The Magnificent Bastards: The Joint Army-Marine Defense of Dong Ha, 1968 by Keith William Nolan

Author:Keith William Nolan [Nolan, Keith William]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: History.war
ISBN: 9780891418610
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2007-11-27T05:24:38+00:00

At 1413 on 1 May 1968, Col. Louis Gelling, the 196th LIB commander, ordered Lieutenant Colonel Snyder to execute the 3-21st Infantry’s contingency plan to deploy to the DMZ. Other brigade elements would assume control of FSB Belcher. “It was a confusing move,” recalled Lieutenant Skrzysowski, whose company was to lead the way into Mai Xa Chanh East. Delta Company was conducting platoon-sized ambushes and road security operations along Route 1. Skrzysowski, whose platoon was dug in near an old French fort, was instructed to secure a pickup zone along the west side of the highway and to assemble his men for helicopter extraction. That was all the information he received. “I wasn’t told where we were going, what lift units were going to pick us up, what the mission was, what the threat in the landing zone was—none of the normal things.”

Since airlifting to Camp Evans, the 196th LIB had been on standby to respond to an expected NVA offensive. Higher command knew something was coming, but not where, and the 3-21st Infantry was ready to move to the DMZ or Khe Sanh or Da Nang or Quang Tri or Hue, which was the largest city near the A Shau.

Lieutenant Skrzysowski was most concerned about organizing his platoon into helo teams, but no information was forthcoming as to the number or type of helicopters involved. The result was that each helo team was hastily formed with as many combat-loaded soldiers as each pilot determined he could carry as the choppers came in one or two at a time. In short order, Skrzysowski was alone in the pickup zone with his radioman and three grunts. “Everybody was gone, and I had no idea where they were going!” Army Hueys had lifted the platoon out, but then a Marine Sea Knight settled into the pickup zone and a gunnery sergeant waved the tail-end group up the back ramp. “I’m looking out the window, trying to find out where the hell we’re going to land. I ask the gunny. Christ, he doesn’t know.…” Skrzysowski had been issued three maps at the time of their original deployment north, one apiece for Hue, Khe Sanh, and the eastern DMZ, and he broke them out aboard the Sea Knight. He had thought that Hue, the scene of house-to-house fighting during the Tet Offensive, would be the hot spot of this new NVA offensive. Instead of Hue, the Sea Knight unloaded Skrzysowski and his group among the burial mounds in a flat, sandy-soiled cemetery near the bend in a river that would not be identified to him as the Cua Viet until an hour later. He could hear firing off in the distance. “I wondered what the hell was going on,” he said. “I was trying to assemble my people, and find my company commander—I had no idea where he was.”

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