Tom Glenn's Blog, page 174

The 1967 Battle of Dak To (6)

In the aftermath of the battle, other intelligence sources confirmed what we had forecast.

A North Vietnamese defector said that the attack date was to have been 28 October, but coordination problems we had detected in intercepted messages had made that impossible. Intrusion of U.S. forces south of Dak To took the North Vietnamese by surprise and forced them into battle before they were really ready.

Captured documents made clear that the North Vietnamese objective had been the annihilation of the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade. Their plan was to follow the same procedures they had used at Ia Drang some two years before—chewing up U.S. battalions one by one as they were committed as reinforcements. The tip-off through signals intelligence precluded that tactic. Whether the North Vietnamese 1st Division ever recovered completely from the blow is questionable.

Some good did come from the battle. My little team was congratulated by superiors; the 4th Infantry Division was impressed; my guys were submitted for a Presidential Citation. And as intercepted communications made clear in the months that followed, the Dak To offensive and a similar attack in January 1968 on Khe Sanh just south of the DMZ (the border area between north and south Vietnam) were both part of a larger strategy that culminated in the 1968 Têt Offensive.

But the curse of not being believed when I told U.S. commanders what the enemy was about to do would stay with me until the end of the war. It happened so often I coined a term for it: the Cassandra Effect, named after the Trojan woman blessed with the gift of prophecy and cursed with never being believed.

More tomorrow.

The 1967 Battle of Dak To (5)

My team and I were dispirited and anxious. We knew the region-wide North Vietnamese offensive would be launched sometime between 30 October and 4 November even if General Peers didn’t believe it. Then on 1 November, a B-57 airstrike near Dak To produced large secondary explosions. General Peers sent the headquarters of his 1st Brigade to reconnoiter near the Dak To Special Forces Camp. On 3 November, the U.S. 3rd Battalion, 12th Infantry, landed on Hill 978, six kilometers south of Dak To, and encountered a large North Vietnamese army force. The battalion was all but destroyed. The same day, the 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry, touched down on nearby Hill 882 and drew heavy enemy fire. The battle for Dak To had begun.

It was one of the biggest engagements in the war, and one of the conflict’s few pitched battles. The standard North Vietnamese strategy throughout the war was to attack, create as many casualties as possible, then withdraw before U.S. forces could retaliate. But this time they stood their ground. They had established defensive positions on several hills, forcing the American and South Vietnamese forces to fight uphill, culminating in a horrifically bloody engagement at Hill 875, from 19 to 23 November.

By the end of the battle of Dak To, nine American battalions from the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade—some 16,000 men—had been committed. American bombers flew more than 2,000 sorties. The Americans eventually won, but at great cost to both sides: More than 2,100 North Vietnamese were killed, as were 376 Americans and 61 South Vietnamese soldiers.

Couriers delivering intercept from close support units described orderly stacks of American bodies on the Dak To airstrip. The close support units were hit, too; the traffic we worked was sometimes bloodstained.

Meanwhile, the North Vietnamese also mounted attacks throughout the highlands at same time, just as we had forecast.

The end result: no territory changed hands.

More tomorrow.

The 1967 Battle of Dak To (4)

My team and I continued to watch as the North Vietnamese offensive took shape. The pattern was unmistakable: command elements move in, reconnaissance begins, combat forces take their positions, a simplified signal plan is introduced for ease of communication during combat, and a forward HQ—a tactical command post—takes control of fighting units. The stage was set.

We knew from intercepted reconnaissance messages that the attack at Dak To would begin between 30 October and 4 November. Preparations for combat throughout the highlands were on the same schedule. We and NSA were regularly reporting the results of intercept and analysis to the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade. To be sure they were aware of our findings, we scheduled a briefing for the commander of the 4th Infantry Division, Major General William Peers. I warned him that the North Vietnamese were preparing a highlands-wide offensive and that the attack on the Dak To Special Forces camp was imminent.

He shook his head and pointed to our camp on Engineer Hill. “So I’m supposed to believe that some kind of magic allows a bunch of shaky girbs [acronym for GI rat-bastards], distinguished more for their spit than their polish and abetted by an unknown civilian, to use a tangle of antennas and funny talk to divine the combat plans of the enemy?” He waved us away. The briefing was over.

The commander whose troops were threatened didn’t believe our warning.

More tomorrow.

The 1967 Battle of Dak To (3)

As my team and I monitored Vietnamese Communist communications from our perch on Engineer Hill in Pleiku Province and received input from other signals intelligence units and from NSA, the forces of the North Vietnamese B3 Front quietly moved into the area around the Dak To U.S. Special Forces Camp, a region of steep hills and deep jungle valleys in Kontum Province, just south of us. At the same time, North Vietnamese military forces throughout the highlands introduced signal procedures used during combat. This was going to be big.

