2S SAPPER ATTACK

The Sapper attack on June 16, 1969, turned out to be the climax of my Vietnam adventure and my time in the Army. It gave me the opportunity to prove myself in combat, whether or not I had what it took to lead men in combat, as well as the courage to face an enemy and defeat him. It turned out that all the months of reinforcing the mountain defenses and training of the Reaction Team had paid off. The Viet Cong may have breached our perimeter, but my team stopped them before any serious damage was done to the mountain signal equipment. Listed below is a summary of the events that took place on the day of the attack.
The months leading up to the Sapper attack on Nui Ba Den were full of repetitive, uneventful days. The perimeter had been quiet, and enemy probing was minor. Even the sensor fields I had placed around the perimeter showed no unusual activity. This quietness had started to bother me, and I wished we had had the soldiers to set up listening posts or send out an occasional patrol. As important as the relay site was, it made no sense to let the enemy get close to the perimeter and analyze our defenses. Major Campbell tried to get approval for patrols, but someone up the chain of command, in their “infinite wisdom,” always denied the requests.
On this day, the weather was perfect; I was up at 7:00 a.m. and instead of taking my usual route to the mess hall, I took a detour and headed to the northern perimeter to do a quick spot-check of the bunker line. The north side bunkers were always quiet, with little enemy probing, and that bothered me; was this done intentionally? On this inspection, I talked to the men concerning the defenses and whether they had any recommendations to make the perimeter stronger. After spending an hour with them, I left, satisfied that the defenses were adequate, and the men were alert and ready for any attack. My only advice for Major Campbell was to schedule more random fire missions along the northern perimeter to keep the Viet Cong guessing about our strengths and weaknesses.
When I arrived at the mess hall, Major Campbell was just beginning his morning briefing with the three platoon leaders. Typically, the meetings covered everything significant that had occurred during the previous 24 hours. Those daily meetings enhanced our security, as they kept all the officers informed about what was happening along our entire bunker line. Each lieutenant had six bunkers assigned to him and reported directly to Major Campbell. Even though I had the title of Executive Officer for the infantry company, my dual jobs prevented me from being in the chain of command for the lieutenants. They reported directly to the major, and I would only interface with them if Major Campbell were seriously injured or killed. That would force me to assume control of the entire mountain.
After the meeting, I walked with Major Campbell back to the command bunker and briefed him on the status of the northern perimeter and the progress I was making on my other security projects. (17 hours before the attack.)
The Viet Cong owned 95% of Nui Ba Den, and any weaknesses on our part could cost us our lives. When the mountain was attacked in 1968, complacency and boredom had taken the lives of 25 of our soldiers, while another 20 men were seriously wounded. I was assigned to the mountaintop a year after the slaughter. In the time before I arrived, the entire perimeter was rebuilt and strengthened. Unfortunately, the human element never changes, and before long the complacency and boredom which helped the Viet Cong the previous year had returned. On Nui Ba Den, there was no place to run; your life totally depended on keeping the enemy from breaching the perimeter to kill you.
After leaving Major Campbell, I did a quick inspection of my three recently obtained .50 caliber machine guns that I had placed behind the western and southern bunkers. The weapons were to be used only during a major attack and only if the bunker line had been overrun. I got the idea of a secondary line of defense from my visits to the Special Forces A camps during my first three months in country. The guns were kept camouflaged and staffed by two men from the bunker line. I also placed another .50 caliber to cover the southern boulder field. The placement of the three machine guns was not authorized by anyone in my command; I took it upon myself that they would strengthen our defenses and I ordered them from the 1st Brigade. The M-2 machine guns were a formidable addition to our security, and their fields of fire could easily cover five bunkers apiece. If the Viet Cong attacked en masse, we had a surprise waiting for them.
Next, I headed to bunker six to meet Sergeant Meyers and Corporal White to discuss our herbicide project. Earlier in the week I had Sergeant Meyers detail men to spray the western perimeter with weed killer, and today I wanted to see what effect the chemical had had on the vegetation. What I discovered were wilted and dying plants covering the entire western perimeter. No longer could the Viet Cong use the foliage as camouflage. Our enemy was smart, and I would like to think that when they saw 50% of their camouflage disappear in a little over 36 hours, they thought twice and altered their tactics: starting the attack earlier than originally planned or with fewer men.
