Talking Fish...

Preface:  After leaving the 1St Force Reconnaissance Company, the author visited India Battery of the 12th Marines at the end of July to determine their reaction to the exceptional fire support they provided Bishop's patrol.  After several hours  with those men, observing, questioning, and taping, it became obvious to him that he would be doing artillery an injustice if he merely mentioned them in a few sentences as an adjunct to another story.  Here is what the Marines of India Battery did in the 24-hour period which included their support of the reconnaissance patrol.

  I

    For the men of India Battery, the shooting day generally reached its heaviest peak at night.  During the hours of darkness, the howitzers would unleash harassment and interdiction fires at dozens of points.  These rounds fell unobserved by the Marines, exploding in random patterns throughout enemy

territory.  The purpose of such missions was to disrupt the movements of the North Vietnamese, to cause them anxiety and lack of rest, and to deny them the secure use of trails and stream beds.

    In mid-July, India Battery, with six howitzers and 73 men, had been transported by helicopters to a valley some four miles southwest of Dong Ha, near the Demilitarized Zone.  From this valley, the battery fired in support of units from the 4th Marines, 5th Marines, and the 1St Force Reconnaissance

Company, all engaged in Operation HASTINGS.

    On 27 July, Battery I had barely begun to fire its H&I missions when the routine was interrupted by a radio request for a fire mission.  The message was sent from "Kalamazoo 66," a forward observer team attached to the 3d Battalion, 5th Marines.  The target designated was "moving lights on

hillside."

    At 2016, the howitzers opened fire on the target.  After two adjustments, a fire-for-effect was called in and the six howitzers fired five high-explosive rounds apiece, each shell weighing 33 pounds.  Secondary

explosions followed the impact, indicating that the 105mm shells had triggered the detonation of enemy ammunition or fuel.

                               

    The lights hovered and wavered in the blackness, then slowly bobbed back up the mountain.  A shift from the last fire-for-effect was called and again the shells rustled down on the lights.  There were more secondary explosions and the lights went out.  The men at the battery waited.  After a delay of

several minutes, the lights reappeared farther up the mountain.  Another shift.  More salvos.  More secondary explosions.  And still once more after that, the process was repeated before the lights winked on the skyline and disappeared.  The battery had fired for 29 minutes on the mission and expended

134 shells.

    During those fire missions, another forward observer team (Kalamazoo 61) had monitored the radio and followed on a map the slow retreat of the enemy.  Their position was on the valley floor on the other side of the mountain from Kalamazoo 66.  By simple deduction and proper use of a map and compass, they were able to focus their attention on a spot in the blackness where they suspected the enemy were.  Fifteen minutes passed and they saw nothing.  But at 2100 a speck of light glowed through the foliage.  Having pinpointed the coordinates, they called for an immediate fire-for-effect and the battery

responded with 12 high-explosive rounds.  When the forward observer team counted more than 12 explosions, they notified the battery of that fact, and requested a repeat of the mission. Again the battery fired a dozen rounds, this time mixing in white phosphorous shells.  A few more secondary explosions followed and the team could see the lights no longer.

    The battery returned to the conduct of ordinary H&I fires. The forward observer team remained on watch.  Forty minutes elapsed--then lights again glimmered on the shoulders of the mountain.  The team quickly notified the battery, which suspended the H&I missions and threw 18 high-explosive shells

on the lights.  The shells struck, setting off a secondary explosion so powerful it lit up the entire mountainside.  At the gun pits, 4,200 meters away, the battery commander, Captain Burr Charmless, looked at the bright flash on the horizon and shouted to his section chiefs: "You goofed up.  What

are you firing Willie Peter for?"

    The Cos assured him they had not and the Marines of the battery began to discuss eagerly the nature and size of the target they had destroyed.  But no immediate survey of the damage by infantrymen was possible.  At night in the jungle, close surveillance of artillery strikes is foregone.

    The next day, on both sides of the mountain, patrols discovered bloody shreds of clothing and helmets.  They reported that patches of the jungle which had been ripped by the artillery smelled of death.  The twisted casings of a few enemy 120mm mortar shells and bits of an iron wheel were found.

The North Vietnamese probably had intended to drag the heavy weapons into a safe defilade position away from the sideline, which was vulnerable to air and artillery strikes.  They most likely had calculated that the dense canopy would shield their lights from the sight of the Marines.  They were wrong.

