Khe Sanh: Siege in the Clouds by Eric Hammel

Author:Eric Hammel
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781890988210
Publisher: Pacifica Military History
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 18

RESUPPLY

There would have been no Khe Sanh Combat Base—no “set-piece” strategy—without one of the the biggest aerial resupply efforts in history. The effort was enormous. While it strained and stressed the capacity of air-cargo units throughout the western Pacific and Vietnam, the massive airlift barely made good the daily use of supplies by the troops and the daily loss of supplies to enemy fire. The effort is more remarkable in that it took place entirely within the period of the Tet Offensive, when U.S. military units throughout Vietnam were under unremitting pressure. Throughout February, most aerial resupply missions were flown through dense fog or enemy fire—or both.

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Maj TOM COOK

26th Marines Assistant Logistics Officer

I was assigned as assistant logistics officer. My duties consisted of the ordering and allocation of materials required for construction and fortification and the ordering and allocation of munitions. That took up most of my time, particularly the ordering of the munitions. Every day, around 1800, I called Dong Ha on the land line and reported a long, long list of numbers, each corresponding with a particular item. I reported quantities on position, the quantities in the dumps, and the quantities that I thought were required. It took a tremendous amount of time to gather all this information every day. Probably, I worked twelve hours a day on that aspect of my job. In addition, I had other little duties. From what I understand, when that report was received at Dong Ha, it was immediately forwarded to Saigon, to MACV Headquarters. From there, it was dispatched directly to the White House so that President Johnson and his staff could look at it, to make sure that Khe Sanh was not going to fall.

LtCol DICK ROMINE

Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 165

If we stayed high and made a steep approach to Khe Sanh we were not vulnerable to the surrounding enemy antiaircraft guns (mostly 12.7mm), which were predominantly to the west. I made most of my approaches from the east of the plateau, which was at about 1,500 feet. It took only one time to realize when you’d made a bad approach and flown over the wrong positions. The clatter of rounds got your attention. The guns were impossible to spot from the air. I later observed why. Those ingenious little bastards had most of their antiaircraft guns mounted on dollies or wheels at the entrances of small caves high on the hillsides. They probably tunneled through from the other side of the hills. They stuck the noses of the guns outside just long enough to take pot shots at us and then pulled them back into concealment before we could see where this fire was coming from.

LtCol JOHNNY GREGERSON

Marine Air Support Squadron-3

The majority of the cargo was lifted to the outlying outposts from a staging area at Dong Ha. It was difficult enough to sustain supply support at Khe Sanh itself without adding an additional problem of staging supplies and massing the helicopters necessary to resupply the outposts.1

1stLt FRED McGRATH

Bravo Battery, 1/13

I watched a CH-53 attempt a takeoff.

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