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 Attleboro Article in "Vietnam Magazine" (currently 1 views) |
| Jim Armstrong |
| Posted on: July 25th, 2011, 11:45pm |
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Posts: 203
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I think that the experiences of members of the Brigade in Operation Attleboro were and are of extreme importance.
I remember being totally stunned by the carnage and the numbers of bodies, both friend and foe, that littered the battlefield.
I may be a little stunned yet.
None of us had any idea that could happen.
The history of those days has always been sorely inadequate, beginning with S.L.A.
Marshall's typically poorly researched and written "Ambush, the Battle of Dau Tieng."
Later writers didn't do much better, which I hope is somewhat improved by the subject article of this thread.
I will write of my own memories of those days further down.
But for now I hope all Chargers who have the good fortune to be about to reunite in Seattle enjoy the living heck out of the coming days. |
Jim Armstrong
C, HQ, A 2/1
1965-1967 |
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Reply: 15 - 42 |
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| Jim Comer |
| Posted on: July 26th, 2011, 1:41am |
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Posts: 10
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Reply: 16 - 42 |
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| Joe Greear |
| Posted on: July 26th, 2011, 3:04pm |
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Minimum Member served with C/3/21 196th. 65-66-67
Posts: 22
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Brother Jim,
I agree with you 100% on the inaccurate description of "Attleborro" in S.L.A. Marshall's book "Ambush". We, who were actually there, know the real story.
All of his analogies of what went on were way out of context with what really happened. His information network must have been very limited or was ignored.
Joe G. |
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Reply: 17 - 42 |
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| Gregory B Peters |
| Posted on: July 29th, 2011, 1:18am |
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Maximum Member2 B company, 3/21/196th, incountry 07/1966-07/1967
Posts: 173
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from the article:
"In July, Thanh, an ideological zealot famous for motivating his soldiers with class hatred, convinced the Politburo that success in the South would only come with the loss of so many American lives that the growing U.S. antiwar movement would force Washington to abandon the war."
Tom, the quote is attributed to Thanh so he could get the backing of NV to start the dryland offensive and wipe us out. I find it interesting that the Wikipedia date line had a similar statement. and if you put this statement into a google search you will get a bunch of articles with the same statement. I could not find the mother source though.
"By mid-October, the anti-war movement had significantly expanded to become a national and even global phenomenon, as anti-war protests drawing 100,000 were held simultaneously in as many as 80 major cities around the US, London, Paris and Rome."
For me the early anti-war movement was very real, in 1965 I was living in the DC area and attending a midwest college. the happenings listed in the Wiki article for 1965 are still very vivid. Particularly the SDS march and the activist setting himself on fire. At this time My father was on the Joints Chief of staff at the Pentagon, worked with McNamarra and Also with DeSassure. He had also been in and out of Vietnam many times as an "advisor" So the anti war movement wasn't just headlines in the news in our household. Remember, so much of the war was fought in the newspapers and on TV during 1966 when we were incountry. by the time we went home in 1967 the movement was full blown and rampant. And ran hand in hand with the race riots, civil rights movements. sometimes joining hands in unison. it was hard not to get involved and sometimes harder to just stay out of it.
Greg |
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Reply: 18 - 42 |
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| Bob Kotch |
| Posted on: July 29th, 2011, 10:06pm |
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Posts: 187
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| After MP school, I was assigned to the 532nd MP Co. at Ft. Dix. While there, riots broke out in Newark and some of us were to go there to help quell it. While we were gearing up, a riot erupted in the stockade and most, if not all of us, were sent to the stockade to bring order there. I believe the riots were predominently civil rights oriented, although there may have been some anti-war involvement. I really can't remember all that well. Anyway, after my few months at Ft. Dix, I was sent off to Vietnam. When I returned in Sept., 68, I do very vividly remember the anti-war protests and the personal attacks and insults to all of us just for being Vietnam veterans. So, for me, I can't recall much anti-war movement before I went to Vietnam, I did become aware of it while there, and I very well remember it when I returned to the world. |
HHC, MP Plt. 9-67 through 9-68 |
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Reply: 19 - 42 |
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| Gregory B Peters |
| Posted on: August 6th, 2011, 8:28pm |
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Maximum Member2 B company, 3/21/196th, incountry 07/1966-07/1967
Posts: 173
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Reply: 20 - 42 |
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| Jim Armstrong |
| Posted on: August 6th, 2011, 11:34pm |
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Posts: 203
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Wasn't January, '67 a little late for Attleboro?