The Sapper attack was doomed to failure even before it started, since the Sappers failed to consider the effect that our Reaction Force would have on them. In the 1968 attack, there was no Reaction Force to contend with, and once the Viet Cong penetrated the perimeter, they were unstoppable. They killed everyone they found and destroyed signal equipment as they swept across the mountain, blowing up one bunker after another. After the massacre, the Viet Cong gathered their wounded and dead before fading back into the mountainside. That single attack had completely disrupted all the radio communications in III Corp, and only God knows the number of soldiers killed due to the communication outage. With the success of our week-long eradication project, I decided to postpone any further spraying until we helped the Army Engineers complete the perimeter lighting project.
Another high priority project of mine was to illuminate the western perimeter with high pressure sodium lighting. The boulder fields were impossible to prevent infiltration using just tangle foot and concertina wire. The Sappers were so proficient in infiltrating a perimeter that their blackened greased bodies could slip through the barbed wire without making a sound. To stop our enemy, we needed to see our enemy. As important as this project was to the security of the mountaintop, I was having difficulty getting the necessary lighting equipment. I was told the light fixtures were not available through normal supply channels, and they could not be ordered. This was pure bullshit! All the major base camps had lighting along their perimeters. Major Campbell saved the project by calling in some favors, and within a week he had obtained the telephone poles and enough copper wiring to light up six bunkers. Now all we needed were light fixtures and bulbs. Normally I would not tackle a project like this until I had all the materials that were needed to complete the job, but this project was different and special to me. Nui Ba Den was critical to the US mission, as all the Army units in III Corp depended on the site to relay their radio messages. Without this site, combat units in the field would not be able to get immediate fire support or a medevac for the wounded. It was overwhelming to me that the perimeter was not lit properly and nobody in my chain of command seemed to be concerned. The Army was so regimented that nobody would take the initiative to try something new unless they had orders from above. That was not how I worked on Nui Ba Den; up on the mountain I did everything I could think of to kill my enemy while keeping my men safe. I was determined to complete the lighting project and I was not going to leave the mountain before the western perimeter was lit up. The 18 unique signal units on the mountain gave me an unbelievable edge that other Army units did not have in Vietnam—a security alliance—and through these various units I scrounged my six light fixtures along with their bulbs. The fixtures all looked used, so I knew they were “borrowed” from the various base camps in III Corp. Around 4:00 p.m. we finished running the last of the electric cables and now it was up to the engineers to finish the job. (Two days after the Sapper attack, the engineers completed the generator connections.) I often think that if the lighting could have been completed before the attack, it is possible the attack might never have happened. When the lighting was finally turned on, it made the western perimeter look like daylight. Those lights at once turned our most dangerous perimeter into the safest one on the mountain (9 1/2 hours until attack).Around 5:30 p.m., I met Sgt. Meyers in the Fire Direction Center (FDC) Bunker. He informed me that the 1st Brigade had finally given us permission to call in a fire mission on a moving light that I had been tracking. We went over my target and artillery options and then plotted two other areas where the enemy troops might run to once the artillery barrage started. I always wanted a backup plan in case a target of opportunity came into view; he assured me that someone would be awake in the FDC all night. I made my way back to my bunker and waited for nightfall. Around 11:00 p.m., I climbed the pagoda stairs and set up my Starlight Scope and waited for my target to show up. The nighttime view from the mountaintop was spectacular and, occasionally, a slow-moving cloud would envelop me in whiteness. When this happened, all I could do was ride the cloud out and keep warm.
My target showed up right on schedule and was moving northeast from the mountain. The light must have been mounted on a vehicle, as it never varied from its track and its brightness was constant. I could not help but wonder what was following that light—was it a 10-man squad, or a 60-man company, even a vehicle convoy? I continued to track the light for an additional 20 minutes before I called in the fire mission (See Nui Ba Den Fire Mission).
