Phantom Leader Part 16

"Didn't they get a copy of my message last week?" Westmoreland interrupted. He was referring to his message of 22 January to the Army Chief of Staff in the Pentagon stating he expected a multibattalion attack on Hue before or during Tet.

"Apparently not, I'm sorry to say," the brigadier said. "It, ah, went to the Headquarters of the Third Marine Division, but, ah, neither they nor our headquarters pa.s.sed it on to the men in the MACV compound."

"What's the latest situation there now?"

"Sir, elements of the First Marines from Phu Bai have reached the compound to a.s.sist the men."

:'a.s.sist," Westmoreland said. "Rescue is more like it."

'Yes, sir," the brigadier said.

The Marines had taken heavy losses getting to the MACV compound and were really p.i.s.sed when at first the Army colonel in command of the compound would not share ammo and weapons. in fact they had found him a pompous staff type who had been there only one week and had no idea of what to do. Fortunately his junior officers had disregarded his commands to h.o.a.rd ammunition and stay in the compound. They had consolidated fighting positions within the compound and charged out with the Marines to rescue buddies that were pinned down. They were Army fighting men and no paper-shuffling REMF (Rear-Echelon Mother f.u.c.ker) a.s.s-kisser was going to keep them from doing what was right and proper.

The brigadier continued. "Then the Marines were ordered by their headquarters to a.s.sault the Citadel. In concert with Vietnamese paratroopers and armored units, they crossed the Perfume River and were repulsed." The brigadier spoke in a monotone, his voice flat.

"What is it you're not telling me, Phil?" Westmoreland asked.

The brigadier swallowed, then set his jaw. "Sir, the Marines have a s.h.i.+t sandwich up there. Third MAF at Da Nang has ordered them across the Perfume River and into the old city without any arty prep, aerial recce, or intelligence of any sort. They don't know the enemy strength or disposition. I think Third MAF believes Hue is a palm-frond-and-straw hut kind of village. In reality it's steel and concrete and narrow pa.s.sageways. A terrible place for street fighting.

Further, unofficial reports have it that the ARVN armored troops are not helpful. In fact they are not engaging when ordered."

"Get somebody up there to Da Nang and straighten this mess out. Better yet, I'll go. Check my schedule. I have a lot of people up there I want to talk to." COMUSMACV looked grim. "Right now I have some tough news. All the corps areas are under operational control of the South Vietnamese. The entire Eye Corps area of operations is under control of Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam in Da Nang. Here is the really tough part. He has ordered us not to use artillery, bombs, or napalm in Hue.

For the moment, anyhow, I agree. I don't want the old city destroyed.

No air strikes into the Citadel, no artillery into the Citadel, no offsh.o.r.e naval bombardment. Make sure all responsible commands understand that."

The liaison officer from the Marine Corps started to say something and decided against it. Ever since a newsman made up the quote (some said it was some guy named Dan Rather) from a Marine about a village, "We had to destroy it to save it," the Marines had been very touchy. Besides, he mused, Marines could fight house-to-house. Marines are Tough and like to do things The Hard Way.

The USAF segment kept their mouths shut. They had been avoiding city strikes, and when they had to, they used Soft munitions. But if ordered to do so they could level Hue or any other city with conventional bombs.

Few civilians knew it, but the American military had stopped city bombing in World War Two. The Allies had bombed Dresden and Hamburg in retaliation for Hitler's bombing of London and other cities. In neither case had the tactic worked. They were not city-bombing in Vietnam. Not Hanoi, not anyplace.

"Now, what about the American civilians in the city?" Westmoreland asked.

"Sir, the Marines rescued several from the CORDS building south of the river. That's all they could find. Then they ran across twenty nuns and forty children and brought them into the MACV compound also. Early this morning we received a message through the Agency's net that several civilians were trapped in a villa north of the river in the old city."

The brigadier looked slightly uncomfortable.

"Well, the Marines can't make that run from where they are,"

Westmoreland said. "Who can we send in? Who is available?"

"Ah, sir, just a few hours ago I took the liberty of already sending a team in."

"You look strange, Phil. What's going on?"

"Sir, I sent Wolf Lochert. He, ah, was closest."

