10 May 1969
Firebase Blaze, five hundred by a thousand meters, was twenty kilos south of Ap Bia Mountain. In the early morning hours, eighteen hundred men from five battalions-1/506th, 2/501st, and 3/187th from the 101st Airborne Division, and 4/1 and 2/1 ARVN-were assembled there to await liftoff. In the predawn hours, the troopers lounged about the area, napping, smoking, talking, wiping off sweat from the early-morning heat, cleaning weapons. Pilots and door gunners stood by some of the sixty-five Hueys, already at Firebase Blaze, that would air-assault the troops into the battle area. The men were poised to launch the largest air mobile assault in the Vietnam war. Ten artillery batteries were laid and ready to fire from Firebases Bradley, Airborne, Currahee, Berchtesgaden, and Cannon, having been moved in to their firing positions only sixteen hours before the invasion.
H-Hour was 0730. In the hour before the helicopter launch, fighter-bombers had bombed the LZs for fifty minutes; the artillery followed with a fifteen-minute barrage. Then came aerial rocket artillery helicopters for a one-minute "frosting on the cake." The troops could hear their bombs blasting the enemy defenses-and, they hoped, cutting down their losses later. At 0649, the TAC-Air prep stopped and the troops prepared to "saddle up." The lift helicopters, UH-1Ds, began to arrive at Firebase Blaze in groups of sixteen, for a total of sixty-four. At 0730, H-Hour, the sixty-four Hueys and the first four hundred men and the lead companies of 1/506th and 3/187th covered by Cobra gunships, were on their way to the northern A Shau Valley. The Hueys flew to the south across the A Shau Valley, and then, using the walls of the valley as a screen, turned to the north along the Laotian border to their LZs.
By 0800, D Company, then A and C, landed on LZ 2 without opposition. Ten minutes later, the troops were moving toward their assigned locations and setting up defensive positions.
As planned, Capt. Dean L. Johnson and his C Company secured the LZ. Captain Gerald R. Harkins and his A Company moved out toward the Laotian border. Captain Luther L. Sanders led his D Company to the south-southwest, passed through the battalion CP on LZ 2, and headed up the ridge protruding to the northwest of Dong Ap Bia. At 0945, Honeycutt and his command ship landed on LZ 2. Honeycutt relieved Capt. Dean Johnson of LZ security, and Johnson and C Company moved out toward the border. Then Honeycutt and part of his staff began to move up the mountain ridge behind D Company and, at about 1100, linked up with Sanders about a thousand meters from the top of the mountain. Helicopters hovering slowly overhead reported enemy trails, campsites, supply dumps, and bunkers. The signs of the enemy were becoming ominous. Honeycutt began to sense the enemy around him and radioed Colonel Conmy to release B Company to him. Conmy readily agreed, and B Company arrived at LZ 2 about 1430. Capt. Charles L. Littman, who had taken over from Captain Robinson on 8 May and would command the company for only twelve days, commanded B Company. At about 1530, B Company reached Honeycutt's battalionCP. Honeycutt ordered Littman to move his company up the mountain.
"After reaching the uppermost portion of the ridge, the company moved several hundred meters to the northeast and the proceeded south along a second ridge," wrote an Army historian. "As the company moved, the enemy's presence could be felt. Lookout towers high in the boughs of the canopy were passed. Jointed sections of bamboo, freshly cut for their water content, were strewn about. Spider holes and punji pits were encountered. B Company moved slowly, hoping to make the summit before dusk. The sound of artillery impacting on the hill, the ridges, and in the valleys and ravines was pleasing to the ear. The faint ping of mortar fire, coming from the battalion CP at D Company's location, was reassuring. A round whined overhead, then another.
Contact! Small-arms fire began to pour in and the RPGs. The second platoon, led by Lt. Marshall Edwards, dispersed and returned fire. The bushes, the trees, the jagged rocks all seemed steeped with the violence of armed combat. The smell of cordite hung low over the anxious troops. Artillery was adjusted to within 25 meters of the platoon with shrapnel falling into friendly positions. The firing subsided, the flared again as the Rakkasans moved forward.... When more HE was poured into enemy positions, the fire lessened and then stopped; sweep teams found four enemy bodies and four AK-47's.... Artillery pounded the area throughout the night." Honeycutt ordered Littman to dig in and establish an NDP.
