Screaming Eagles and The Battle for Mother’s Day Hill Part 2

By Don Kochi

After a quick refueling layover in Honolulu, Michael Peterson stepped onto a broiling Bien Hoa airbase tarmac in mid-March 1967 and inhaled his first breath of the scorching Southeast Asian tropics. Bussed to the 90^th ‘Repo-Depo’ Replacement Center on a fast sprawling US Army base at nearby Long Binh, Peterson spent a couple days undergoing the requisite in-country processing dealing both with reams of triplicate paperwork and armfuls of individual weapons, clothing, and field-gear equipment issues. Being an unassigned jump-qualified infantryman in March of 1967 there were only two possible unit assignments open to him, the Sky Soldiers of the 173^rd Airborne Brigade or the Screaming Eagles of the 1^st Brigade (Sep.) of the 101^st Airborne Division.

The Eagle’s Brigade with its voracious appetite in replacement requirements quickly selected the lion’s share of the newly arrived paratroopers. Before personnel officers parceled them out to the brigade’s three line battalions, Peterson along with all newly arrived ‘FNGs’ were subject to a series of ‘P-Training’ (i.e., preparatory training). During this time in the brigade’s history, ‘P-School’ was conducted at their main base camp at Phan Rang. Lasting approximately a week, experienced 101st cadre instructors imparted hard-learned lessons orientating the green troopers to the rigors of jungle warfare and cunning tactics of the enemy. Strenuous PT and running exercises were mixed in, more so to acclimate and condition the men to the brutal tropical weather in hopes of reducing heat prostration cases once out in the real ‘bush’. When the rest of the division entered Vietnam in late November 1967, a formal inter-unit indoctrination course known as SERTS (Screaming Eagles Replacement Training School) was established at Bien Hoa.

Finally settled at Tent City in the brigade’s main base at Phan Rang, Peterson on the day of his 20^th birthday wrote another letter to his boyhood friend. The franked-FREE cover (fig. 4a) displays a designated (to the 101^st ABN DIV stationed at Phan Rang starting November 14, 1965 ending March 1968) APO 96347 with a 22 MAR 1967 APO postal cancel.

The enclosed two-page letter written on divisional stationery purchased at the base camp’s PX (fig. 4b–4c) conveyed in part:

Click to enlarge

Click to enlarge

Shuttled out among the pod of replacements to the brigade’s forward operating base, CARENTAN Camp at Duc Pho, Peterson arrived in time for the commencement of Operation MALHEUR Phase-I. On May 9, 1967, he was finally assigned a company, marking the official start of his combat tour and where he was to spend the next 365 days. His new home was Alpha Company, 1^st Battalion of the 327^th Infantry Regiment.

Streaming a battalion motto, ‘ABOVE THE REST’, the Alpha Company men were known within the First (BN.) and throughout the brigade as ‘ABU’. Based on unit lineage and a former A/1/327^th officer’s wild imagination, ABU was a mythical paratrooper monster serving as Alpha’s figurehead. A bizarre concoction of a gorilla’s body topped with a lion’s head spouting a moose’s horns, trailing an alligator’s tail, wearing jump-boots, clutching a pistol in one hand and a trench knife in the other, needless to say, it was both ugly and ferocious at first glance.

A couple of months before Peterson’s arrival to CARENTAN, Alpha Company recently underwent a command change acquiring a new company commander (CC). Never a good omen before the onset of a major field operation, the departing company captain, more for the welfare of his men, conducted a month long on-the-job training for his prospective replacement before handing over the reins. Older than the average company-grade officer, the untried honcho’s age, suggestive of a promotion pass-over in some distant fitness report, made his nickname as ‘the Old Man’ seem appropriate. Although sporting the mandatory set of airborne wings on his chest, the new captain’s branch of service was engineer, not infantry, which did little to bolster the confidence of the men or enhance his leadership mantle in their eyes.

It was into this particular company brew and turmoil, Peterson joined his new comrades. Feeling conspicuous in his crisp un-faded OD jungle fatigues and unfamiliar among the salty battle-hardened ABU line doggies, he realized as a ‘new-guy’ he was neither accepted or considered trustworthy until he met their approval in the face of combat. While anxiously pondering this crucible by fire, he was assigned the unenviable task as the Old Man’s secondary RTO (Radio/Telephone Operator) in the company headquarters. Besides having to ‘hump’ a twenty-seven pound PRC-25 field radio in addition to his usual combat load, the radio antenna often posed as an irresistible target for the first RPG round fired by an enemy hoping to waste the command element. Peterson’s radio monitored the sedate battalion net, while the captain’s primary RTO was assigned to a field-experienced trooper who could capably handle the heavier transmission traffic on the company (internal) net.

