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Before I tell you about Dak To let me tell you a few
words about myself. I joined the Army in
1959 at the age of 19.
I volunteer for Airborne training and was assigned to the
82nd Abn Div. During the first seven years in the Army I was stationed in Ft
Bragg, NC did a tour of duty in Germany with an Airborne unit, and return to
the 82nd. In 1966 while stationed at Ft Bragg I received orders for assignment
to the 1st Bde, 101st Abn Div in South Vietnam.
Sometime in mid April I arrived at Phang Rang, home of
the 1st Bde, which I did not see again until I went on R&R six months
later. Days later I was put on a Huey which took me to Phan Thiet where Charlie
Co was operating. There I met 1SG Sabalauski, at the time he was 55 years young
and a hell of a soldier. I also met the company commander, Cpt Carpenter, and
Bn CDR, LTC Emerson. I was surprise to see Emerson, we recognize each other, he
was my BN CDR back in Ft Bragg. The Battalion was known as the “Black T-shirt
Bn”. I finally joined my Plt and became
the Sqd Ldr of the 2nd Sqd. My Plt was the Weapons Plt, 81 mm Mortar, but we
hardly ever acted as a Weapons Plt, almost all the time we acted as a regular
Rifle Plt.
We were designated as the 4th Plt.
During the next five weeks we went on numerous operations
and contact with the enemy was minimal. We had some scrimmages with small size
units or small groups of VC; everything was in our favor. Let me tell you what
happened to me on my very first mission with Charlie Co. Today I think of it as
a joke but at the time it was no joke. As you know, almost every time the first
group of choppers gets close to the LZ, the Machine gunners on both sides or
the flank side, open up with machine gun fire. Well, I was in the first group
and I was sitting by the door feet out ready to jump of the Huey. As the
choppers approach the LZ at tree top level the Machine gunners open up, the
expended cartridges were hitting me in the helmet making a tapping noise. Some
of the cartridges went inside my shirt and as you know they are as hot as an
iron. The burning sensation on my chest and stomach made me believe that I was
shot. My heart was beating faster than the machine was spitting out bullets and
my ass hole was tight. It took me a few seconds to realize what was taking
place. The chopper did not landed, he just hover and when I jump I landed like
a ton of shit.
A BALL OF FIRE........In late May or very early June,
Charlie Co arrived at Dak To. I believe the place was a Special Forces camp
with a runway long enough for a C-130 to land and take off, we got there on a
C-130. Dak To is on the central highlands of Vietnam about twenty miles east of
the three-border point made up of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. From the base
camp we can see that the area is loaded with high mountains and jungle type
terrain as far as you can see. In that type of terrain a lot of the times you
can not see the sky, visibility on the ground is bad and movement is very slow.
We were there for a few days setting up camp and just
before daybreak on June 6th we loaded the choppers and headed for the LZ. For
us this was the beginning of Operation Hawthorne, we landed and nobody was
there to greet us. We were looking for the same guy who was looking for us and
both sides wanted to do bodly harm to each other. For the next two or three
days Charlie Co moved from one area of interest to another. Every day the lead
element was making contact with NVA soldiers in very small groups, one to three
men. The enemy was spotted first and killed on the spot. On June 9th the
Company stopped at the top of a small hill to take a break and eat, the time
was about 11:30-12:00. We were there for about thirty minutes. After the rest
period, the Co moved in a single file down the hill. In the lead was the First
Plt, followed by the HQ element. Behind was the Third Plt and bringing the rear
was the Fourth Plt. The Second Plt was not with us (they were on a separate
mission). At that point we had approximately 100 men with us, maybe a few more
at the most. I was in the Fourth Plt and my spot in the formation was at the
rear, there were two men behind me.
As we got to the bottom of the hill, we crossed a stream
and started to go up another hill. The hill we were going up was hill 1073.
Again close to the stream the lead element spotted and killed a few more NVA
soldiers in khaki uniform. The vegetation was thick and the bamboo thicket made
the movement real slow. At about 2:00 in the afternoon half way up the hill I
heard small arms fire coming from my front. Right away I knew that we were in
something big and serious. The volume of fire increased and now I could hear
the sounds of automatic weapons. Up to this point in Operation Hawthorne I have
not fire my weapon. Our Plt was told to move forward and come to the right of
the First Plt who was in the lead. The Third Plt was to move to the left of the
lead element. My Plt had traveled about 100 meters when we came under heavy
enemy fire and now we are engaged.
They came to us with everything they had, including
50-cal machine guns. We immediately returnedfire with every weapon we had. At
this point you only react to the situation, you don’t know what you just did,
you just do what needs to be done to survive. We began to receive casualties. I
have never been in a situation like this before. One of my men, three meters on
my left was wounded, two of us moved him to a safer area behind us, there I saw
two other members of the Plt who were wounded. The incoming and outgoing fire
was so heavy that you could see bamboo falling like toothpicks. The battle
was mano a mano, toe to toe. They were
receiving casualties too. We knew where they were and they knew where we were.
