After My Lai by Gary W. Bray

Author:Gary W. Bray
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780806183213
Publisher: University of Oklahoma Press

CHAPTER 8

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Ambush along the River

The third night we were on LZ Liz, the radar station on the South Observation Post detected enemy movement south of us along the Tra Cau River. Artillery fire missions were directed at the targets, but the next night movement was picked up again in the same area. The following day, Captain Donovan ordered me to conduct an ambush along the river that night. I told Sergeant Eddy to have his squad ready to move out at 1800 hours. Ten men would be on the snake—Stub, Doc Miles, Sergeant Eddy, his six-man squad, and me.

After carefully studying my map of the terrain along the river, I selected a site for the ambush near the remains of an old railroad bridge that had once spanned the river. Several trails converged near the destroyed bridge. In order for the Viet Cong or North Vietnamese Army to move back and forth from the coastal villages to the safety of the jungle some three kilometers west of the bridge, they would have to use one of the trails that paralleled the river. The thick underbrush and dense bamboo thickets surrounding the river would serve to funnel enemy movement toward the ambush site and provide excellent cover for our trek to the location.

After I briefed the members of the ambush team and reported our location for the night to battalion headquarters, we loaded our gear and made our way south out of LZ Liz at dusk. We traveled light, just taking the radio, weapons, and water. We left our heavy rucksacks in the bunkers. The afternoon’s rain had slowed to a light drizzle with a heavy cloud cover. I hoped it would stop. I didn’t look forward to lying motionless all night in a heavy rain. Before we left the landing zone, I grabbed a starlight scope in case the cloud cover lifted.

We made our way south to a location about five hundred meters north of the ambush site, utilizing the hedgerows and brush for cover. I informed the men that this would be our rendezvous point if anything went wrong or if any of us became separated. Because it was on the railroad bed, it would be an easy place to find in the dark.

Under the cover of darkness, we moved to the ambush site. I selected a spot on the railroad bed forty meters from where a trail emerged from the brush and crossed the railroad berm. The part of the berm where we would hide had been washed out by heavy rains in the past and provided us with ideal concealment and cover. I placed two claymore mines on the berm facing the intersection of it and the trail, ran the electrical wire back to the washed-out spot, and connected the handheld detonators. I positioned two men a few meters to our rear and had them deploy claymores to protect our flanks and rear from the approach of enemy from that direction. The other men faced the trail.

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