
I was a bit nervous.
"You took a little bothered, Sarge," said the supply clerk who had been sent to pick me up, the company's lone replacement.
"I don't know why the repple-depple types seemed to think that all a tank is good for is escorting convoys and checking for freshly-laid mines," I said.
"We've got plenty of time before you're due to report in. How's about a cup of coffee at the PX, and I'll fill you in?" I had learned that one of the first things you do on arriving in a new outfit is get acquainted with the supply and mess people, so off we went.
We settled in at a table underneath a slowly rotating ceiling fan, and he gave me the lowdown. "This is the most scattered company in any army; we're not even legally part of the 4th Division. Sixty-ninth Armor is really part of the 25th Division down at Chu Chi. But the 4th, up here in the highlands, has got a lot of territory to cover, so they asked the 25th to loan them a battalion of heavy armor -- and that was us. Then, when the spring monsoon left and the coastal paddy country began drying up, the Air Cav, down on the coast, started running into hardened defenses. They don't have any integral armor so they put out a call for help. General Peers, up here, offered to loan them one company, and shipped us out."
There was a large map of Indochina painted on one wall of the PX and, as he talked, he pointed to the company's area, gesturing with a half-burnt cigar. "Pleiku, here, is closer to the DMZ than the Delta, and closer to the Cambode border than the sea. That squiggly red line running east is Highway 19, and our 1st Platoon is responsible for security on the central section of it -- the hilly part. The tanks cover a section with their guns, and they're hooked up with the local infantry. It's good duty, in a way," he continued. "They've each got a local following and some girls. Not much action, though, unless you count the occasional mortar bombing, or a VC bridge wrecking."
Pausing to take a swig of coffee, he said, "Down the line, past An Khe, the next city is Qui Nhon, one of the ports. When the company moved, the bridges on the coastal highway couldn't take tanks, so they loaded us up on an LCVP, carried us up the coast, and we unloaded over on the beach at Bong Son."
"So that's where the outfit is now?" I asked.
"Well, not quite," he laughed. "Bong Son is about seventy-five miles north of Qui Nhon, and Company field base is at Landing Zone [LZ] English, just a bit north of Bong Son proper. Third Platoon is usually somewhere around, but I couldn't guarantee it. Second Platoon is farther out, in a place called An Lao Valley. Those platoons have the most action between 'em; there's something on the radio two or three times a week. Usually it starts with some infantry CO calling for help, and then the tanks call for more ammo."
"Are we talking about one company of just seventeen tanks?" I exclaimed. "That's a divisional area!"
"You got to understand, Sarge, the 69th are the only jungle-tankers around here, and the 4th says they need the other two companies over on the Cambode border."
Being used to European operations, my next question was, "How do you operate a tank in all that thick brush? I'm trained to hit T-54s at forty-four hundred meters."
"Sarge, I dunno, I'm no tanker, but if you get into one of those maneuver platoons, you'll be wishing that the Army put bayonets on the main guns." I thought he was exaggerating -- back then.
Arriving at Company Headquarters, I found a skeleton enough to keep mail and supplies headed in the general direction of field operations. The NCOIC, a staff sergeant, gave me a quick rundown of company organization. He told me how much gear to take to the field -- no more than one waterproof bag (you have to be able to carry with one hand and shoot with the other).
"Bunk in here," he said, indicating an empty squad bay. "Pick a clean bunk, haul your excess gear [it was almost everything] over to supply, and they'll get you outfitted with combat equipment."
Yeah, right; I turned in that seventy-five-pound bag of issue uniforms and an optimistic set of civvies. They fixed me up with little more than underwear, socks, poncho and liner, three pairs of fatigues, combat webbing -- and a .45 automatic. The supply sergeant advised, "You better pick up a few extra unders, if you intend to keep wearing jockey shorts. " At my questioning look, he chuckled, "Guys your size have a laundry problem; you're not much bigger than a Vietnamese, and the mama-sans who do the washing sometimes pinch off a few for their own soldiers. One tanker found a pair of his BVDs on a dead VC."
***
Before dawn the next morning, I was driven out to the helicopter field, making sure of two things: first, that I was on the right chopper; second, that the crew chief knew he had a green hand on board.
"Look," he said, "this is normally a milk run, but we have to go in low and drop off mail to a couple of remote LZs before we get to English, so we may take some fire. Can you handle an M60?"
"Sure. I've got full infantry skills, in addition to armor."