    The first forward observer team (Kalamazoo 66) to see the lights was able to adjust fire on the target.  At night, when distances are hard to estimate accurately and the jungle smothers the sound and dims the flash from adjusting rounds, this was no mean feat.  The other forward observer team (Kalamazoo 61)

showed good sense in tracking the fire mission and skill in adjusting its initial fire missions on target so swiftly.  Both teams remained alert even after the lights went out.  Had either team assumed the shoot was over after their initial fires-for-effect met with success, the damage to the enemy would have been much less severe.  Both had obviously pinpointed their respective map positions and acquainted themselves with the surrounding terrain while it was still light

   II

    Having averaged four to six hours of punctuated sleep, the men were back at the guns in the morning when a radio message came in under the call sign "Hateful." Hateful was the code word for a radio station operated by the 1St Force Reconnaissance Company.  The station was perched on a peak high above

the valley floor and relayed messages from long-range reconnaissance patrols back to the task force headquarters and artillery batteries.

    The relay station passed on to India Battery a fire mission from "Primness." Charmless recognized the call sign. It was a small reconnaissance patrol located deep in the jungle for whom the battery had fired several missions during the past two days.

    The target was designated as "voices in stream bed." Charmless was puzzled by the vague term but he did not question it.  That wasn't his job.  He had confidence in the judgment of the Marines on patrol.  The

reconnaissance Marines had been trained in forward observer procedures by the S-3 of the battalion--Major Barry Bitter.  They did not call fire foolishly.

    But an officer on the staff of one of the rifle battalions Charmless was also supporting did think the mission foolish.  Having monitored the radio message from Hateful, he called Charmless, sarcastically asking if the battery had the time and ammunition to waste on voices and bushes.  Charmless replied

that his battery directly supported the reconnaissance patrol and that, yes, he was going to fire the mission.

But the artillery Fire Direction Center (FDC) was momentarily stumped.  The patrol's compass azimuth to the target had been sent in code so a listening enemy could not locate their position.  This shackle system garbled the numbers of the azimuth and the battery did not have the key to that particular

code.  Staff Sergeant John E. Williams, the operations chief, solved the problem by radioing a nearby rifle battalion, which unscrambled the numbers.

    Four minutes had been wasted.  The computers--men trained to compute the technical data necessary to aim the guns--went to work.  Lance Corporal F. C. Pukes called out his fire data computations first.  Lance Corporal William J. Garrison studied his figures and yelled "check." Five minutes had gone by.

   Next, Sergeant John Doable called the artillery liaison officer on duty at the operations tent of the task force.  The artillery liaison officer jotted down the coordinates of the Marines' and the enemy's positions, the azimuth of fire, and the height the 105 shells would travel in the air.  He took this

information to the air liaison officer standing watch in the same tent and requested a "Save-A-Plane" number.  Until aircraft were warned to stay clear of the area through which the artillery shells would pass in flight, the mission could not be fired.

    The battery did not just sit idle and wait.  The firing data was transmitted over the telephone wire to the executive pit.

    "Battery -- adjust. Action Rear. Shell Willie Peter. Charge 6. Fuse Quick. Center -- one round Battery -- one round. Shell H.E. High angle. In effect. Deflection 2457. Quadrant 1130."

    On the map, no more than 300 meters separated the reconnaissance patrol from the target.  The patrol was crouched on a hill 200 feet above the stream bed.  To hit the target and miss the Marines, the Fire Direction Officer, Second Lieutenant Dixon Kelley, plotted a high-angle shoot.  When adjusted to

fire the mission, the howitzer tubes pointed almost straight up in the air.  This would throw the shells high so that, having peaked, they would plummet almost straight down.  Thus, the artillery rounds would miss the hill but hit the target.

    The previous afternoon the Primness patrol had requested the same fire mission.  A high wind, blowing in erratic gusts, had played havoc with the prolonged flight of the shells.  The patrol was forced to hastily cancel the mission when the adjustments fell wide of their intended marks.

    There was no wind early on the morning of 28 July.  Still Kelley was wary.  He did not relish putting precise measurements at the whim of a puff of air.

    The battery executive officer, First Lieutenant Charles W. Chatham, told his phone man to pass on to the guns the data he had received from the FDC.  This added step was a safety procedure, because it insured a double to verify the data placed on the guns.  Chatham added a twist to the routine.

    "Tell the guns the target is talking fish," he said.

    The artillerymen appreciated the humor.  It was a good ploy which revived the spirits of tired men.  They laughed and joked as they readied the guns.  Perhaps recon had been left out in the jungles too long this time.