I left the tower around 1:30 a.m. and as I was making my way back to my bunker, I heard a burst of AK-47 fire coming from somewhere behind me and near the pagoda. (I did not know this until after the attack but as I was going down the pagoda steps, two Sappers were under them assembling their satchel charges; in that instant, they could have easily killed me (The day after the attack, I found seven small satchel charges and an assortment of Russian and Chinese grenades under the steps). I had a habit of running down steps when I was young, and the sounds of a 180-pound soldier running down those wooden steps might have startled the Sappers so that by the time they realized what was happening, I was already out of sight. The burst of enemy AK fire that I had heard could have been from the Sappers under the stairs shooting at me, but at the time, I did not even know they were there, so I thought the gunfire was coming from a different direction. That first burst from the enemy’s guns was loud enough to cause the western bunker line to come alive, and soon after, every weapon on the mountain began firing into the unknown.
The noise from our weapons was so intense that I initially thought the whole mountain was being overrun. I sensed the urgency of the situation and raced back to the command bunker. Bullets were ricocheting everywhere and to make it back, I was forced to crawl at times while navigating through the open areas. I arrived at the command bunker just as Major Campbell was notifying the bunker line that we were under a mortar attack, and for everyone to stay under shelter until the shelling stopped (It was later estimated that the Viet Cong fired 40 82mm mortar rounds into our perimeter during the attack and they had attacked a total of three different sectors of the perimeter that night).
Around 1:40 a.m., Sergeant Meyers stumbled into the command bunker, covered in blood and informed us that Sappers had breached the western perimeter and were blowing up bunkers. This news completely changed our strategy—it went from a possible enemy probing to a full-blown attack. After the mortar barrage ended, we began to hear explosions caused by enemy satchel charges, loud but muffled explosions due to the satchel charges being thrown into bunkers. I checked the command bunker alarm system, and all the lights were lit except Bunker 7. I suspected that Bunker 7 had been destroyed, and the men staffing it killed. With Sappers now inside the perimeter, they could go from bunker to bunker, killing everyone in their path.
Sergeant Meyers, Major Campbell, and I had a quick strategy meeting and we decided that the two of them would coordinate the defensive fire missions, and I would get my Reaction Force together and try to kill the Sappers before they destroyed our signal site.
As I was gathering my combat gear, I did a quick mental check of what I was taking with me: an M-16 rifle with 30 fully loaded magazines, three fragmentation grenades, my .45 caliber pistol cocked and locked, a flashlight, and a radio set tuned to our company frequency (in my rush, I forgot my smoke and white phosphorus grenades). After chambering a round in my M-16, I set the switch to full auto and slowly made my way into the darkness. My pucker factor* was high.
My first stop was the pagoda to make sure all the radio systems were still in operation. The pagoda door was barricaded from the inside and the men yelled to me that they were ok and that all the communication systems were still operational. Now that I was sure all our radios were still operational, I went hunting for my team. The instant I stepped off the pagoda porch, there was a tremendous explosion coming from the left side of the pagoda. The concussion picked up my body and threw me across the walkway, nearly hitting a large boulder. When I opened my eyes, everything was a blur, and at that instant, fear was starting to grip my body; I felt vulnerable and alone. I knew that I had to find my Reaction Team before the Viet Cong found me. I crawled my way towards the A-324 Special Forces bunker and, halfway there, I found four members of my team waiting for me. I was short two thirds of my team, but I was not going to waste time tracking them down. The four signal men that had shown up were all good men and I felt confident we could accomplish our mission. After a quick meeting, we determined the enemy fire was coming from the area around Bunkers 6 and 7, and that should be our priority. I informed the major what was happening, and he warned us about having poor communications with the bunker line and to approach it with caution, as everyone was now quite trigger happy.
The quickest way to the bunkers was to cross the helicopter pad, but that approach was too risky; there was no cover and with all the flares going off, the Viet Cong would have killed us the second we stepped onto the pad. I decided that the safest maneuver would be double flanking. I told the command bunker to try and warn all the western bunkers to look out for us and to not open fire inside the perimeter unless they could positively identify their target. I took one man with me, and we headed south around the helicopter pad. The remaining three men I sent north, and we agreed to meet at Bunker 7. If that plan did not work out due to an ambush, I told the men to get to the nearest bunker and help with its defense.