Westmoreland sighed. He and his G-2 brigadier, Phil Davis, had just the day before pondered over a cla.s.sified backchannel from the Secretary of the Army concerning LTC Wolfgang X. Lochert. He was in trouble, big trouble.

He nodded to the brigadier.

"Continue," he said.

The brigadier flipped to a new chart. "Sir, in the Saigon area the Viet Cong attacks on the American Emba.s.sy, the Presidential Palace, the Vietnamese Naval Headquarters, Radio Saigon, and National Police Stations have all been repulsed. There is, however, heavy fighting in the Cholon and Phu Tho area." He checked his notes. "The final Emba.s.sy report states that nineteen guerrillas of the C-10 Battalion of the South Vietnam People's Liberation Army, the Viet Cong, had attacked the U.S. Emba.s.sy complex on Thong Nhut Street in Saigon by blowing a hole in the surrounding wall at 0245 hours LOCAL, 31 January. After a sixhour battle the nineteen attackers had been killed." He put up another chart.

"Here at Tan Son Nhut the men of the 377th Security Police Squadron did the best they could." He tilted his head in appreciation to Commander, 7th Air Force. "They had their bunkers manned. They had rigged up two M-54C armored vehicles, with four .50-caliber machine guns each, to use as a mobile reaction force. Still, they took some heavy hits. Just before the attack a number of Vietnamese from the ARVN 2nd Service Battalion a.s.signed to base defense had abandoned their posts." He used a long pointer to tap a chart. "All in all, the VC and NVA threw four infantry battalions and one sapper battalion at us yesterday morning.

The main a.s.sault was against the southwest perimeter between Gate 51 and Bunker 51, manned by USAF Security Policemen. The sappers approached the perimeter fence along National Highway I in a Lambretta taxi-a taxi, for G.o.d's sake." The brigadier was losing his briefer's cool. He started telling of the attack as if it were a story to friends at the bar and not in the formal briefing room of a four-star general. General Westmoreland leaned forward, entranced.

The brigadier continued.

"The VC leaped out of the taxi and blasted through the fence with a bangalore torpedo. The Air Force men in the bunker attacked, but there were too many VC. The last radio transmission from the SPs came an hour later. The Viet Cong had overrun the bunker. By noon USAF Security Policemen and members of the 25th Division from Chu Chi had closed the hole in the fence and taken back the bunker."

He inhaled deeply. "The attack had been a complete failure for the VC and NVA. Although by last count we lost four SPs killed, and nineteen Army troopers dead, we counted over nine hundred VC bodies. We captured nine of the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds. That's how we got their order-of-battle information.

We were lucky. Only thirteen airplanes on the base were damaged, and lightly at that."

The brigadier stopped. He realized where he was and looked painfully fl.u.s.tered. "Ah, sir-" he began.

General Westmoreland cut him off with a wave of the hand. "You tell a great story, Phil. Maybe you should do it more often." He chuckled.

"Sometimes your briefings are a bit dry."

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." The brigadier was clearly relieved. He glanced at his notes and continued.

"President Thieu has declared martial law and press censors.h.i.+p throughout all of South Vietnam, and a twenty-four hour curfew in Saigon. Late yesterday the Viet Cong consolidated positions in the Cholon area, the An Quang PaG.o.da, and near the U.S. PX. VC members slipped through portions of the Fifth and Sixth districts of Saigon, distributing propaganda leaflets urging civilians to join them and rise up against the government. We have reports of this in other communities as well. So far it doesn't seem to have worked.

There is no popular uprising taking place."

"Is the TV coverage still the same?" Westmoreland asked.

"Yes, sir. They do not have the whole picture. And of course they slant it their way. Your conference yesterday, and pictures at the Emba.s.sy, did not come out well."

After a six-hour battle, the VC who had blasted through the wall surrounding the American Emba.s.sy in Saigon had been killed. Westmoreland had toured the Emba.s.sy and the compound shortly after the battle, p.r.o.nounced it secure, and had gone on to say that by coming out in the open as they had during the Tet offensive, the VC were exposing themselves to tremendous casualties and inviting defeat. As luck and American newsmen serendipity would have it, the newsies and their cameramen lived in the plush, tree-lined area close to the Emba.s.sy, so that during and after the attack they swarmed over the grounds.