Meanwhile, I was getting to know the soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division. They found my presence hilarious. I was a civilian under cover—lest the enemy discover they had a spy in their midst—as an enlisted man even though I outranked some of their officers. I lived with the enlisted men. I slept in a tent with three GIs, ate C-rations sitting in the dirt with the troops, used their latrines.

One morning when I woke up, my fatigues, the combat uniform worn by soldiers, were missing. I put on my skivvies and wandered around the cantonment area asking if anyone had seen them. They reappeared about two hours later. The troops had snitched them and taken them to a local tailor. They paid him to sew patches over the breast pockets on each fatigue blouse. They said “Glenn” and “Civilian.” On the two collar points of each blouse, where military rank would normally appear, the number “13” had been embroidered—I was a GS-13 (civilian rank) at the time. All my fatigue hats were now decorated with the 4th Infantry Division crest.

The troops couldn’t stop laughing. And I was happy. They now accepted me as one of them. They insisted on taking pictures of me in my enhanced fatigues. I still have one of the photos.

All the while, the North Vietnamese offensive in the highlands loomed.

More tomorrow.

The 1967 Battle of Dak To (2)

The attack on Engineer Hill took me by surprise. I’d been on the front lines in combat plenty of times during my years in Vietnam, but this time we were up on a rise, high enough that we could hear all the North Vietnamese transmitters all around us. It had never occurred to me that our little camp would attract the attention of the North Vietnamese, so I had no plan of action. The soldiers with me bolted from the operations tent, donned battle gear, and took up defensive positions.

I didn’t know what to do, so I put on a flak jacket and a helmet, stayed in the operations tent, and went on typing to get that report of unidentified North Vietnamese units nearby out as fast as possible. The lights went out. I could hear the incoming rounds—a sound like a child screaming, distant and indistinct. When the shells hit, I was reminded of my earthquake days in San Francisco: the earth lurched, dust fell on my face, my ears rang.

The next shells hit so close I was thrown to the ground. There was nothing for me to do but lie there in the dirt with my teeth clinched.

After twenty minutes, the attack was over. We all went back to work. As I learned later, the only casualty was an outhouse.

The soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade were enormously impressed that a civilian had had the guts to go on working in the middle of an attack. I never had the nerve to explain that I didn’t know what else to do. After that I was welcomed into the officers’ club and the enlisted men’s club of the 4th Infantry. I was called in to work at al hours of the day and night. And everyone stopped calling me “sir.”

More next time.

The 1967 Battle of Dak To

Last Tuesday, I gave a presentation on the battle of Dak To at the main branch of the Howard County Library system. I’ve never told the full story here, so I will now.

The village of Dak To is in Vietnam’s Kontum Province, in the midst of the western highlands. It’s a barren mountainous area along the Laotian and Cambodian borders. I, an NSA civilian, was in the highlands beginning in September 1967 working with a small team of soldiers providing signals intelligence support to the U.S. 4th Infantry Division and the 173rd Airborne Brigade.

The Vietnamese Communist headquarters in the western highlands was the B3 Front, in effect a corps headquarters with the equivalent of several divisions operating under it. We knew, from intercepting and analyzing the communications of the front, that it was a direct subordinate of the North Vietnamese High Command in Hanoi. Its status was that of a military region headquarters.

In September and October of 1967, we watched from Engineer Hill in the province of Pleiku, just north of Kontum, as the front prepared for combat throughout the highlands. The North Vietnamese 1st Division and its three subordinate regiments, all having infiltrated from North Vietnam, moved toward the U.S. Special Forces Camp near Dak To. 

In the midst of all this, one day we got an airborne radio direction finding fix on an unidentified North Vietnamese unit operating only twenty kilometers from us. It was using radio procedures reserved for combat. Other North Vietnamese units were nearby. One of my guys wrote up a quick spot report to alert the 4th infantry and the 173rd and gave to me for editing. I decided instead to poke it immediately into our comms equipment to get it to the division and brigade as soon as possible. While I was typing, we came under attack.

More tomorrow.

Xuan Loc (7)

As reported yesterday, the ambassador didn’t believe the signals intelligence evidence that the attack on Saigon was imminent. He didn’t order an evacuation. By the time he was countermanded from Washington in the predawn hours of 29 April, the North Vietnamese were already in the streets of the city. We were unable to extract the 2700 south Vietnamese soldiers that had worked with my organization. All were killed or captured by the North Vietnamese.

I escaped under fire that night. I was later diagnosed with amoebic dysentery, ear damage from the shelling, and pneumonia due to inadequate diet, sleep deprivation, and muscle fatigue. And I was one of the lucky ones.

My own survival and my ability to keep going for days despite lack of sleep and food are testimonies to what the human body can live through when the goal is more important than survival. We are amazing creatures.