11 May 1969
Just prior to dawn, the Rakkasans in NDPs [night defensive position] launched a "mad minute," heavy machine-gun and automatic-rifle fire out of the perimeter into the enemy positions. Cobra gunships were on station overhead. At 0750, B Company, with Lieutenant Denholm's 4th Platoon in the lead, moved out. As the platoon made its way up the denuded ridge, the men found bloody trails, weapons, gear, and eight enemy KIAs.
Throughout the late morning and early afternoon, the other three companies slugged on, finding fresh bunkers, communications wire, and other NVA gear. At about 1600, Denholm's men hit the enemy head-on. An enemy soldier sprang from a hole and shot Sp4 Aaron Rosenstreich in the chest. Sp4 John McCarrell was blown to bits by an NVA rocket. Rosenstreich died moments later.
Denholm was blown down the trail, but, even deaf and stunned, he called for a machine gun. Sp4 Terry Larson rushed forward and was shot through the head. Sp4 Donald Mills rushed forward with an M60 and was shot through the chest. Seconds later, he got up, charged, and emptied his weapon into the sniper.
In a bind, the B Company men grenaded the area around them and pulled back, carrying their dead and wounded with them. Honeycutt called in artillery and air strikes.
At 1730, gunships flew over the area. During one strike, a gunship misfired and hit Honeycutt's CP with rockets. He was hit and two of his men killed. Thirty-five men were wounded, including battalion Sgt. Maj. Bernie Meehan. Honeycutt got on his radio and demanded that all aircraft check with his CP before launching strikes and halt all ARA [aerial rocket artillery] until friendly positions were marked more clearly.
Later that day, from documents found on an NVA soldier and translated by his Kit Carson scout, Honeycutt and the Brigade intelligence officer, Captain Fredericks, estimated that the 29th NVA Regiment was on the mountain with a strength of between twelve and eighteen hundred men, heavily reinforced with weapons. The 29th mission, according to the documents, was to infiltrate down to the plains and attack Hue.
A Company moved east toward the border. C Company moved to the southeast and at 0913 reported its location as three hundred meters southeast of the battalion CP that was on the hill's northeastern ridge for the remainder of the operation.
With the new intelligence, Honeycutt realized that his enemy was a major force and one ready and able to fight. He ordered Captain Johnson to move his C Company east toward the Ap Bia Mountain. He directed Harkins to move A Company back up the ridge to the battalion CP to relieve D Company. He told Sanders to use D Company to clear a ravine to the northeast, and then attack up the mountain from that position.
12 May 1969
During the day, eight air strikes pummeled the enemy positions, the last one at 1734. The strikes included high drag bombs, napalm, and five-hundred and one-thousand-pound bombs with delay fuses. As the gunships left, artillery fire - 105s, 155s, and 8-inch - blasted the area with great accuracy. B Company started up the ridge when the fire lifted. The bombing and napalm had opened trails in the jungle and the men saw enemy bunkers that they blasted with recoilless rifles. The fire caused the NVA soldiers to spring from their spider holes. They rolled grenades down on the Rakkasans, wounding six men.
Littman moved his company back down the ridge, carrying the wounded with them. Helicopter gunships and fighter-bombers returned to cover the area with "snake and nape".
In the D Company area, Sanders was having trouble. As the single lines of men moved slowly and cautiously through the ravines and dense jungle they were hit from three directions by many snipers high in the trees. The D Company troopers raked the trees with gunfire, but progress was slow. They could hear the enemy all around them.
Honeycutt wanted another LZ near B Company. One of the helicopters bringing in the engineers and their equipment was hit by enemy fire and crashed. But most of the engineers landed safely, rescued their gear, and, with B Company help, by 1500 had completed the lower LZ. Honeycutt had another LZ carved out 100 meters north of his CP-known as the upper LZ. By evening, C Company, after being ambushed in late afternoon when rocket-propelled grenades hit the trees above them and suffering eight wounded, was in an NDP 500 meters southeast of the lower LZ. B Company's NDP was located 350 meters northeast of the lower LZ. D Company was 500 meters to the north of the lower LZ. A Company and the battalion command post remained at the blocking position next to the upper LZ. During the night, the NVA probed all the NDPs and, at midnight, hit the NDPs with accurate mortar fire.