"I thought so," he grinned, looking at my parachute badge. "You'll be backup door gunner for this trip." He showed me where the extra ammo cans for the M60 were stored; then he checked his load lashings, muttered something into the intercom, and, with rotors shimmering in the sunrise, we lifted out.
The two bush LZs were just fortified hilltops, but English was a division headquarters, fully as large as Camp Enari. In vain, I scanned for tanks as the chopper settled down.
"I'm assigned to..."
But the crew chief cut in. "I don't know a damn thing about this base. The only time I know about an individual company is when it's out in the bush."
I helped them offload, and they lifted out, leaving me standing alone and somewhat bemused on an empty helipad. A jeep drove up and, with some relief, I saw A-1/69 on its bumper. Surprisingly the driver was a 1st sergeant. Tall, lean, and dark, he could have doubled for Rudolph Valentino, except for his southern accent.
"You're Zumbro?"
"Right," I said, handing over my medical records.
"I'm Sergeant Quinton. Hop in. You're going to 3d Platoon. They put in an order for a sergeant/gunner for the 3/4 tank -- and you're it. The heavy section moves out in half an hour."
While I was absorbing this jolt, he drove down the taxi lane, dodged a couple of aircraft, cut across the runway, and dropped off the embankment that supported it. Suddenly we were in the sorriest excuse for an armored base that I'd ever seen.
Six tanks were nosed into the embankment below the runway. Three of them were obviously in advanced stages of ordnance-level repair, and the other three were getting ready to move out. I noticed that each one had a giant, mean-looking tiger face painted on its bow and, on each radio antenna, a small black flag bearing a skull and crossbones fluttered gently in the humid breeze.
We were driving down a sloping dusty road, and on the left, past the combat vehicles, a tank retriever and a pair of five-tonners were parked next to a general purpose (GP) tent. Across the road were a field mess tent and another GP with its sides rolled up to expose rows of tables and folding chairs. Vietnamese KPs were cleaning up the remains of breakfast, and the top sergeant spotted me hungrily eyeing the food.
"Go scrounge a quick sandwich from the cooks and I'll send the platoon sergeant over. Nobody ever leaves my company hungry."
The platoon honcho, a mustachioed Georgia boy, folded himself into a chair across from me. "Welcome to 3d," he said, "We're a bit shorthanded now, and about to go bail some infantry out of a hole. We lost our lieutenant last week, so I'm it for the time being. I can't put an inexperienced man in command, you understand. But we're short of tank commanders [TCs], so you've got a choice: either go in under an experienced Sp5 in 3-3 over there, or sit this one out."
"Hell," I said, talking around a mouthful of bacon-and-egg sandwich, "a tanker is a tanker; I'll go in as a loader, if that's what you need."
That seemed to be the right answer and he smiled through his handlebars. "Just between you an' me, I'm checkin' out that boy over there for E6 and his own tank, so how's about usin' some of that gunnery school experience [how the hell did he find out about that?], and give me a report on his turret procedures."
"Sure thing, Sarge."
"Just call me Pappy -- everybody else does. Grab yer gear and come meet the crews. We've got to get gone."
I got a little nervous walking up to those combat-hardened professionals, and I could feel ten pairs of eyes measuring me up and down. Pappy gave the introductions and then, stepping back where all the drivers could see him, gave the hand signal to start the engines in all three tanks.
Climbing up on the 3-3 tank, I took note of the name that was stenciled on the gun tube: "Avenger." "She's a good tank," the Sp5 told me. "We're pretty proud of our accuracy." I chucked my bag into the bustle rack and started to climb down into the gunner's seat. "Not yet, Sarge," he said. "We don't have to worry about hostiles around here, and we have an hour's safe ride before we leave the road."
"You mean you don't worry about snipers?"
"Naw, we broke the local VC of that habit months ago, and Pappy keeps us out of rifle range of the hamlets most of the time, until we have to button up and go in."
"How in the hell do you break the sniping habit?"
"Well, only tanks can do it, but put yourself in Charlie's place. What would you do if every time one of your buddies shot at a tank, a 90mm shell and a burst of .50 blew him out of his perch, and white phosphorus and H.E. was indiscriminately tossed into the village?"
"I see what you mean. With that kind of response, there's no future in taking potshots."
By now the small column had left the base entrance behind, turned north on Highway 1, and was working its way through the small settlement that had grown up around the LZ. The buildings were all straw-thatched wattle and plaster construction, single story dwelling/shop operations. Most were mom-and-pop businesses with living quarters in back and shops in front. When working hours started, they just opened up the front of the living area and put out their wares. This particular group seemed to concentrate on GI services such as laundries, souvenirs, and bars.