Every time a flare was sent up, we would freeze in our tracks and then only move again when darkness returned, usually every two minutes. The flares created hundreds of eerie shadows due to the boulder fields; we could not tell whether we were chasing shadows or the enemy, and it caused us to be overly cautious. Every step we took changed the shapes of the shadows, and on two occasions, I fired at shadows caused by the flares. As we moved towards the bunker line, I took the lead and intentionally stayed off the regular paths that we normally used to move around the mountain. Every boulder was a potential ambush site. As I approached each boulder, I put my body into a squat and kept my finger tightly on the trigger of my M-16, expecting a Viet Cong Sapper behind every rock. I was not so much scared as totally fatigued, even with an unbelievable adrenaline rush.
As we approached the bunker line, we saw three enemy Sappers moving among the boulders, but their proximity to the bunker line prevented us from firing on them. I had no way of warning the bunkers, and was glad when the Sappers disappeared amongst the boulders without blowing anything up.
The 1st Brigade, 25th Infantry Division was the first to respond to the attack, sending “Spooky,” the gunship, to fly continuously around our perimeter, firing its gatling guns. The fire bases were also pounding the sides of the mountain with 105 and 155-mm artillery rounds, while three sorties of B-52 bombers pounded the western slopes with 1,000-lb. bombs. The explosions from our ordinance went on for over two hours, turning the sky into daylight. The amount of supporting fire was unbelievable, the entire mountaintop was shaking, and the ground looked like it was moving. Boulders were rolling down the mountainside; bunkers had shifted on their foundations. The noise and the shock waves were so intense that I was more afraid of dying from friendly fire than from the Viet Cong. When I dared to get a better look at the perimeter, I could see thousands of white flashes as bullets ricocheted off the boulders along our bunker line. The overlapping sounds of the exploding ordnance and machine gun fire sent a chill down my spine as I was beginning to think that the mountain was in the process of being overrun by the enemy.
We slowly kept moving while all this ordinance was going off, and only stopped when I found our first casualty. Sergeant Hughes, the Air Force generator mechanic, whom I had brought to the mountain the previous day, was leaning against a boulder with three bullet holes in his chest. The bunker he had been in had been destroyed by a satchel charge. He had made it out of the bunker before the explosion but had the misfortune of running into Sappers.
As we approached the bunker line, it became evident that the Sappers had breached our perimeter near Bunker 7. The Sappers destroyed the upper part of the bunker with rocket propelled grenades, killing two more of our men. I had my men form a defensive line, spreading themselves across the width of the bunker’s zone of fire, and then I went to make sure the two men were dead. Corporal Bender was leaning against one of the support posts in the upper bunker with the left half of his face missing. The other soldier was lying face down in the mud with a small trail of his blood running down the mountainside. I thought this soldier was also dead, so I started to crawl back to my men and was halfway there when I stopped and turned around, facing the soldier. I could not leave him without knowing whether he was still alive. I crawled back and felt under his entire body, feeling for a booby trap, then rolled him over and saw where he had been shot in his forehead, his eyes still open. I did not recognize the soldier’s face, so I looked at his blood-soaked shirt and found his name tag and tried to make out his name using the light from the falling flares. I still could not see, so I did something stupid. I used my flashlight with my hands cupped around the lens. I could make out the letter W and then HITE. I screamed, “NO, THEY KILLED MARVIN!!” so loud that my team at once started shooting into the darkness. One of my men, not having heard me, thought I had been shot, and panicked. My sudden movement must have looked like somebody shot me because two of my men later told me I scared the crap out of them because of the way I was moving. For at least five minutes, total depression set in, and I lay on my side and just stared at Marvin’s face. What was he doing away from his bunker? Empty shell casings were all around his body, but no rifle or helmet. It was not fair; all he did to help secure the perimeter and he gets killed in the end. It just proves what I have always thought about combat: no matter if you are a Green Beret or a cook in the mess hall, death is random in combat. If you happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, you will die; it is as simple as that (See my letter to Marvin’s family). I do not remember how long I stayed with Marvin, but one of my men got worried about my safety and started pulling on my leg. I closed Marvin’s eyes and slowly crawled back to the team. With all the shooting still going on around the perimeter, I was having thoughts about the other side of the mountain having been overrun. If that were true, it would not be long before the Viet Cong attacked our side of the mountain in force. To add to my stress, my radio stopped working, and nothing I tried would bring it back to life.
