John Munnelly – The Father of the 5th – Part One

The Boys of Battery B

John Munnelly

Part One

Lt. Colonel John Munnelly

The 5th Battalion, home of B Battery, was in terrible shape when Lt. Colonel John Munnelly arrived in September of 1966 to take command.

He was no stranger to combat, having been one of the first to set foot in Korea in 1950, leading an engineering platoon all the way up to Pyongyang in the north, surviving 40 below temperatures and frozen C rations that had to be strapped to truck radiators to thaw, facing the entry of the Chinese into the war and leading his men south in retreat as part of a demoralized army, blowing up airfields as he went, and finally under General Ridgway turning and beating back the enemy to the 38th parallel. This hardened veteran was just what the 5th Battalion needed.

He lived among his troops. “People used to ask me were my headquarters was. I would tell them it’s where I drop my helmet at night.” He pauses for a moment and says, “I’m proud of that.”

If Ernie Dublisky was the father B Battery, John Munnelly must carry the distinction of the father of the 5th Battalion.

Comment on the photo from Colonel Munnelly:  “The 5/27 existed in rather primitive conditions. One day I saw a photo shop adjacent to the dirt road I was on. I went in and took this photo. I’m surprised at how clean I was that day. When I was a second lieutenant I was labeled ‘that baby faced lieutenant.’ I was 37 years old when the photo was taken. As I look at it now I see a youthful looking lieutenant colonel.”

The big problem when I took command was that most of the troops had transferred from the states to the battalion. They were in rags. I had guys with shoes that were almost falling apart. Boots – leather boots – no jungle boots. They had stateside fatigues that were in rags.

Before taking command I had written to the previous battalion commander and asked, “What’s your biggest problem?” I’m thinking ammo, I’m thinking gunnery, I’m thinking met data, I’m thinking survey. He wrote back his biggest problem was no ice. I was taken aback by that. I realized his problem was he was not running the battalion. He had neglected the battalion. It was so bad, these guys are running around with worn out fatigues, and worn out leather boots in Vietnam.

It got so bad I’m trying to do what I can to get new uniforms for these guys, new clothing. So I took my battalion supply sergeant, a truck and another guy, and sent them down to Cam Rahn Bay and told them, “You don’t come back without our stuff.” After that I kept a detachment at Cam Rahn Bay all the time, and they became very adept at using a clip board and a piece of paper, going into a warehouse and getting what they wanted. And that worked.

So my first task there was getting the guys into decent uniforms – and also getting sandbags. It took 25,000 sandbags to adequately prepare a battery. My motto was that had to be done the first day we occupied a position. We were constantly packing sandbags and building revetments. And I insisted on people being covered at night.

B Battery when I arrived was on a hillside, on top of a ridge, just west of Tuy Hoa. It was a barren place, I remember a lot of dust. There was an engineering company spread out on the lower part of the ridge. They would go out and do 12 hours of work and come back and they were on top of the ground. Our guys were covered. During a mortar attack the engineers took casualties and we didn’t. There was that much difference right away, and I think my people appreciated that. They were very good about doing what I wanted them to do to protect themselves as I felt they should be protected. I made it a point to do that. And I made it a point to ensure they were properly clothed and fed and with jungle boots instead of those old leather boots which didn’t work very well in the environment we were in.

The first visit I made as battalion commander was to B Battery.

Back in Tuy Hoa at battalion headquarters there was a softball game going on. And I’m wondering, Softball? Aren’t we in a war here? There was a lot of cheering and the ball game is proceeding under combat rules, meaning no rules at all. I’m listening to my radio and I hear, Fire mission, fire mission, got ‘em on the run now, add 50, fire for effect. I’m thinking, Wait a minute, this is going on and I’m at a softball tournament here. The fire mission is more important. I couldn’t believe it. B Battery was fighting the war and the rest of the battalion was not. Well without hurting anybody’s feelings, that was the last ball game we had at battalion, because now we started fighting the war and everybody’s involved in fighting the war, not softball. B Battery was doing its job. Everybody else is indifferent, had nothing to do with them. That had to change.

I went out to B Battery and walked in on Dublisky, the battery commander. I was used to seeing young captains, and he was not a young captain. I thought, How come you’re still a captain, captain? I learned later on that he was a mission guy. He wasn’t spit and polish. He was a guy who said, Let’s get the job done. Rounds on target in two minutes anytime day or night was his mantra. And 25,000 sandbags (the number needed to protect an artillery battery), get my guys taken care of.

Your kind of guy.

My kind of guy! Completely. We talked the same language.

Ernie was B Battery commander for three months when I arrived. At that time he was kind of old to be a captain. He’d been badly handled in the past and not allowed to really spread his wings as a leader, which he really was an effective one. Ernie had the capability. I think he had limitless possibility in the service. But he was a reserve officer, he was not regular army, as were every one of my officers except one or two. He had been passed over for major, and I gave him a blisteringly favorable efficiency report which got him promoted to major, and he went on to make lieutenant colonel as well.

Ernie gave B Battery the name of the Bravo Bulls.

Yeah he did. That stuck, did it?

B Battery was so good it did not take a lot of our time. I spent my time where there were problems. I did not have to worry about B battery. They were going to do everything right. I’m glad I thought of that, because it’s true. I had a lot of problems, but B Battery was not one of them.

Dublisky was responsible for setting the pace at B Battery. And it continued on.