"They were repeating Westmoreland's words while showing scenes of the fighting and the destruction-but they did not always have their facts straight." The brigadier flipped over another chart. "In summary, the attacks in the SaigonCholon-Tan Son Nhut area are under control. In Saigon the twelve-man team attacking the Viet Navy HQ was wiped out, the battalion sent to raid the Saigon jail got lost and wound up being decimated in a cemetery. The VC do, however, have full control at the moment of the Phu Tho racetrack outside of Cholon. Meanwhile, here within the confines of Tan Son Nhut, while we have over three hundred enemy dead, we lost nearly twenty Military Policemen defending BOQ Three, which houses many of our senior officers."

"What is surprising," Westmoreland said, "is that so few American officers' quarters were struck. Either Giap didn't think of it or he was afraid it would inflame public opinion."

He turned to Commander, 7th Air Force. "You did well in that respect."

He was referring to the fact that Commander, 7th Air Force, would not allow his men to live off the air base. As a result, when the attack came they were not cut off from their place of duty by the street fighting. As it was, most senior Army officers were very fortunate.

They lived by twos and threes in villas throughout Saigon that were not attacked by Viet Cong squads. Their protection varied from eight-man American MP squads to Vietnamese watchmen, who disappeared the night of the attack. Some were protected by Nung guards, who would fight to the death. VC units never tried to kill or capture these officers, which would have nearly paralyzed MACV's response to the offensive.

Westmoreland thanked the brigadier and signaled for Major General Milton Berzin to begin. Westy appreciated what air power could do ever since it had broken the siege of two hard-core NVA battalions on the Marines at Con Thien near the DMZ in October 1967. Even before they had started the shrill defeatist headlines with Khe Sanh, the newsies had been calling Con Thien another Dien Bien Phu.

True, Con Thien was a dismal place. But under a concept called SLAM, put together by USAF General Spike Momyer, the NVA had suffered defeat, with over 2,000 dead.

Mornyer's SLAM-seek, locate, annihilate, monitor-had coordinated B-52s with tactical air, naval guns, and Army artillery to destroy the NVA battalions. It had been a clear victory of air power and artillery. As Westy had written in a message, "Ma.s.sed firepower was in itself sufficient to force a besieging enemy to desist." For this reason Westmoreland was happy and relieved to use all the air he could for the defense of Khe Sanh. Now he wanted to know how it was functioning during the Tet offensive.

"The Tet offensive is a battle tailor-made for FACs and guns.h.i.+ps,"

Berzin began. "The reason is because all the fighting is between troops-troops in contact or ma.s.sed enemy troops in the wire. With the FACs and the USAF AC-47 guns.h.i.+ps and the Army helicopter guns.h.i.+ps, we have the precision of the sur eon's knife to help friendly forces cut these enemy forces down."

The AC-47 guns.h.i.+p, call sign Spooky, was a pre-World War Two DC-3 aircraft outfitted with three side-firing 7.62mm Gatling-style mininiguns. Each gun shot 6,000 rounds per minute. Because each fifth round was a tracer, the bullet stream looked like a curving tongue coming down to lick the earth. The moaning roar of the three guns spooked the VC, who first thought it a fire-breathing dragon. Spooky was also referred to as Puff the Magic Dragon, or just plain Puff.

Spooky carried 24,000 rounds of 7.62mm (.30 cal) ammunition, forty-five aerial flares of 200,000 candlepower that floated down in parachutes, and enough fuel to shoot and illuminate for hours. No SF camp or hamlet protected by Spooky all night had ever been overrun.

Berzin tapped the weather map pinned next to his chart.

"We are, however, hampered by two factors: bad weather and city fighting. The ceiling and visibility in Hue has been miserable. Even the helicopters are having trouble getting in and out. Unlike Khe Sanh, where we use radar to put in B-52 and A-6 strikes on top of VC and NVA units in the jungle, we cannot do the same in Hue because we don't want to destroy the city. Hue is like the house-to-house fighting of World War Two. Here in Saigon and Cholon it is the same thing. We are using fighters to strafe at the Pho Tho racetrack because it is open terrain, but that's about it so far. The USAF has been called in on very few city targets. Each request, unless it is a tactical emergency, must be cleared through Seventh Air Force right here at Tan Son Nhut.

