George Buck – B Battery XO – Part Five
The Art and Science of Forward Observing
After that first operation as an FO involving the bamboo pit viper and the papa san, I went on long operations lasting from a week to ten days, and on others that were only one day sweeps. I was never sure who was picking these assignments for me or where they came from, but I figured I must have had a “handler” of some kind because I got my orders in some strange ways – a helicopter pilot telling me after an operation that I was going right back out with another unit, so stay with the choppers. Or maybe to move to another part of the Central Highlands to meet up with an Australian group. Or down to the coast to meet up with a Korean unit. And I had to find my own way to these new assignments by hitch-hiking on choppers, fixed wings or convoys.
I can’t remember all my missions but there were common themes that differentiated what I did versus most FOs. First, when I was out with non-U.S. units we were very careful and deliberate in how we approached reconnaissance missions. We were not large units and we would quickly be on the defensive if we bumped into a large NVA force (North Vietnamese Army). Further, I always worried about the Montagnards or the South Vietnamese bolting on us and leaving us with no infantry protection.
So one of my habits early in an operation was to find a reason to do recon-by-fire on a suspected ambush point. (Dropping artillery on a site as a precaution). If we had been encountering enemy trail watchers it gave us an added measure of offensive security, and it instilled confidence in the Montagnards and the Vietnamese that we would have immediate superiority over a larger NVA force. Seeing our firepower toughened them up and kept them inclined to hold their positions.
The theoretical downside to recon-by-fire was that it announced our presence to the enemy. But that is what the enemy trail watchers were there to do anyway, and besides, you didn’t move fifty men through triple canopy jungle unannounced for very long. So it was well worth the risk. I used recon-by-fire a lot and it must have worked because I was never ambushed by an enemy force on any of my operations, excepting the occasional rifle shot from a trail watcher. But it took a lot of map reading, trail analysis, and collaboration with the Montagnard commanding officer, his men and the whole team to determine when to do this.
A switchback was an excellent location for an enemy ambush, especially for convoys moving up hill.
Road switchbacks(lower left) into Central Highlands
Winding roads into the Central Highlands
The vehicles had to go slow on these roads, and they slowed even more to make the ninety degree turn in the switchbacks. Once through the turn they gained speed going uphill, which separated the vehicles. An ambush here allowed the enemy to sever the convoy and concentrate an attack on either or both ends. To make matters worse the uphill slope of the road had contours that prevented the convoy from returning effective fire. When I escorted convoys with my Duster platoon or with quad 50s I put them in the middle of the convoy so that any ambush had my heavy guns facing right at the enemy.
Setting up for the night a typical night position would be one that was easy to defend, such as high ground with steep slopes and limited approaches to our position. However these sites were also easy mortar targets. So I would often pick non-typical spots for the night, like the side of a steep slope going into a ravine. Such locations were hard to hit with mortars, and also hard for the enemy to find. Then before moving in I would plot target coordinates around us so I had immediate targets to call in when it was dark and confusing.
All that said, we did have lots of firefights and some pretty heavy engagements. But none lasted more than a few hours, and they were all initiated by us, not from an ambush.
Maybe the most important aspect of my FO operations was that we were left alone by my battalion chain of command. There were no field grade officers (majors and colonels) flying around above us telling us to move along, speed it up, take that hill, etc. And the units I was out with, either non-U.S. forces or Special Forces, had their own chains of command that did not have authority over my Dusters, or if they did I didn’t pay attention. On the rare occasion when a chopper showed up with an officer who wanted to get involved I would inform his chopper pilot he was on my gun-target line and I was about to shoot high explosive and white phosphorous rounds, so he better move. That usually cleared the skies.
Guns
I remember fondly my time with the Australians. I met the unit down in Phan Thiet at an open field along the beach. Their captain was a veteran of many conflicts starting with Korea. He had one sergeant and one warrant officer. They called the tall sergeant Legs and nicknamed me Guns, after busting my chops about being a first lieutenant and still an FO. I got that ball-busting more than a few times from them.
We took a Montagnard unit led by the Aussies up to Dalat, which was an off-limits city with little to no U.S. presence. The night before the operation kicked off we stayed in an old French Villa occupied by U.S. Covert Operations. All together it was like the bar scene in Star Wars: a bunch of spooks, mercenaries, tribal warriors and Aussies. The next day we moved out on foot to recon the area around the city looking for any sign of enemy presence. The operation lasted about a week and we experienced little activity other than the few prisoners we took and potshots from trail watchers.