13 May 1969
At 0656, the forward air controller (FAC), arrived on station and directed ten air strikes against the known enemy fortifications. The Phantom jets used delayed-action ordnance to penetrate the canopy and explode in depth in the bunkers, trenches, and spider holes. The Rakkasans were well aware that the enemy troops ducked into the tunnels and bunkers at the sound of the jets and came out as soon as they left the area.
After the early-morning air strikes, B and C Companies resumed their treacherous climb up the ridge toward the enemy's dug-in positions and suffered a withering attack from a nest of snipers and small arms, RPGs (Rocket Propelled Grenade) and hand grenades. More and more wounded 3/187th soldiers from B and C Companies made their way back down the trails. Other Rakkasans, carrying cans of ammo and grenades, passed them on the way up. In the C Company CP area, two men were killed and five wounded by an NVA attack into their security perimeter. The artillery Forward Observer called for fire and broke up the attack.
D Company was having an equally difficult time about six hundred meters from the battalion command post, wading through a river, climbing up the side of a ravine, and then attacking toward the top of Ap Bia. The NVA hit them with rocket-propelled grenades, badly wounding three men. Across the river, another RPG hit the 3d Platoon, wounding five men, and blowing Lieutenant Mattioli off the ridge and into the river.
"Delta Company, with platoons on both banks of the ravine, returned the fire with every available weapon and called for gunships," wrote Fred Waterhouse. "They also called for a MedEvac helicopter, which arrived on the scene at 1510 hours.
As the Rakkasans were hoisting the wounded into the hovering helicopter, an RPG slammed into it. It crashed down on Pfc. George Pickel, killing him instantly. One of its whirling blades killed Sp4 William Springfield and wounded Miguel Moreno. Captain Luther Sanders watched in agony. He now had seven wounded and seven dead. His company would have to carry all of them out by litter. Delta Company started back up the mountain through the river bottom. At places, they climbed sheer cliffs and took one hour to move a hundred yards."
By late afternoon, the 3d Platoon of A Company reached the beleaguered D Company and the column started moving again, struggling up the steep cliffs at about thirty feet in half an hour.
Then the rain came in torrents. Sanders halted his column and set up an NDP and called in artillery to surround his perimeter with close-in, constant shelling throughout the night. Just after midnight, the NVA, from the shelter of Laos, hit the Rakkasan positions with mortars. Honeycutt called in the "Spooky" gunship, a C-47 equipped with rapid-fire Gatling guns, to spray the area. The NVA did not attack that night. Meanwhile, Colonel Conmy ordered the 1/506th to change its mission and reinforce the 3/187th attack on the mountain.
14 May 1969
At 0646, the FAC reported in to Honeycutt's CP and directed thirteen air strikes - napalm, thousand-pound bombs - on the mountain throughout the day. The artillery from the nearby firebases blasted the area constantly. The first concentrated attack on the summit began at 0756," wrote an Army historian. "C Company moved east from its NDP location up a small finger (Finger 1). B Company moved to the east from its NDP location up a small finger about 150 meters north of C Company (Finger 2). Both companies came into contact immediately but pressed on, with C Company reaching the military crest of the hill at 0843. Mutually supporting bunkers were encountered. Claymores were set up in the trees. Heavy mortar, RPG, and small-arms fire continued to harass the Rakkasans."
On ridge finger 2, C Company found itself in a ferocious fight when the NVA pummeled them with small-arms fire, RPGs, and grenades, rolled down the sides of hills. In Lt. James Goff's 3d Platoon, six men were badly wounded. The troops kept moving forward, but the NVA came out of their holes, firing AK-47s. Goff's men were hit from all sides. Two were killed and fifteen wounded. The other platoons of C Company were nailed against the side of the mountain.
Sfc. Louis Garza led a platoon from B Company in three unsuccessful assaults up the hill to help B Company, and had seven men wounded. On his fourth attempt, Garza moved through the NVA bunker line and found NVA bodies throughout the area. The enemy in a second row of bunkers opened fire and wounded six more troopers. The lead platoons of B and C Companies began to fall back under heavy NVA fire. Sp4 John Comerford crawled up with an M60 machine gun and sprayed the bunkers. But it was not enough. Honeycutt sent a platoon from A Company to cover the withdrawal. Unfortunately, as it moved up, it was hit by helicopter gunships firing rockets that killed Sp4 Edward Brooks and badly wounded three other men. Lieutenant Donald Sullivan and his 2d Platoon of C Company tried to help the fallback but was hit with RPGs that wiped out a four-man litter team, blew his radio operator, Sp4 Ron Swanson, down the hill, and killed Rakkasan Willie Chapman. C Company now had a total of fifty-two men killed and wounded.