At CARENTAN on the morning of May 11, 1967, the men of the 1^st Battalion each weighed down by their individual combat load, waddled to and mounted up the 176^th Helicopter Assault Company slick-ships to kick-off the beginning phase of Operation MALHEUR. Air-lifted in a matter of minutes and deposited at their arty-prepped and gunship-saturated LZ at the bottom of Song Ve Valley river basin, the companies began to spread-out like groping fingers to locate their designated search-and-destroy coordinates. Accompanied by a three-man ABC reporter and camera crew, Alpha was further augmented by a scout dog handler from 42^nd Infantry Platoon and a 320^th Artillery forward observer (FO) team. Operating well within the arc of the artillery fan, the 2^nd BN (ABN), 320^th Artillery employed in a direct support role for the entire brigade, was prepared to deliver 105mm fire upon immediate request.

Although only 10 kilometers from the coast, the targeted vicinity still touched upon the Central Highlands mountainous terrain of steeply plunging and rolling hills covered by a dense jungle canopy and heavy vegetation. Both the Song Ve and Song Tra Cau Valleys featured a hostile local populace and a deeply embedded VC infrastructure. According to brigade S-2 intelligence, the enemy facing the ABU troopers during this opening phase of the operation was the 2^nd VC Regiment. Characterized by one participant as ‘hard-core Viet-Cong’, all three VC battalions were active in Base Area 124, Alpha’s operating sector. Both valleys, a major food source for the local Viet Cong forces had several of its rice fields under defoliation consideration once the indigenous population was evacuated and resettled at the nearby detainee and relocation center during Phase-II. The gradual absence of local inhabitants also had the additional effect of permitting large four by six mile area swathes declared as free-fire zones throughout the lower valley regions. Daytime highs in the blistering upper 90’s with a punishing relative humidity pushing 60 to 90%, this was the malevolent slice of Vietnam Michael Peterson and the men of Alpha Company entered.

Enemy reaction to the incursion was swift. On the first day, the battalion recorded ten incidents of light contact resulting in an approximate eleven VC/NVA body count. The following day on May 12th, eight more incidents of contact were experienced by the battalion, once again racking-up the enemy body count, however at the cost of one US KIA and two US wounded. For Alpha Company moving on an easterly azimuth, they shortly encountered abandoned villages and deserted ‘hootches’ which were quickly zippo’ed on fire. Plodding under a merciless sun through a landscape strangely devoid of its inhabitants, the burial mounds and untended pottery seen in the empty hamlets added to the eerie spooky atmosphere permeating the air. In line with Alpha’s movement, the prominent feature of ‘Nui Hon Vu’ or Hill 464 soon loomed before the men. Reaching the hill’s base by nightfall, the Captain decided to surmount the hilltop’s bald promontory for a re-supply rendezvous with brigade choppers the following day. With this future objective in mind, Alpha Company bivouac-down for the night by a deserted ville, literally in the shadow of the hill.

On the morning of May 13th, the troopers with a collective mood of anticipation, saddled-up their heavy rucksacks and set the order of the march for the hill’s ascent. Following the point squad, 2^nd platoon was the lead off with the company command sandwiched between it and the 4^th (Weapons) Platoon lagging directly behind. Each trooper spaced 5 meters apart, the entire column was strung-out for several hundred meters with the 1^st and 3^rd platoons in trailing echelon bringing up the far rear. Scanning the precipitous degree of elevation, the ABUs already low on water, knew it would be a difficult hump as they started up the single narrow trail. The dense vegetation with a high jungle canopy swallowing them provided excellent cover and concealment but afforded poor observation and fields of fire. The smothering odor of decayed plant life coupled with the screeches and croaking of tropical birds and reptiles invaded the troopers’ senses. As the long column of men slowly snaked further up the scissoring cut-backs, they increasingly saw disturbing evidence and sensed the overpowering presence of the enemy. Unoccupied spider holes, strewn ammo pouches, empty satchels, pieces of dropped field-gear and even commo wire laid before their path.

About noon the same day, Alpha halted the advance for a break. The entire column wearily flopped down onto the trail in a staggered herringbone posture, every alternate trooper facing the opposite direction covering both flanks. Within minutes, sudden contact was initiated at one point along 2^nd platoon’s ranks with their lead element pinned down at the head of the column. 4^th platoon came on line to assist their endangered brother platoon and began to assault the enemy positions. Ordered by the Captain, a dozen 4^th platoon troopers splintered off to roll-up the enemy’s right flank. After sustaining some casualties, the VC just as sudden, broke contact and retreated further up Nui Hon Vu Hill. Two 2^nd platoon men, a M-60 gunner and a squad sergeant were wounded during the skirmish, and after preliminary medical attention were hoisted out by a hovering medevac’s jungle penetrator basket. Alpha’s presence and location was no longer a mystery to the enemy. Despite this, the Old Man after surveying the situation and conferring with battalion higher-ups, directed the men to ‘keep on pushing’ with their upward advance. Positioned only two-thirds up Hill 464 when faced by a rapidly approaching darkness, the company in a broken column formation, harbored-in a few feet off the trail for what was to be an apprehensive and sleepless night. Since Alpha would beat a hasty departure early the next morning, foxholes were not ordered dug, however a defensive perimeter along the file was erected. Reeling out claymores and situating early warning listening posts on their outer flanks; the entire company on high alert, placed grenades within easy reach, set the two-man watch and ate cold C-rats in total silence.

Continue to Part 3