The highlight of the operation occurred at night during a downpour. I heard a mortar tube go off and the round hit somewhere towards Dalat. By luck I had targeted and pre-shot coordinates in the area where the mortar tube was heard, and I had it logged in with the nearby artillery fire direction control. Without ever leaving the hammock I reached back for the handset and called in a mission on that target number. In came the rounds and that was the last we heard of the mortars. The Australian captain liked that a lot, and now I was part of the team. Every FO was an outsider until he did something good for the team. You had to prove yourself with every new unit you went out with.
More Montagnard Memories
My next few operations were with U.S. Special Forces and the Montagnards. The Montagnards were an interesting group. One highlight I remember, we ran into a South Vietnamese unit and a firefight broke out between them and our Montagnards, who hated each other. It took a half hour to get them to stop shooting at each other, somehow without casualties. Another was when we bumped into a group of tree apes and the Montagnards shot one out of the tree. We immediately stopped for the day, and the Montagnards built a fire and cooked the poor thing. I ate C rations. Then later we went through a Vietnamese village, and by the time we got through it most every Montagnard had broken ranks to catch a chicken for the pot.
Orders Are Orders
There are more operations, but I’ll skip to the last one, which is almost as bad as my first with the ARVN commanding officer who wanted me to blow up a papa san.
I get orders to leave Dalat and go over to the coast north of Qui Nhon to a spot controlled by a Korean division. I arrive at this little firebase in a beautiful coastal location where there is a U.S. artillery battery and a headquarters commanded by a Korean colonel. It’s like R&R – hot food, a shower, no mortars, no snipers, no attacks, and very little enemy activity. Seriously, this is nice.
A few days go by and the Korean colonel wants to run a day sweep up into the foothills at the back side of an expansive rice paddy complex. We get rations and supplies for a few days in case we got into something big and have an extended engagement. I meet the company commanding officer, a Korean captain and his other officers. Then we have a briefing with the colonel’s staff, the artillery commanding officer and other participants. It all seems to be fairly well organized. The Koreans have a reputation of being a no nonsense group so I am not expecting much to go wrong.
We load up on trucks and head out a dirt road to an area that gives us close access to a trail complex that goes up into the mountains and is obviously an enemy supply line. In the heart of the Central Highlands a trail complex like this might belong to a Montagnard village to cut wood for their charcoal kilns. But here along the coast there are no Montagnards, and the Vietnamese do not go up into the hills unless they are part of an enemy supply operation. So this is a high probability enemy trail.
We get off of the trucks, form up in a dispersed column and head for the base of the hills, where we find signs of enemy activity. Immediately the Korean captain starts giving out orders, which I don’t understand, and off they move to the side of the hill, not up the hill. I stop the captain and ask what is going on. He gives me some BS about, No activity here so we have to move down the valley to find some. At which I tell him I have to make some calls on the radio. I call my artillery fire direction control and tell them the plan has been changed and that nothing gets shot unless it comes from me. I tell them there are plenty of enemy signs, but for some reason the commanding officer is changing the plan. For the rest of the day we do nothing but move slowly down the valley, stopping often to “check things out,” basically wasting the day and not going up into the hills looking for enemy activity like we were ordered. I come to the conclusion that my Korean captain saw too much enemy activity at the first spot and simply lost his nerve. All along I am sending situation reports back to our fire direction control which, it turns out, the Korean colonel is monitoring from basecamp.
Finally we head into a small village out in the rice paddies for our scheduled pickup, but now from the wrong direction based upon the original plan. I tell the Korean captain this is not going to be good. When we get to the village there is the Korean colonel waiting for us. One of his staff comes up and signals for me and my RTO to come forward. I salute the colonel and he thanks me for my honest reports and apologizes for the poor performance of his officers. He instructs me and my RTO to take a jeep and head back to the basecamp. As we are leaving all I can hear is a lot of screaming and yelling. I never saw the Korean captain again, maybe because he left the village in a body bag.
Lieutenant Buck is joking about the body bag but not by much. The Koreans were famous for ruthless tenacity in battle, and within their own ranks for brutal discipline that often featured a public beating.