By 1700, the Rakkasans were in NDPs and Honeycutt asked for a sit rep [situation report]. He learned that he had lost twelve KIA and eighty badly wounded men. By 1920, though, he had medevaced all his dead and wounded out of the area. At 2000, a Spooky arrived on station and throughout the night, laced the area west of the Rakkasan position toward the Laotian border.
15 May 1969
During the morning hours, the gunships and ten artillery firebases repeated their almost incessant bombing of the enemy positions as they had done the previous days, reducing the mountain and ridgelines to smoldering piles of blackened and smoking tree stumps, churned-up earth, denuded of vegetation.
At 1200, A and B Companies attacked the same two fingers that they had assaulted the previous day. Sfc. Louis Garza led 4th Platoon from B Company over the same ground, and two claymore mines hit and wounded his two point men. Garza called for air support.
After the strike with 250-pound bombs, Garza and his platoon moved forward, firing their machine guns and M16s, overran the bunkers, and killed eight NVAs. But sniper and machine-gun fire halted his advance. He marked the enemy position with smoke and called for helicopter gunships. Unfortunately, the first gunship salvoed an entire rack of rockets into B Company's CP, killing Pfc. Joseph Price and wounding fifteen others, including the CO, Capt. Charles Littman. Capt. John C. "Butch" Chappelle replaced him. Higher up the trail, Garza and his men were hit with an NVA counterattack that Pfcs. Snyder and Maryniewski drove off with machine-gun fire.
Lieutenant Frank McGreevy and his 1st Platoon of A Company were stopped in front of a line of bunkers. He tried to move forward but a machine-gun team, led by Sp4 Michael Lyden laying down covering fire, was hit by return fire that killed Lyden.
McGreevy's platoon was now cut in half, and he ordered a withdrawl. Honeycutt called off the attack and told B and C Companies to set up a joint NDP. He also called in his artillery liaison officer and gave him a message to get back to the division staff. "I want you to make sure that everybody gets this. And I mean the artillery people and the gunship pilots and the liaison officers . . everybody. I don't want any more ARA out here if they can't shoot the enemy instead of us. I'm tired of taking more casualties from friendlies than from the enemy. The next goddamn sonofabitch who comes out here and shoots us up, we're gonna shoot his fuckin' ass down. And that's final. Now you go back and tell 'em that."
During the night, NVA sappers out of Laos moved up the draw and tried to hit C Company and the battalion CP. A "Shadow" gunship, a C-119 armed with three miniguns, took them under fire. That evening the CO of 1/506th reported to Honeycutt that he was within 1,200 meters southeast of the lower LZ.
16 May 1969
A first-light check by C Company found fourteen NVA bodies in their area. The day began just like the previous six days: saturation bombing, air strikes, and ceaseless artillery volleys onto the known or
suspected enemy locations. Honeycutt told Sanders to stop finding an avenue to the top of the mountain, realizing that D Company's three brutal days in the ravine was enough. He ordered D Company back up the ridge to secure B Company's LZ. Honeycutt planned his attack on the mountain with A Company in the lead, supported by a flanking attack by 1/506th. But the 1/506th was in trouble in its area. One NVA platoon hit the lead elements of the battalion that was receiving heavy fire from Hills 800, 900, and 916.
The NVA attacks prevented the 1/506th from getting to the mountain in time to support the 3/187th's assault. Honeycutt called off the attack without the help 0f 1/506th. Honeycutt was frustrated. He thought that 1/506th was taking too long, and he sensed that the NVA was bringing up reinforcements from Laos to beef up the mountain.
17 May 1969
Honeycutt put the day "on hold" and had his men prepare for the assault the next day by stockpiling supplies, passing out new protective gas masks, and bringing up concussion grenades for use against the dug-in NVA in bunkers.
The 1/506th, fighting up the mountain crest and taking casualties, had still not arrived in a support position. There was little contact during the hours of darkness.
