Vietnam by Nigel Cawthorne Read Free Book Online Page B

itchy trigger fingers. They had been trained for aggressive action, not for defence, and had spent five frustrating months filling sandbags and patrolling the perimeter of the airbase. Plagued by mosquitoes, their fitful sleep in the hot oppressive air was disturbed by monkeys setting off trip flares or rattling the rock-filled beer cans that were hung in the wire to warn them of Vietcong infiltrating the base. Patrolling the hills to the west of the base provided little diversion. Loaded with heavy equipment, the Marines dropped like flies from heat exhaustion. Occasionally, they would catch a fleeting glimpse of a VC dressed in the traditional black pyjamas disappearing into the trees and, seemingly, vanishing into thin air. Morale was at rock bottom.
    'The Marine mission was to kill Vietcong,' said the Marine Corps General Wallace M. Greene. 'They can't do that by sitting on their ditty boxes'.
    Even inside the airbase they were taunted by the Vietcong. At 0130hrs on the morning of 1 July, a sentry was alerted by a noise down by the perimeter wire. He threw an illumination grenade, which brought down mortar fire from the VC. In the midst of the barrage, Vietcong sappers cut through the wire and tossed explosives, destroying three planes and damaging three others. Only one American was killed, but the action attracted worldwide attention. In response, the Marines stepped up their patrolling, to little avail. Trying to find Vietcong among the Vietnamese population, it was said, was like trying to find tears in a bucket of water. Soon the frustration was too much for them. Marines were filmed setting fire to the village of Cam Ne, six miles west of Da Nang, with their Zippo lighters, even though the Vietcong had long since left the area. CBS aired TV footage of the incident on 3 August, sparking international condemnation. It was the first of many such incidents. Two days later, the VC struck again, attacking the Esso terminal near Da Nang and destroying two million gallons of gasoline, nearly 40 per cent of the US fuel supply.
    Westmoreland received permission to use his troops as he saw fit in more aggressive action. The American 'tactical area of responsibility' was increased to 600 square miles and US forces prepared themselves to launch new search-and-destroy operations. On 15 August, a VC defector told his interrogators that 1,500 men of the 1st Vietcong Regiment were massing in the villages around Van Tuong, around 80 miles down the coast from Da Nang, ready to attack the new Marine enclave at Chu Lai. For the Marines this was too good an opportunity to miss. But they had to move fast. They decided to attack the VC from three directions simultaneously, surrounding them and pushing them back into the Van Tuong peninsular. They would advance overland from Chu Lai, blocking any breakout to the north. A Marine battalion would make an amphibious landing to the south, while helicopters would land more Marines to the west. The VC would then find themselves trapped with their backs to the sea. This time the elusive enemy would find no escape.
    Major Harry Honner, of the New Zealand 161st Field Battery, receives a gift from South Vietnamese premier Nguyen Cao Ky at Nui Dat, 14 January 1967.
    Operation Starlite began on the morning of 18 August, when the giant forty-ton amtracs of the 3rd Battalion of the 3rd Marines clawed their way up the soft sand of the beach at An Cuong. As the Marines rushed the thatched huts of a nearby hamlet, they found themselves halted by a wall of fire. Mortars rained down and the VC raked the area with murderous machine-gun fire. The Marines called in support from the guns of the light cruiser USS
Galveston
. Six-inch shells bombarded the hillside where the VC were dug in. When the smoke cleared, the Marines advanced through the shattered trees, only to be pinned down once more by withering VC fire. A pitched battle developed until the Marines pushed forward into the VC complex of trenches and