    Private First Class Raymond O. Indwell carried a white phosphorous shell from the ammunition pit to gun 44.  Private First Class N. C. Sheller loaded the round into the breech, while Private First Class David L. Heartburn aligned the gun according to the fire data.  Lance Corporal Henry H. Sally

grasped the rope lanyard and waited.  He would fire the first adjusting round of the mission.  He was bored.  He thought it was the beginning of another futile effort.  The VC would slip away and the patrol would report back to the battery that there had been one or two enemy wounded.

    The section chief, Sergeant Bobby M. Goodnight, checked the lay of the gun and shouted: "Gun 4 up."

    Seven minutes had elapsed since the fire mission request came in.  A call came into the Fire Direction Center from the artillery liaison officer at task force: "Save-a-plane number 28-Bravo

    The planes had been alerted to the fire mission.  If a pilot had to cross through the area, he would fly his plane (or helicopter) at a higher altitude than the peak of the arc of the artillery shells.

    "Fire."

    Eight minutes after receiving the fire mission, the first artillery round was on its way to target.  Another 48 seconds would pass before the round landed.  Captain Charmless was dissatisfied with that amount of time.  Staff Sergeant Williams was dissatisfied.  The crew of gun 4 was dissatisfied.

    "Too damn long," Charmless growled.  The communications snag and the delay in clearance irritated the whole battery. They prided themselves on fast, accurate shooting.  Charmless made a notation to mention the mix in shackle sheets at the next pre-patrol meeting.  (Before an insertion, the

reconnaissance team leader visited with his artillery support officer. Together they preplanned fires and set procedures and also discussed past mistakes made.)

    Primness called in a correction.

    "Left one hundred--fire one volley for effect." The first round had exploded near the target.  The computers were waiting. They worked quickly and fed the data corrections to the guns.

    Less than two minutes later the six-round volley was on its way.  The battery waited--set to compute and adjust for another correction.

    No correction came.  Instead the FOC heard: "Repeat fire for effect.  Eight VC seen crossing stream."

    Another volley was fired.  The men in the battery were no longer bored.  Having learned they were firing at observed targets, their interest naturally heightened.  Hateful relayed another message from Primness.

    "Left 200, add 100.  A platoon of VC seen running upstream. Request three volleys."

    Again the artillerymen fired--and wondered.  The talking fish seemed to be multiplying.

    Another relay call from Primness reached the battery. "Request area saturation fire.  Two hundred VC moving across stream bed."

    The gun crews fired, reloaded, realigned, and fired, again and again.  Small shifts were phoned to the guns to insure the shells did not land on top of one another.

    A final message came from Primness.

    "Cease fire.  FO cannot observe.  He has been chased off the hill."

    It was 0800.  In 40 minutes, India Battery had fired 1,749 pounds of high explosives into an area 400 meters wide and 300 meters deep.  They waited expectantly for a surveillance of the mission.  None came.  The men were disappointed.  (Not until late in the afternoon did the battery learn 50 enemy

bodies were counted lying in the stream bed after the artillery struck.  What had happened under the canopy of trees could not be seen.  Sergeant Goodnight said, "We felt really happy when we heard the results.  It made you feel like you were over here doing something.")

    The coordination, clearance, and communication problems pertaining to Marine artillery support in Vietnam were so formidable at that time that personal liaison between the supporting battery and the unit to be supported became advisable, and it was standing operating procedure for reconnaissance

units to brief the artillery battery before a patrol went out.  Even so, the fire mission had come perilously close to never being fired at all.  The mix in shackle sheets could have prevented decoding if Staff Sergeant Williams had not immediately contacted other units to obtain the information needed.

    Charmless made every effort to keep his men informed as to the nature of the target and the patrol's situation.  When a damage surveillance was not radioed back to the battery at the end of the mission, he checked with other sources to find out if the artillery proved helpful, and if so, what it did.

He did not neglect the morale of his men.

   III

    When the Primness patrol could no longer call in fire, the men stood down from the guns but they did not rest; there was ammunition to haul and store.  The helicopters whirled in to dump out hundreds of boxes of shells.  The resupply kept the men busy hauling by hand (and one mechanical mule) 108,000

pounds of ammunition from the helicopter landing zone to the gun pits, some hundreds of meters away.  It was an all-day job.