When the radio gave out, my team and I were now on our own, with no backup. I had decided we would stay at Bunker 7 and secure the perimeter until we were relieved in the morning or until the Viet Cong breached the perimeter, whichever came first. Either way, we were not going anywhere, and I had my men do an ammo check and then we divided our ammo equally amongst ourselves. I found a firing position between two small boulders and got as comfortable as possible in anticipation of the enemy attack. Within minutes, the gunner in Bunker 6 spotted three Viet Cong in front of my position moving in and out of the boulders. He opened fire with his M-60 while another soldier in the same bunker threw a phosphorus grenade at the enemy. The grenade landed near us and blew a plume of white phosphorus over our heads, barely missing us. I was so angry, I jumped up screaming at the two soldiers to stop throwing the grenades; when they did not hear me, I pointed my M-16 at their bunker and fired, fully automatic, into the side of their bunker until I got their attention. They waved back at me and pointed to my men to show that they saw them. Five minutes later, the same soldier, using hand signals, showed me where the Viet Cong were hiding in front of my position, but out of my view. I signaled my men to keep their heads down and then tossed two grenades at the enemy. As soon as the grenades exploded, I took two of my men and we rushed the enemy’s position, firing our weapons on fully automatic until each of us had spent three magazines. After that, the perimeter went quiet, and we settled back into our defensive positions, anticipating a major attack at any moment.
At sunrise, I could see our soldiers moving down to the perimeter to reinforce the bunker line and relieve us. When we saw our men arriving, none of us would get up from our firing positions until we had assurances that the perimeter was secure. Our bodies were absolutely fatigued, and our uniforms were soaked with perspiration and mud from crawling around all night in the red soil. Total exhaustion had set in, and we could barely walk up the mountain. I gathered the team together and thanked them for saving my life and other lives on the mountain. I gave the men time off, but they were more interested in eating a big breakfast, so when Sergeant Meyers caught up to us, I had him contact the mess hall and inform them that the Reaction Team was coming in for a big breakfast and to start cooking extra food.
As we were walking up the steep incline towards the mess hall, men were coming down to greet us. It really made us feel good to know we were appreciated. By the time we reached the mess hall, over 30 men had gathered around my team. It reminded me of a high school basketball team who had just scored the winning point. It did not matter to our new fans that we were filthy; they picked up my team, held them high in the air, and then carried them into the mess hall. I have never seen so many smiling faces in my life.
The one question I am repeatedly asked about the attack is what made me do it? Why did I leave the relative safety of my bunker to head into the unknown and my own death? I always give the same answer. It was my Reaction Team and I knew the consequences if my team failed to kill the Sappers that night. The previous year, the Viet Cong killed everyone they found. Why would the outcome have been any different this time?
The Sapper attack had taken the lives of four US service members: three Army and one Air Force. We also had twelve men seriously wounded, mostly from shrapnel.
The Reaction Team in their sweep killed two Sappers and an unknown number of the enemy were killed or wounded at the perimeter. We sent a patrol out later in the day, but all they discovered were blood trails leading away from Bunker 7. No enemy bodies were found, as the Viet Cong usually took their dead with them whenever possible.
The good news was not a single Army unit in III Corp had lost communications that night, and I can only guess the amount of American and Vietnamese lives that were saved because of this.

The addition of the western perimeter lighting and herbicide used around the remaining perimeter convinced the Viet Cong not to attack the mountain again until after the United States turned the site over to the Vietnamese in 1972. My mission on Nui Ba Den was complete, and on October 15, I was reassigned to Tay Ninh Base Camp. My new job had me working as the assistant to the 1st Brigade Signal Officer. The job was not challenging, but it offered me some nice benefits: two hot meals a day and a huge, well-fortified underground bunker. I left Vietnam on January 5, 1970, with all my body parts and no serious wounds. What I did lose was body weight: I arrived in Vietnam weighing 180 lbs. and I left the country at 155.
The adventure was over, and I was going home.

*Pucker Factor – When stress causes one’s ass to tighten up, preventing any bowel movement.