Cpt. Bennet Jones blowing bunker in Cambodia
"The company engaged them with artillery, ARA and air strikes," related 1st Lt. Gary Huesseed, artillery forward observer,"then things quieted down for the night."
Toward the end of the evening Charlie Company and recon platoons of Echo Company combat assaulted into the area, joining Delta Company the next morning, and explored the site.
Nicknamed "Rock Island East" after an arsenal in Illinois, the complex extended to 40 or 50 individual caches, stacked six feet high on 20'X15' pallets hidden in the jungle and sometimes covered with brush. The pallets were 20 to 30 meters apart on alternating sides of the trail. The cache contained millions of .51 caliber rounds and thousands of mortar rounds, recoilless rifle rounds and rockets. Large quantities of rifles, grenades and other equipment were also found.
Attention remained focused on the region north of Phuoc Long and Binh Long through the rest of May, as most Cav units moved into the area and activity declined in the Fishhook. The units surrounded a large cache site and began putting the squeeze on the enemy. The Communists put up stiff resistance, though American forces managed to hold their losses to a minimum.
Elements of the 5th Bn, 7th Cav were the first to make significant munitions finds in the area when they encountered a well fortified NVA storage complex built into a hill 26 miles northeast of Song Be.
The fight for the hill began when Bravo Company watched from another hilltop as convoy headlights disappeared at night over the distant hills. As they moved through the valley toward the lights determined delaying tactics by the enemy slowed the advance to a crawl. They spent the night at the foot of the hill and started up the next morning.
"About halfway up at a five foot ledge we began getting AK-47, machinegun and B-40 fire," said Sergeant Pat McConwell of the recon platoon. "They could have rolled grenades down on us from up there. I'm sure glad they didn't."
The company withdrew and thoroughly prepped the area with artillery and air strikes before trying again the next day. "I called in artillery all night," recalled 2nd Lt. William Harrington, "and the next morning the Air Force came in again and pounded the hell out of the top of that hill." As the company advanced again, they were preceded by artillery barrages and Blue Max rocket runs.
The company formed into a three platoon assault line about a quarter of the way up the embattled slope. A torrent of B-40 and machinegun fire greeted them as they slogged 300 meters to the crest through heavy rain. By nightfall four hours later the muddy Skytroopers owned the hill. The enemy had left three dead and numerous blood trails. One American was killed.
US troops burn Cambodian village during invasion of Cambodia, 1970.
The next morning the Skytroopers found 12-foot-deep bunkers cut on all sides of the hill. At the bottom of each bunker a drainage system kept the pallets--stacked high with weapons and ammunition--dry.
That cache and others found by Cav elements in the area yielded hundreds of tons of rice and salt, and thousands of weapons and rounds of ammo. Munitions and food were not the only items found. Alpha Company, 1st Bn, 8th Cav captured 380 hammocks, 1,000 pairs of socks, 900 leather belts, and 500,000 buttons.
By the end of the first four weeks of the Cambodian operation, 1st Air Cav troopers along with units under their operational control had achieved phenomenal success. Enemy dead in the Cambodian operations counted 2,346, with 40 NVA detainees.
Captured or destroyed were 5,562 individual weapons, 906 crew served weapons, more than 1,636 tons of rice, more than 6 million rounds of small caliber ammo, and 40,875 large caliber rounds. 123 Americans had been killed and 366 wounded.
High ranking military officials estimated it would take the enemy months, perhaps more than a year to recover from these losses.
The time bought and paid for by Skyroopers would, according to President Nixon, "permit the Vietnamization Program to forge ahead, unimpeded. By the time the enemy forces are able to rebuild, if they do, the Vietnamese Army will be strong enough to handle the situation by itself, enabling us to continue withdrawing our soldiers from Vietnam."
Skytroopers have added another chapter, not only to the 1st Air Cav's history, but perhaps to the history of the world in the United States' continued quest for a just and honorable peace in the Republic of Vietnam
Additional Sources:
www.army.mil
www.acig.org
www.pieceuniquegallery.com
www.promotion.opb.org
chnm.gmu.edu
shepherd.edzone.net
www.i-kirk.info
www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/6485