18 May 1969
Early in the morning, the usual "prep" fires of air and artillery pounded the mountaintop. The first CS gas rounds, however, landed in the middle of A Company, and division made the decision to call off the CS attack.
At 1025, A and D Companies moved out and, for the first time in the Ap Bia assault, every man in the attacking companies wore a flak jacket and most of the riflemen carried about forty rounds of M16 ammo and some as many as ten grenades.
Honeycutt's plan had A and D Companies moving up the two fingers, proven to be the only accessible routes to the top. On A Company's point was Lieutenant McGreevy and his 1st Platoon, followed by the 2d and 3d Platoons. As usual, the enemy fire increased with the appearance of the Rakkasans. McGreevy was hit and had to be evacuated. By 1215, the assault companies had to halt in place and wait for a heavy concentration of fire - gunships, artillery, mortars, napalm, and all the small-arms fire that the infantrymen could bring to bear: machine guns, M-79s, light antitank weapons and 90mm recoilless rifles.
In D Company's area on the flank of A Company, Lt. Thomas Lipscomb and his 3d Platoon were in the lead. At a bunker line, the enemy fire was heavy. Three men went down, and Lipscomb yelled for his men to move up.
Lipscomb charged a trench line with two other men while three of his men laid down covering fire. A grenade exploded at Lipscomb's feet, blowing him back down the hill and killing him instantly. Pfc. Paul Bellino rushed forward but a sniper, too, killed him.
Sanders realized that he had to get moving or, standing still, lose more men. He ordered Lt. Jerry Walden and his 1st Platoon to continue the attack. Shortly thereafter, Sanders was shot in the arm, and Lieutenant Walden took over the company. He called Honeycutt and called for more ammo. Helicopters arrived shortly, hovering a few feet over the ground, while the crew threw out boxes of ammo.
"Walden told the colonel his Rakkasans were not going to back off," wrote Fred Waterhouse. "Walden moved his men up in a skirmish line. They leapfrogged from log to log and crater to crater. NVA grenades flew through the air.
Sp4s Howard Harris and Jack Little blazed away with an M60 machine gun. Harris was shot in the neck. Private First Class Roy Mathew moved up as assistant gunner. Seconds later he was killed, shot in the throat. Nearby, Pfc. Steve Korovesis, a new replacement, was hit by shrapnel and evacuated. He had been in Vietnam for one month and lasted ten minutes in his first battle.
"Lieutenant Walden moved up and down the line, steadying his men. They began taking flanking fire. Two Rakkasans tried to rush forward. They were both shot down. Private First Class Willie Kirkland, 1st Platoon medic, moved up to give aid. He was hit five times in the chest. While Pfc. Roger Murray laid down covering fire, Sgt. Tom McGall and Pfc. Michael Rocklen ran up and pulled Kirkland into a bomb crater. Kirkland died a few minutes later."
South of D Company, A Company moved to the attack. Lieutenant Daniel Bresnahan's 3d Platoon led the assault up a thirty-degree slope, overran the first line of bunkers, killed about ten NVA, and moved toward the second line of bunkers. Back at his CP, Honeycutt was receiving optimistic reports from his commanders. 1/506th, however, had moved only about a hundred meters against strong opposition.
At 1137, Lieutenant Walden reported to Honeycutt that he was within seventy-five meters of the top. But minutes later, Walden and 1st Sgt. Thomas Sterns were hit by shrapnel. D Company was without officers, and all platoons were running low on ammunition. Honeycutt told them to hold fast, that he would send help. He contacted Captain Johnson and he ordered him to move C Company up the hill to reinforce what was left of A and D Companies, to take all the ammo they could carry, and to take over D Company as well as his own men.
Honeycutt realized the gravity of his situation in spite of some previous optimism. C Company had to fight up the hill and took fire from the southeast where, from a helicopter, he saw that the NVA were also in force in that direction. He also found out that 1/506th was in no condition to assist his final assault on the mountain. He called colonel Conmy, briefed him on his very difficult situation, and asked for another company, a "fully intact air assault company." Conmy told him that it would be airborne in minutes. But that became open to discussion later.