Meanwhile, on the airlift side of operations, we have over two hundred eighty airlift aircraft moving reinforcement troops to the required locations." Berzin pointed to the map.

"As to air-base status," he said, "all the Air Force bases are open for business with the exception of Bien Hoa. The fighting is still too close to the runway to permit our planes to take off or land. Armored Cavalry from the 9th Infantry Division have just secured the area. Right now the 101st Airborne and Huey Cobras are mopping up. The base should be open by tomorrow. Elsewhere, we are launching over six hundred Tet-related sorties per day in support of U.S., ARVN, Australian, and Korean troops. We have the planes, the pilots, the weapons. On the fighters, we are using almost exclusively the close-air-support weaponry such as 20mm strafe, Mk-82 high drags, napalm, and CBU One and Two. The only holding factor is the weather. We use the MSQ, the radar bombing method, as much as we can. But when the troops are in contact and the weather is down around their ankles, they are on their own. However, we can use B-52 air strikes within three kilometers of the friendlies through radar bombing." He turned from the chart to face the audience.

COMUSMACV turned to Commander, 7th Air Force.

"We need to get those bombs closer to our lines. How are the close-in tests progressing?"

"Almost completed. Once our beacons are in and triangulated, we will make the first runs."

The SAC B-52 commanders were testing a procedure involving radar beacons that would allow them to bomb within one kilometer of friendly troops. A few months back a B-52 had accidentally dropped a load of bombs one kilometer from the Marines at Con Thien. The troops had suffered no harm, but numerous secondary explosions from enemy supplies had boomed for hours after the drop. Learning from that incident that the VC had been benefiting from the restriction, General Westmoreland had asked the Air Force to develop a method to place bombs closer than three thousand meters to friendly troops.

"But on the subject of air support in Eye Corps," Commander, 7th, said, "we still need more control over which aircraft will be allotted where and when "And by whom," Westmoreland said.

"Yes," Commander, 7th Air Force, agreed.

All the Marine aircraft in I Corps were under the control of the 1st Marine Air Wing at Da Nang. The Marines felt the air belonged to them.

After all, Marine fighter tactics were developed and organized, and their pilots trained and equipped, to support Marine ground units. They were Marines and they didn't need anybody else. Hi diddle-diddle, right up the middle. We don't need anybody else's air (we'll take Navy but not USAF) and we sure don't need anybody else's ground troops.

(Westmoreland had placed many American troops from the Arnerical Division and the 1st Cav, plus the Korean Marine Brigade, at Marine disposal in I Corps. So far the Marines had not used them.) Now the situation was getting terse. The Marines needed more than Marine air at Khe Sanh and they were getting it. But it wasn't being used well. Control was a tangle. USAF and some Navy fighters were stacked up to 35,000 feet, waiting to be controlled in on targets.

Frequently they ran low on fuel and had to jettison their loads and return to base or s.h.i.+p.

Only ten days ago, on the 22nd of January, COMUSMACV had told Third MAF (Marine Amphibious Force) at Da Nang that he wanted him to link his air-support center with that of the USAF for use in the Khe Sanh Operation Niagara.

Nothing doing, Third MAF had said. We don't need and we don't want a single non-Marine person managing our air a.s.sets.

No, COMUSMACV had said, I'm not placing Commander, 7th, as a single air manager. (At least not yet, he had said to himself. Just four days before, on 18 January, he had approached CINCPAC with that very idea. So far CINCPAC hadn't agreed.) For now, he said, I want improved coordination. COMUSMACV was still p.i.s.sed because the Marine air had not even made contact with the 1st Cav at Quang Tri to see if they needed any air support.

(They didn't. Their own troops were doing quite well, thank you.) It was a mess. Third MAF wouldn't use non-Marine air, and Third MAF wouldn't readily give air to non-Marine requesters.

Commander, 7th, had said an airborne command post linking the Marine and USAF control centers was just the ticket, and the USAF had just the right bird to do the job-a C- 1 30. Third MAF had reluctantly agreed.

Oh, and by the wa ' v, Commander, 7th, had said, best we also control or at least coordinate artillery strikes in the area so we don't fly fighters through a barrage.

Now just hold on there, Third MAF had said. We don't want any blue-suited zoomie telling us leathernecks where and when to put our airplanes and our artillery in support of our troops. Like I said before, no single air manager for us.