The heavy traffic was slowing us down. The streets were clogged with a mix of animal traffic, basket-carrying pedestrians, bicycles, and a popping, sputtering collection of three-wheeled buses. These vehicles, called "ditty wagons," were the bane of high-speed traffic. Underpowered and always overloaded, they were always in the way at the worst possible moment.
"You got to watch 'em," the Sp5 was saying. "If they start to veer to one side, it means they're about to turn the other way."
"But what if you're in a hurry? How do you get them out of the way?"
"No problem : one burst out of the co-ax is louder than any horn, and they all head for the ditch. Now watch this. I'm going to use the VC detector." I must have had a blank look on my face, because he explained. "You know how loud the turret motor is? Well, any gook who's been in combat around tanks knows that sound means the turret is hunting for him. Watch that bunch of military-age males over there."
He had been playing with his override lever as he talked, running the hydraulic fluid down, and now the accumulator motor cut in with its usual mechanical shriek. The effect on the four men was astounding -- they simply vanished.
"Guilty conscience," the TC said. "Out in the paddies we would either bring them in for interrogation, or send 'em a burst for morale purposes."
The tank platoon section had now cleared the built-up area and we were cruising at a comfortable twenty miles per hour through an emerald green, pastoral countryside. Nothing in that setting seemed more unlikely than war, but there was a column of smoke in the distance, northwest of the road, and I could see helicopters heading for it.
Once we left the road, things began to tighten up. Taking my cue from the rest of the crews, I slid down into the gunner's seat and plugged in the intercom. Cut off from visual contact with the rest of the world, except for the limited view afforded by the sights, I had to depend on what I could glean from the radio for information. A tank platoon communication network is like a party line. Each vehicle has unlimited intercom between its four crew members, and each one, simply by reversing his helmet switch, can transmit over the radios.
These crews weren't playing by stateside or European rules -- there was constant chatter among them. It was almost as if the three tanks had been welded together to form one giant machine. In fact, that was exactly what happened when these men learned to fight as a single organism. Each man could be addressed by his name or radio call sign; and the tanks were referred to by name as often as by the more formal military designation. This being 3d Platoon, each call sign was preceded by three and then the number of the individual machine.
In practice, we were not so precise. As we rolled along the rice paddies, there was constant communication.
"Close up, Assassin. Avenger, keep an eye on that grove over to your right; it's big enough to hide an RPG [antitank rocket] team."
"Right, Pappy."
And the two tanks obeyed. The commands, however, were obeyed by each crew member. Assassin's driver speeded up without urging from his own TC, and the Avenger's gunner automatically swung his sights to cover the suspected area.
As we approached the village, the sound of sporadic fire began to come in over the intercoms, and the platoon sergeant, in contact with the infantry, gave us the lowdown.
"The infantry was on a routine sweep and they discovered new bunkers in the village complex. When they started to put demolition charges in the bunkers, the whole western half of the village blew up in their faces. There's a tunnel network under the bunkers and now they're all manned and shooting. The infantry don't have anything that can break open armed bunkers so they need fire suppression and can openers. What we're going to do is go in to the eastern side, work up through the infantry, and take the other half of the village under fire. Once we've suppressed small caliber opposition, the infantry will cross the open area and secure the bushes. And then it's business as usual -- bust 'em and crush 'em. Remember: shoot up and push down any trees that could hold grenadiers or snipers."
The three tanks halted at the edge of the treeline and a ground guide led each of us to our assigned infantry squad. We moved carefully around the huts and through the fields. As we got into the village proper, the firing picked up steadily; this, I was to learn, was normal when we appeared. Anything that large, noisy, and hostile seemed to attract bullets like a magnet.
To my astonishment, the TCs didn't button up, and the loaders stood on the floors of the turrets, cradling M3 submachine guns and scanning the treetops for grenadiers and snipers. Even the drivers rode with SMGs on their laps -- occasionally a hatch would pop open like a jack-in-the-box and a short burst would zap some hidden menace. I thought to myself, "This is one hell of a sophisticated system."
When we reached our assigned firing positions, we were on one side of a long, open strip of white sand, and the houses and greenery on the other side were sparkling with muzzle flashes. I could see random movement as pajama-clad figures carried ammo and maneuvered for firing position.
A voice came over the intercom. "Keep an eye out for a main gun target, Sarge. I'm gonna probe with the co-ax, but if you see anything that looks good, just flip the switch." The commander traversed slowly, firing careful bursts at suspected and visible targets -- even with ten thousand rounds of MG fuel on board, you don't waste it.