It is very hard to describe in detail everything that was taking place. We were
somewhat pinned down, they were firing from better positions and we were in the
open. One of my concerns was that we could run out of ammo.
About twenty minutes have gone by since the first shot was
fired, when I heard the sound of jet aircraft flying overhead. A few minutes
later I saw this big BALL OF FIRE. It landed on the edge of the company line
and rolled in the direction where the enemy was, I felt the heat. The strike
stopped the incoming fire for a few minutes, which allowed the company to
regroup, get organized again and formed a perimeter from which to defend. The
perimeter was very small, maybe less than half of a football field. We had to
leave, outside the perimeter three or four members of Charlie Co who we knew
were killed and some equipment. Once things settled down we started counting
heads to find out who was killed, wounded, or missing. I started looking for
the member of my squad who was wounded at the very beginning but could not find
him.
Today, not then, I can say that for all practical purpose
the heavy part of the battle ended when the Napalm landed. Now the mission was
to get out of there with our dead and wounded. Of the hundred or so that the Co
had, about thirty-five were wounded and twelve killed or missing. The number of
those of us who were not wounded was not enough to carry the wounded and killed
out of that location. We had to stay there, defend at all cost and wait for
help. I will not describe in detail the condition of the wounded but I can tell
you that some of the men were burned with the Napalm strike, and I saw blisters
the size of a baseball. We were in the monsoon season and it started to rain
heavy, making everything more miserable. The holes we dug created mud because
the ground was clay. The enemy tried to probe our positions on numerous
occasions but we responded and they retreated. During the night just about
every hour they fired mortar rounds into our position. The rounds landed close, some within fifty
meters of the perimeter, but none landed inside. You could hear the round
coming out of the mortar tube and you had no idea where it was going to land.
Company A was ordered to come to our position and help us
get out. Sometime past midnight A Co walked into our position, the perimeter
was made bigger and at that time I had no doubt that we were going to get out
of there. The following morning some of us went outside the perimeter to
recover the dead and the equipment left behind. In the process we recovered
some equipment, one or two of the dead, but we lost, KIA, another soldier. We
stayed at that location for another day, maybe because the LZ that we were
going to was not secured. On June 11th
we walked out with our wounded and dead to a location where some Chinooks were
waiting for us. The press was there. We loaded the dead and wounded into the
Chinook, after that we walked about a mile to an LZ ,got picked up by Huyes who
took us home. Once everyone was out of the area, B-52s came in and saturated
the area.
After the B-52s strike the area; we went back mainly to
recover the bodies of the three men we left behind. As you know, we try very
hard to never leave anyone behind even if we lose another man in the process.
We followed the smell of death and it took us to the area. We located the three
bodies and at the same time took a look around the area. The enemy was no
longer there; we saw many dead NVA soldiers in the open and some in shallow
graves. We returned to our home base and for us Operation Hawthorne ended.
1SG Sabalauski returned to the 2/502 a few years later to
be their Command Sergeant Major. He retired from the Army at the age of 62. The
101st AIR ASSAULT SCHOOL at Ft Campbell, KY was named after him.
Cpt Carpenter left Charlie Co soon after Operation
Hawthorne to become aide de camp to GEN Westmoreland. He later went on to
become a three star general.
LTC Emerson “Gunfighter” went on to become a three star
general. I saw him again at the end of 1966 while he was assigned at the Pentagon
and again in 1977 when he visited Ft Dix, NJ as Commander of 18th Airborne
Corp.
My opinion on the controversies surrounding Operation
Hawthorne:
I believe that the major reason why people disagree is
credit and recognition.
Charlie Co received most of the recognition by the fact
that they wrote
articles about the napalm strike in Life Magazine, Time
and Newsweek.
Did the napalm strike saved Charlie Co-----I’m sure that
Carpenter did not call for a Napalm strike, he call for air support AND the
only thing immediately available was those aircraft who happened to be flying
close by and only had Napalm with them. The strike stopped the battle and gave
us that needed time to regroup. If the strike did not happen,
I think that more of us would have been killed, some
become POW, some MIA, and some would have survived. YES, I BELIEVE THE DROP
SAVED THE BUTT OF THOSE WHO SURVIVE and some were killed because of it
including, PFC Edward Garcia, the member of my Squad, who was wounded at the
very beginning. I finally found him inside the perimeter on the first night
about 9:30 PM, he had blisters the size of a baseball. He died a few hours
later.
Just about every unit who participated in Operation
Hawthorne had it is own battle with the enemy and did well. They also deserve
credit and recognition. During Operation Hawthorne 48 men were KIA and 239 WIA.
used with permission of
George L. Mercado
C/2/502, 101st Abn Div
Strike Force
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