From 1251 until 1330, all units held in place as jets raked the smoldering hill with "snake and nape." When Johnson reached the remnants of D Company, he told Lt. Joel Trautman, his 1st Platoon commander, to move up the small finger ridge. The men rushed forward in bounds. They could see the crest of the mountain only a hundred meters above them. Trautman was hit in the thigh by machine-gun fire and went down, losing consciousness.
Honeycutt was overhead in a command chopper, directing air strikes and artillery fire. Finally, he felt that his men were going to take the mountain after the bloody fighting of the past nine days. He landed and started climbing up the mountain. At B Company's old LZ, his men were hit by small-arms fire, and Honeycutt shot an NVA soldier. As he started up the hill again, the sky became black, the wind gusted, lightning streaked through the sky, and a torrential rainstorm began. Visibility was limited to twenty meters. Honeycutt radioed all companies to hold fast until the rain stopped. The heavy rains continued until bomb craters were small ponds, the mud was thick and slippery on the slopes, and forward movement was almost impossible. Honeycutt checked with Colonel Conmy and decided to withdraw. C Company held to cover the withdrawal of A and D Companies. By 1530, all three companies had moved back.
Honeycutt had been expecting another company to help him take Ap Bia. Unknown to him, the 101st Division Commander, Major General Zais, deeply concerned about the Rakkasan casualties, had stopped the reinforcing company from joining the battle. At 1700, General Zais arrived at Honeycutt's CP. The Rakkasans were a battered battalion. During the day, A and C Companies had lost nine men each, B had lost four, and Delta thirty-nine. Zais wanted to know if Honeycutt could fight on. Honeycutt said that he would need just one company more. Zais was hesitant. Honeycutt was adamant.
At 1830, A Company, 2/506th began to land by helicopter on the upper LZ. That night, the company remained with B/3/187th in a blocking position while A, C, and D Companies set up NDPs within a few hundred meters of the lower LZ (one hundred meters north of the battalion command post).
19 May 1969
At 0630, the jets arrived and pounded the enemy positions with seven air strikes using bombs, napalm, and rockets. For some reason, the NVA popped purple smoke grenades. No friendly forces used "grape", so the jets had some accurately marked targets to hit. During the morning, D Company and A/2/506th moved to the lower LZ. Honeycutt worked on his final plan of attack on the mountain, slated for the morning of the twentieth. Other units moved into locations for the final assault.
2/3rd ARVN moved by helicopter from Hue to an LZ a thousand meters south of AP Bia and then climbed northwest to an assault position five hundred meters from the top of Hill 900. Three companies of 2/501st were airlifted from Firebase Airborne to an LZ eight hundred meters northeast of Ap Bia and the walked to within four hundred meters of the base of Hill 937. 1/506th attacked south of the mountain.
Honeycutt's plan of attack called for A/2/506th to move up the northern face (Finger 2) while C Company to move up Finger 1. A Company would move to the south from the lower LZ and then proceed up the southern ridge; 2/3d ARVN to assault the eastern ridge; 2/501st to assault to the southwest from its position around the mountain.
Over a captured radio, Honeycutt got a message from the NVA. "Black Jack, we are going to kill all of your men tomorrow. When you come up the mountain in the morning, Black Jack, we will be waiting for you. All of your men are going to die. Can you hear me, Black Jack? All will die!".
20 May 1969
For two hours, beginning around dawn, the air force jet and Skyraider pilots bombed all four sides of Ap Bia with every type of armament they could "scarf up" at their bases. Like the sequence of the previous ten days, when the pairs of planes left the area, the artillery blasted the NVA positions with tons of 105mm, 155mm, and 8-inch artillery rounds. At 1000, the four infantry battalions assaulted the burning, scoured, denuded mountaintop.
In 3/187th area, the lineup had A Company on the right, C Company in the center, and A/2/506th on the left. When the troops reached the base of the mountain, they formed long skirmish lines and began to move cautiously up the slopes. They were surprised when they were not fired on with the usual heavy bursts of fire at close range.
The hill was eerily silent. And in ten minutes, the three companies had reached the first bunker line - now seemingly deserted. As a precaution, the troopers destroyed the bunkers with grenades and satchel charges. Twenty minutes later, their lines were just a hundred meters from the military crest of Ap Bia and closing in on the second bunker line.