Just get the coordination going like I'm telling you, COMUSMACV had insisted. And COMUSMACV had gotten things done.

The USAF provided an ABCCC (Airborne Command and Control Center) C-130 to fly over the battle area. The C- 1 30 carried an air-conditioned capsule in its innards with computers, secure radios, and fourteen control consoles and a stand-up plotting board. The whole arrangement was like a ground or s.h.i.+pborne air-defense command post. It functioned as a forward extension of the command section of 7th Air Force exclusively for Operation Niagara over Khe Sanh.

Although there were two permanently established ABCCC orbits for operations in Laos and North Vietnam, this was the only one of a one-time nature.

"Very soon," General Westmoreland said to Commander, 7th, "I am going to have one man managing all the in-country air a.s.sets." He looked at the four-star USAF general. "And that man will be my Deputy Commander for Air Operations." Commander, 7th, nodded. As the commander of the Seventh Air Force, he was COMUSMACV's DCAO.

Westmoreland swung back to his briefer, Major General Berzin. "What about Khe Sanh? What's happening right now?" he asked.

Berzin flipped up a chart t.i.tled "Operation Niagara." In the center was an aerial map of the Khe Sanh plateau. Listed on one side was the tonnage and sortie count of tactical air and B-52s, on the other was the command and control linkage for the air strikes.

"As of 31 January, B-52s had flown 463 sorties against sixty-five targets in direct support of the Khe Sanh battle," Berzin said. "Each day we are supplying up to 350 Tacair sorties. They are, however, not all being used." Berzin kept a straight face and a normal voice. "Some days, up to twenty percent are kept holding so long they get low on fuel and have to depart."

COMUSMACV gritted his teeth. That cinched it, he had to have a single manager for all the in-country air and soon, very soon. This meant he would have to come down hard on the Marine command structure in I Corps.

"All right, gentlemen. That's it for the moment. I want hourly updates." He checked his notes. "I will be going to Da Nang within the next two days." He looked at Commander, 7th Air Force. "Give me your exact control plans and how they will integrate with the Marine Fire Support Coordination Center. They are, after all, on the ground and must have final say as to what is placed where." The Marine FSCC had control over all the ordnance that impacted the Khe Sanh plateau, whether from Marine mortars, from Army 175mm tubes from Camp Carrol to the east, or from any aircraft from any service overhead.

Commander, 7th, said, "Yes, sir," and departed with his DO. COMUSMACV looked at his brigadier from G-2.

"What are we going to do about that Lochert message?"

The brigadier knew better than to answer. The Lochert message referred to was an order to arrest Wolfgang X. Lochert. Westmoreland sighed heavily. He had to comply, he knew, but was loathe to implement the order. Wolf Lochert was ... well, Wolf Lochert. A warrior of long standing.

COMUSMACV stared without focus at the American flag mounted next to the briefing platform. His thoughts narrowed to one man. Although I am that warrior's commander, I obey orders from my commander.

"Have him brought in," he told the brigadier. He rapped the table.

"Here," he said. "Not to Long Binh. Don't let him be put in the Long Binh jail. Confine him to the MACSOG compound."

1030 HOURS LOCAL, THURSDAY 1 FEBRUARY 1968.

Tan SON Nhut AIRPORT Saigon, REPUBLIC OF VIETNAM The big Thai Airways Boeing 707 began its descent to land at Tan Son Nhut Air Base outside of Saigon. The airliner had flown through the rain clouds over the Malay Peninsula into the sunlight an hour before.

Court Bannister sat in First Cla.s.s Seat 2A and stared out the window at the thin layer of white stratus clouds four miles below. They were brushstrokes of white paint on the slate blue of the South China Sea.

The face of Susan Boyle kept appearing just behind his eyes. His senses still savored her smell and touch from a few hours earlier in his suite at the Raffles.

He felt vague and unfulfilled, and guilty. Bannister, you don't know what the h.e.l.l you want, he admonished himself.

One minute you're all hot to leave Vietnam behind and get out of the Air Force, marry the nicest girl in the world, and maybe go fly airlines.

The next minute you can't get back to the war fast enough. Is that all you can do, fly airplanes?

Fight wars? He fought with only limited success to dismiss the deep cynical laugh he heard in the back of his mind.