It is now clear that the battle of Xuan Loc was a clarion alarm that the end was at hand. It was ignored. Incalculable loss of human life resulted.

Xuan Loc (6)

The fall of Xuan Loc was the final signal that Saigon was doomed. But the U.S. Ambassador, Graham Martin, didn’t accept the evidence of a forthcoming assault on the city. The following is a recap of my final briefing to the ambassador days before Saigon fell. It is quoted from Last of the Annamese. I tell the story from the point of view of Chuck Griffin, the novel’s protagonist:

Chuck opened the briefing book on the desk with the pages facing the Ambassador. He reviewed the status of North Vietnamese forces within striking range. “Sir, the situation is critical. The fall of Xuan Loc removed the last barrier to the North Vietnamese approach to Saigon. We know from signals intelligence that sixteen to eighteen North Vietnamese divisions now surround us, poised to invade Saigon. An intercepted message early this morning sent by an unidentified North Vietnamese unit two kilometers north of Tan Son Nhat told a subordinate to await the order to attack.”

The Ambassador glanced at his watch.

“Our best estimate,” Chuck went on, “is that the enemy won’t be completely ready to move against us for another two to three days. But the North Vietnamese are in no hurry. The South Vietnamese military is crumbling fast. We expect that when the attack begins, we’ll be hit first with rockets and mortars, then artillery as enemy troops enter the city.”

The Ambassador gave him a patient smile. “Anything else?”

Chuck’s mouth opened in surprise. “Sir?”

The Ambassador stood. “If there’s nothing more, I need to get on to other matters.”

Chuck stumbled to his feet. He took a deep breath, stood straight, and calmed himself. “Forgive me, sir, but we have little time left to get U.S. citizens and vulnerable South Vietnamese out of the country before it falls to the North Vietnamese.”

The Ambassador came from behind his desk and rested his hand on Chuck’s back as if to urge him toward the office door. “Thank you, Mr. Griffin. I’ll handle it from here.”

Despite the pressure from the Ambassador’s hand, Chuck didn’t move. “Mr. Ambassador, to save lives, I plead with you to order the evacuation immediately. Even if we start now—”

The Ambassador put his arm around Chuck and edged him toward the door. “Young man,” he said as they moved away from the desk, “when you’re older, you’ll understand these things better.”

At the door, the Ambassador smiled, showed Chuck out, and closed the door. The tingle at the base of Chuck’s spine peaked.

More tomorrow.

Xuan Loc (5)

During the night of 26 April 1975, I was trying unsuccessfully to sleep in my office when a blast threw me from my cot and slammed me to the floor. I ran to the comms center. The few remaining guys not yet evacuated looked dazed, but everything was working, and nobody was hurt. A bulletin arrived within minutes telling us that North Vietnamese sappers had blown up the ammo dump at Bien Hoa, just north of us. That meant, among other things, that panic in the streets of Saigon would ramp up a couple of notches.

The next day, 27 April, we learned that the last small contingent of South Vietnamese forces who survived the battle of Xuan Loc had abandoned the city. It was now firmly under North Vietnamese control. The last obstacle to the siege of Saigon was removed. I described that series of events in Last of the Annamese:

“Wednesday morning, Chuck learned from a Liberation Radio transcript that the explosion had been the mammoth ammo dump at Bien Hoa, less than eighteen miles northeast of them. Friendly after-action reports confirmed that enemy sappers had penetrated the perimeter. The airbase, the largest still in the hands of the South Vietnamese, had been hit the day before with rockets and artillery, and the runway had been closed for repairs. Meanwhile, the defense of Xuan Loc was over. Withdrawal had begun. The enemy’s pincers were closing.”

Xuan Loc (4)

As the fall of Saigon came closer, I worked harder to assure that none of my people or their families would be caught in the city after the North Vietnamese seized it. After my wife and four children were evacuated, I moved from our villa to my office and slept on a cot in front to of my desk with a .38 revolver under my pillow.

I was somehow becoming inured to lack of rest, and my emotional reaction to the disasters surrounding me became muted as I gave all my attention and strength to getting my people who were still in Saigon out of the country. As reported in Last of the Annamese:

“The North Vietnamese had turned the Xuan Loc battle into a meat grinder. They were willing to sacrifice unit after unit to drive out the South Vietnamese 18th Division and seize the town. Somehow the endless reports of gore and annihilation no longer moved [the novel’s protagonist] Chuck. Was there such a thing as disaster fatigue?”

Fellow writer Bruce Curley assures me there is such a thing. The human psyche is able to sublimate physical and psychological needs into strength to achieve a higher goal. I honestly believe that I am living evidence of that human capability.

Xuan Loc fell to the communists on 21 April 1975, but skirmishes on the city’s perimeter continued.

More tomorrow.