I couldn't get all the pics to download
Sorry to say, the ones I saw didn't jog my memory. |
Jim Armstrong
C, HQ, A 2/1
1965-1967 |
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Reply: 21 - 42 |
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| aab3340 |
| Posted on: August 7th, 2011, 3:02am |
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Posts: 25
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Jim
I agree there are alot of photos mistitled Tay Ninh West Basecamp. Attleboro was over by the end of November 66, one photo showed a large body of water right by the camp if that was Tay Ninh West it was after we went to Chu Lai. Another photo showed trees lined by the side of runway which we did not have.
Bob Poznanski
HHC MP Platoon
1965-67 |
Bob Poznanski
HHC 196th. MP Plt.
1965-1967 |
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Reply: 22 - 42 |
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| Ken McKenzie, C, 4-31 |
| Posted on: August 7th, 2011, 5:06pm |
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Posts: 131
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| I agree; many of the photos are mis-labled, and the comments don't help much in identifying the areas. |
Ken McKenzie
C-4/31, 196th LIB, 1965-1967
C-1/5(MECH), 25thID, 1967 |
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| Gregory B Peters |
| Posted on: August 10th, 2011, 12:55am |
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Maximum Member2 B company, 3/21/196th, incountry 07/1966-07/1967
Posts: 173
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If you click on the gallery link, he has quite a few albums posted. I can't seem to find an active email for him anywhere? and he has posted these albums all over other unit websites. If some of you are on facebook, do a search for him, try Ray Mahoney Vietnam, and invite him to log into our guestbook.
Greg |
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Reply: 24 - 42 |
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| Jim Armstrong |
| Posted on: September 8th, 2011, 12:27am |
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Posts: 203
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Reply: 25 - 42 |
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| Jim Armstrong |
| Posted on: September 9th, 2011, 10:19pm |
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Posts: 203
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There is no question that the week at the beginning of November 1966 has never been far from my mind since. I was one of thousands of soldiers thrashing about in nasty weather and nastier terrain in Operation Attleboro, the 196th's first major excursion.
I certainly have never been so close to the epicenter of so many written accounts. I apologize for the length of this one and will specify units if there is good reason.
A few things that I remember that might help those who were not there understand what it was like and those who were compare it to their own recollections:
The only humorous thing I recall was that one of the battalion commanders (who will remain unnamed) thought it would be a good idea to bring his Jeep to the field. The road his command group chose dead-ended and when the battle moved on, they had to abandon the vehicle, trying to take all the radios, etc. that they could. As was usual in Attleboro, things soon shifted and when they got back to where they left the Jeep, there was no sign of it.
Logistics, like every thing else, was in chaos and, with no resupply we were short of water very early on. Dehydration, heat exhaustion and worse were common. We had bombed the crap out of the area and craters abounded. They not only provided cover from the various kinds of perpetual incoming, but usually had a puddle at the bottom.
I can only say that those puddles had the grungiest, foulest, best tasting water I ever drank. I think they literally saved our lives.
One of the craters we tumbled into (it must have been on November 4th) had a broken branch stuck right in the middle of the water, sort of like inside-out snowcone. We ended up pinned down there for almost the whole day, drank all the water and used up nearly all of our ammunition. We suffered several casualties but no KIA.
There were firing lanes all around, but this article may be the first to call them "fire tunnels."
The main point here is that there was continuous, withering fire all day and most of the night, both incoming and outgoing, not just around our position but seemingly all around and for miles.
Radio traffic only proved that nobody in any of the myriad companies and battalions had any idea what was going on.
Then, as correctly pointed out in the article, things miraculously just seemed to stop.
Soon another barrage of conflicting directives started moving various units this way and that.
In the afternoon I brought my platoon into a long clearing. As I mentioned earlier in this thread, we were stunned at the carnage there, with our dead lined up in rows, some covered and some not, and Vietnamese bodies scattered around the edges.