Once he'd established to his satisfaction that the immediate area was clear and that our rifle squad knew its business, I started getting fire commands. "Traverse left; see that little clump? Give it a burst. Traverse again, elevate and put a burst in that treetop -- it's big enough to hide a couple with grenades."
Christ, I thought. Why doesn't he use the override and put me on target?
He didn't seem disposed to hurry and, being new, I didn't say a word. There was about an hour of this give and take; then, of all things, a scraggly chicken came running down the strip of sand. Some clown took a potshot at it; then one of the tanks gave it a burst of co-ax, and before long it seemed as if the whole damn force was shooting at it. That poor bird was almost hidden in the sand being kicked up around it.
"Goddammit, cease fire!" someone shouted over the radio net and, as we shut down, the infantry also ceased firing. But the dust storm around that harassed bird didn't stop, and it took us a few seconds to figure out what was going on. The VC were shooting at it too.
Pappy never lost his cool. "All loaders, switch to cannister," he ordered. As soon as we'd switched the shell in the nineties, the ground CO ordered a rapid advance which, it turned out, meant full throttle and low gear for us and a dead run for the ground troops. Once we were safety across the open area, the gunners became span loaders because the TCs were "firing from the hip" -- ramming the gun muzzles right up to the firing slits of bunkers and blowing them up from the inside. The muzzle blast couldn't be distinguished from the concussion of the warheads. The howl of the turret motors was almost constant. The once stable gun platform became a bucking, heaving monster as the drivers reared up on log and sand fortifications, finishing the destruction with the tracks. The loaders, quickly exhausted by the heat, the fumes, and the constant shell handling, were put into the useless gunners' seats and the gunners became temporary loaders.
I heard, "Brace yourself," from the TC, and then caught a glimpse of rafters and ridgepole inside a house, as the Avenger took a shortcut around a bunker. Suddenly it was over. The bunkers were "busted," all hostile fire had ceased, and the foot soldiers were collecting prisoners and patching up their wounded. I hadn't been in the country for one whole week.
As the infantry continued mopping-up operations, three tanks pulled out into that contested sandy strip and parked, forming a rough triangle, guns pointed 120 degrees apart.
"We're security for the combat LZ," the Sp5 explained. "Medevac and resupply ships land inside our perimeter and, if things warm up again, we're the rally point.
The area still needed to be gone over, though, and, not having any riflemen handy, the tank crews dropped a couple of men off each vehicle, leaving the drivers' and commanders' positions manned.
I was elected from the Avenger, teamed with a short-timer, Sp4 Goins, and we circled warily around the tank, searching the scattered bushes for holdouts. This, I learned, was normal for these crews; they trusted neither fate, luck, nor the competence of others. The tankers held their lives in their own hands.
Shortly the battle zone was clear. Choppers began settling in and wounded infantrymen were brought out from the surrounding hamlets. Surprisingly, the stretcher bearers were carrying quite a few civilians who, I was told, would be patched up at English, then brought back home.
Several children were among the evacuees. Pappy explained, "Brand new orphans. Their fathers are off somewhere fighting and, if the mother gets killed, they come to the medics. See that little girl over there? Her mother warned a squad leader about a house full of VC, and she took a burst of AK slugs meant for him."
"Well what happened to the VC?" I asked.
"Full treatment," he growled, spitting a streak of tobacco juice. "Cannister, co-ax, and tracks!"
Back at company base that night, I began learning a new way of life. After supper in the open-air mess hall, I looked around for a barracks tent only to be told that just the permanent headquarters staff had bunkers. The CO, Top Soldier, mess personnel, mechanics, and supply people needed sandbag protection; but anyone who was assigned to a combat vehicle stayed glued to it. Every tank had been issued a heavy tarp and four canvas cots. In addition, each one had small stoves, Coleman lanterns, and mosquito nets. All the tanks carried enough supplies, food, ammo, water, and beer for an extended stay out in the field. The crews sometimes didn't even see this crude company base for weeks at a time. The only reason 3d Platoon was in camp at all was to retrack one section, while the other two tanks of the unit stayed out, working with the infantry, prowling through towns and smashing trails through forests.
When a tank shut down for the night, one of two procedures was used. If there was a reasonable expectation of safety, the tarp was erected. This involved tying one side of it to a track fender and supporting the other side with sections of tent pole. Set up this way, we could be reasonably comfortable; if we had to pull out in a hurry, the tarp was attached with slipknots and one good jerk would allow it to drop over the cots while the tank moved out to deal with whatever had disturbed our well-earned rest.