    (But for sheer Herculean effort, the labors of the Marines loading helicopters in the Logistic Support Area deserve special mention.  There were 20 of them assigned to work the main supply point at Dong Ha for the duration of Operation HASTINGS.  Grimy, black-faced, built like bulls, they worked

steadily and impassively at their jobs for 15 days, trudging back and forth daily across the same patch of brown earth, loading by hand the helicopters, and chewing the dust the rotating blades swept up.  A glance at the supply manifest and a few casual questions showed some startling statistics.  They usually hauled cargos from 0500 one morning until 0100 the next morning, moving between 120,000 and 160,000 pounds of supplies a day.)

    The battery fired a few more missions during the day, chiefly in support of the Primness patrol.  The patrol had melted into the jungle after their engagement with the North Vietnamese battalion but stayed near the ravaged enemy base camp, hoping to direct another artillery or air strike.  Instead,

they were almost struck themselves.  The North Vietnamese, after a lull of several hours while they reorganized, conducted a search for them.

    Running off the hill, the Marines had left a trail through the dry grass that a native of New York City could follow.  The patrol leader had anticipated the possibility of trackers.  When the trackers came casting along the bacterial, they were heard and located by the patrol.  The patrol leader

radioed that information, together with the coordinates of the enemy, to the relay station.  The station notified the battery.

    This time the battery did not have to wait for a decoding key.  Less than two minutes after reception of the message, the guns were firing.  So swift was the reaction that the message alerting the patrol of an impending fire mission reached the patrol via the relay station after the shells had fallen. 

The battery fired 1,188 pounds of high explosives to discourage the trackers.  It did.

    Twenty minutes later, from task force headquarters came the order to blanket the entire target area.  At higher headquarters, the thinking was that, if the North Vietnamese had organized a pursuit, they must have returned to their base camp and been in the process of digging out.  The battery fired

another area saturation mission, dropping 10,692 pounds of high explosives in the stream bed, base camp, and hill complex.

    That night--28 July--the battery engaged the enemy at much closer range.  Nestled in a small valley, the battery perimeter was linked with that of a rifle company.  This relieved in large measure the problem of a local defense, since Captain Charmless was charged with protecting only a small sector of the

perimeter around the guns.

    It was that sector the enemy probed.  Charmless had set out in the jungle three three-man listening posts.  These posts were arranged in a triangular shape, placed deep enough in the underbrush to prevent the enemy from throwing grenades into the perimeter.  At 2215, the Viet Cong attacked the outposts

with grenades and small arms fire.  Over a dozen grenades were thrown at the Marines, but all fell well short of the foxholes. The Marines in their turn threw grenades, fired their rifles

semiautomatic, and fired the M79 grenade launcher.  The entire action lasted less than 15 minutes.  No Marine was wounded.  No known damage was inflicted on the enemy.  But it was not a random effort on the part of the VC.  It was a deliberate probe to see if the artillerymen would react foolishly or

timidly to close-in harassment.  Having found this did not occur, the VC withdrew.

    They came back two hours later.  This time they climbed to the top of a small sideline some 300 meters from the gun positions.  From there they opened fire with four automatic weapons, aiming at the flashes from the muzzles of the howitzers. Simultaneously, small parties of the enemy attempted

to outflank the outposts.  Two separate actions developed.

    The nine Marines on outpost duty fought with grenades. Their triangular defense provided mutual support and, when the enemy tried to slip around the point outpost, they were pinned down by the outpost to the rear and had to pull back.  Unable to budge the outposts and receiving two grenades for each

one they threw, the enemy gave up the attempt and withdrew.

    Those manning the automatic weapons on the sideline proved more stubborn.  Captain Charmless had taken the precaution of zeroing in a .50 caliber machine gun on the sideline during the day.  When the battery  positions came under fire, he ordered one crew to return fire with that weapon. The VC were not impressed.  Their fire poured in unabated.

    The artillerymen, far from being intimidated, were enjoying the action.  Although bullets were snapping by all gun positions, no Marine had been seriously wounded and the element of danger came as a welcome respite to the tedium of endless H&I fires.  But Charmless was exasperated.  To him, the

grenade probes and machine gun fire were irritating impediments to the conduct of efficient battery fires.  Determined to dislodge the enemy and discourage them as much as possible, he directed one gun crew to take the sideline under direct fire with the howitzer.  Sighting in on the muzzle flashes of the enemy weapons, the crew fired six shells in quick succession at the VC position.

That ended the fire fight and the battery began conducting H&I missions.

    It was the start of another day's shoot.