Packs, ponchos, poncho liners, c-ration cans, empty magazines, unused frag, WP and smoke grenades, and other kinds of detritus were scattered everywhere. There was a stack of weapons that no longer had owners.
As we instinctively moved into a perimeter and away from the awful confusion, we found ourselves at what was obviously one of the recent battle lines. Here the litter was mostly torn first aid pack wrappers and bits of bloody, blackened clothing.
I had a sort of sinking feeling as I moved outward with my RTO into the thoroughly shot-up brushy jungle.
Fifty meters forward we came to the point of this too-long story: a bomb crater with a dry puddle and a branch stuck in the middle. Even without seeing the brass we had left, we both knew exactly where we were.
Realization of what taken place there didn't come immediately, but inevitably.
And just as inevitable is the likelihood that this was not the only place that the clusterf*** that was Attleboro spawned the horror called "friendly" fire.
I've always wondered how long the VC had been gone.
I haven't talked much about this in the intervening 45 years. I hope it isn't too soon now.
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Jim Armstrong
C, HQ, A 2/1
1965-1967 |
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Reply: 26 - 42 |
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| Gregory B Peters |
| Posted on: September 10th, 2011, 3:39pm |
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Maximum Member2 B company, 3/21/196th, incountry 07/1966-07/1967
Posts: 173
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from the article:
"A carefully researched unclassified study of the battle was not published until 32 years later, in 1998. It is now clear that General Nguyen Chi Thanh’s Dry Season Offensive came to an early and ignoble end within hours after the first contact with Meloy’s battalion on November 3. Almost immediately, Colonel Cam changed his Dry Season Offensive plan to concentrate his forces on the destruction of the 196th Brigade. In the next three days, this battle went so badly for him that Cam never resumed the original effort."
Jim and others, anyone find this article from 1998? Jim, I think your conclusion is right, I think there were many "rumours" of American platoons fighting other American platoons during this time due to the many snafu's. I remember one rumour was that the General inserted a relief unit in the middle between American and Viet battle lines. I do tend to remember that there were actual instances of Americans being shelled and bombed by their own support people.
BTW, if you didn't see it, Joe Mahoney left a pretty poignant comment at the end of the article on HistoryNet. |
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Reply: 27 - 42 |
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| Jim Armstrong |
| Posted on: September 10th, 2011, 4:16pm |
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Posts: 203
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Shame on me. I was so intent on getting to he next page, I didn't look for comments. I am kind of glad I didn't, so my take is independent of Joe's.
His comments are right on. The good ol' boy's network seriously covering backsides.
If Colonel Conaty ever persuses these pages, I sure would like to hear his take on the battle. |
Jim Armstrong
C, HQ, A 2/1
1965-1967 |
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Reply: 28 - 42 |
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| Ken McKenzie, C, 4-31 |
| Posted on: September 11th, 2011, 1:44am |
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Posts: 131
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Jim, the jeep you are talking about was Col Lynch's of the 4/31. My platoon was left to provide security for it, as well as cut an LZ for a small Bell (MASH type) chopper to come in an take out wounded and try and get rations and water, for the companies engaged trying to extricate the Wolfhounds.
We managed to blow enough trees to get the small chopper in, but a Huey couldn't fit, so he dropped boxes of rations and 5 gallon water cans from about 30 meters up. We ran around trying to salvage what we could before the broken cans leaked out completely.
In the afternoon, we were warned that a large enemy force was moving toward us and we should dig in. The ground was as hard as a rock, and huge trees were everywhere. It was then that myself and a buddy were tasked with trying to find a way out of there with the jeep. We searched some trails, and couldn't find a way to get through, so the Col was ordered to remove his radios and we blew up the jeep with C-4. The Col and the Sgt Maj had to carry the radios out on their backs.
We moved 5-6 hundred meters through the jungle and I threw smoke grenades behind us as the jets bombed between us and the force coming toward us.
We finally emerged into a huge field and Westmoreland landed along with a chopper of newsmen. Then the 1st Infantry began landing sticks of choppers and we just sat in a small wooded area in the clearing and watched the jets bomb and strafe as the 1st Div troops and the newsmen headed into the woodline we had just come out of. |
Ken McKenzie
C-4/31, 196th LIB, 1965-1967
C-1/5(MECH), 25thID, 1967 |
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