If the situation was at all iffy, a radically different procedure was followed. The driver adjusted his seat for full recline and slept in position (being careful to keep his head out of the turret space to avoid being decapitated). By fiddling with the adjustment of the tank commander's seat and footrest, it was possible for him to sleep sitting up with his head and forearms resting on the rangefinder. Meanwhile, the gunner could stretch out with his feet hooked on the turret drive motor and his head resting on the TC's footstand. Normally the loader would sleep on the ammo cans that covered the turret floor. Offhand, I'd guess that the average tanker in that company spent about 325 nights in one of these positions during his year of duty.
The reasons for this relatively brutal lifestyle were partly political and partly military. It's not a well-known fact, but it was a tactical reality, that U.S. forces legally were guests of the Saigon government and, as such, we couldn't occupy and hold territory. As a result, any village we cleaned out had to be garrisoned by "indigenous forces," usually local militia, but occasionally regular units of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN).
Since the South Vietnamese were spread as thinly as we were and since many of their regiments were under-strength, this doctrine allowed the Cong to reinvest many places. About half the time, a routine patrol would discover a brand new set of combat bunkers in a "pacified area."
Consider this policy along with the fact that the 1st Air Cavalry was fully helicopter-mobile, and had no armored units in its makeup, and you have the makings of a large and hairy problem. Usually the first indication of trouble was an increase in night attacks on villages, or in random snipings, as the local guerrillas got more confident. As mentioned earlier, Company A had developed ways to discourage these rash actions, but the unfortunate ground troops were forced to sit and take it unless they could get the area reclassified as a military objective. What a way to run a war!
Company-size patrols operated on intelligence data from a variety of sources. Sometimes the local villagers would become desperate enough to ask for help, but the most common source of information was the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrols (LRRPs) that both the Viet and U.S. forces sent out.
Information on VC presence was obtained from the Cong themselves. Regardless of propaganda to the contrary, many Cong units were more like bandits than "simple agrarian reformers," and a thief or rustler leaves tracks. The VC were styled as the "night government" of Vietnam and they would come into a village after dark with or without the cooperation of the residents.
Under most tactical situations, you just can't sneak around with tanks, but American infantrymen can be very good at night. Many VC units, even up to battalion strength, woke to find themselves trapped by deadly phantoms who materialized out of the night with fixed bayonets.
Typically, on these occasions, we would link up with a company that had been given a suspected region for an objective. In order to fake out Charlie, the task force would make a few halfhearted searches away from the intended target and set up what looked like a temporary camp. Wire might be strung, or mail delivered -- anything to make it appear we were going to be in one place for a while.
Depending on the distance to be covered, the ground-pounders would begin moving between the hours of 2400 and 0300. Stacking their packs and heavier gear to be picked up by chopper, they would vanish into the darkness, with their weapons taped to prevent noise, and their faces blackened with camouflage sticks (which, mercifully, also contained bug repellent).
Once we had received word that the foot soldiers were all in place, we'd fire up and go straight for the objective at maximum speed to be able to provide the firepower needed if the situation got out of hand.
This was the normal modus operandi, but there were instances when the shoe was on the other foot, when the tanks were discovered or were jumped by the Cong. Those situations called for some original tactics.
Tanks and infantry usually work as a team in built-up or heavily overgrown terrain, because the heavy guns of the armored vehicles are excellent tools for "breaking and entering," and the foot-pounders can keep antitank teams from getting under the guns and punching a shaped charge through the armor. Theoretically, a buttoned-up combat vehicle is almost helpless in heavy forest or jungle, but there are ways of overcoming this handicap, provided your gonads are up to the strain.
The prime requirement was that we watch each other's tanks, so that if a suicide group tried to hurl a satchel charge into my tracks, that group was taken out by a burst of co-ax from my buddy. If I saw them first, I'd have only two alternatives -- heave a tanker's grenade (two pounds of TNT wrapped with barbed wire) over the side, or pivot on the tracks, running one forward and one in reverse, and wrap up the enemy. When the enemy would come out of the overhead growth, attempting to board and capture, the drill was to slam the hatches and let your buddy "scratch your back" -- hoping he didn't accidentally riddle the beer cooler. A 1st Platoon tank was once crippled by a mine and then boarded. Not having a "partner," the crew had had to sit it out in a jungle clearing, calling in airburst artillery to clear the VC off the tank's back.
Copyright © 1986 by Presidio Press