The mountain was quiet for ten minutes. Then, at about 1040, when the skirmish lines were just seventy-five meters from the top, the bunkers came alive with a rain of RPGs at point-blank range. Ten to fifteen NVA hit C Company, wounded seven Rakkasans, and continued the fight by rolling grenades down the slope. Sp4 Tyrone Campbell and his assistant gunner rushed forward with a 90mm recoilless rifle and scored a direct hit on one bunker and, a moment later, another.
On the right flank of C Company, Sp4 Edward Merjil, 2d Platoon, was a one-man commando team. He knocked out two bunkers with a grenade launcher, and then, "with his squad on both sides laying down covering fire, rushed a third," wrote Samuel Zaffiri. "While his men poured fire on the bunker, pinning down the enemy soldiers inside, Merjil took careful aim from ten meters away and shot a grenade right into the aperture, killing the two NVA soldiers huddled inside."
"Merjil reloaded quickly, then rushed forward with the rest of his squad up the steep side of the mountain. Ten meters later, the men topped the mountain. They did not realize it at the time, but they were the first Americans to set foot on Dong Ap Bia. The time was 1145, exactly nine days and five hours after Bravo Company first made contact on the mountain."
"Still, Merjil and his men had taken only a few square feet of the mountain. The NVA were still dug in all over the top of it, and before the squad could move any further, they were pinned down by fire coming from a half-dozen enemy positions."
Behind them, Lt. Donald Sullivan was pushing his 2d Platoon as hard as he could. To his left, Sp4 Lionel Mata and another squad moved up. Mata laid down a base of grazing fire with his machine gun, and within fifteen minutes, his squad had moved around the area and knocked out ten bunkers with smoke and fragmentation grenades taped together.
Then, C Company, two or three men at a time, reached the top of the mountain. The surviving NVA deserted their bunkers and ran down the west face of the mountain in the draw between Hills 900 and 910 toward Laos. Overhead, Honeycutt directed 81mm mortar fire into the draw while B/1/506th sent a force below the draw and waited for the NVA to emerge. When they did, they ran into a wall of fire. But the NVA was aggressive: two platoons of B/1/506th fought hand-to-hand with the fleeing NVA.
On the western face of the mountain, C/187th set up a perimeter. Honeycutt ordered Captain Harkins to move his A Company up the mountain to reinforce C Company. A Company was fighting a hard battle just below the crest of Ap Bia, in which Harkins had already lost Lt. George Bennitt and fifteen men. Harkins rallied his troops and moved up. About thirty meters from the top, Harkins took a shot through his neck that lodged in his back. He staggered a few feet and fell into a shell hole. Overhead, Honeycutt urged him on even after Harkins told him that he had been wounded. "I've been hit bad," Harkins told him. Honeycutt said, "I know you've been hit, but you still gotta keep pushing." A medic bandaged Harkins, and Harkins staggered almost blindly ahead, holding on to his radio operator's backpack.
The NVA in the last bunker line refused to give up, pinned down A Company's troops, and rolled grenades down on them. At the same time, an NVA squad hit C Company's right flank.
"Pinned down on the far right side of Alpha's skirmish line," wrote Samuel Zaffiri, "Sp4 Johnny Jackson, a machine gunner in the 3d Platoon, huddled behind a log and thought: Here we go again. Another attack failed. As he cowered there, though, he suddenly remembered what he had boastfully told a friend earlier in the morning. 'I'll tell you what,' he had said, 'if we go up that sonofabitch this time, I'm staying up. I ain't gonna be run down again and let them assholes shoot me in the back. I'm through with this retreating bullshit.'
"He kept thinking of his words now, and then on impulse stood up and shouted out loud so everyone in the 3d Platoon could hear him, 'Fuck this bullshit!' With a fluid motion, Jackson brought his M60 up to his chest and raked the enemy position above, then charged up the side of the mountain, wildly spraying bullets from side to side."
On his way to the top, Jackson stumbled into a spider hole occupied by two enemy soldiers. Before they could grab their weapons, Jackson sprayed them with his M60. Then he raced upward and found himself looking into the aperture of another bunker. He fired into it and scrambled up the remaining twenty or so meters to the top of the mountain.
Below him, his friend, Sp4 Michael Vallone, frightened but inspired by Jackson's charge, yelled. "Follow me," fired short bursts from his M16, and led his squad, then the platoon, and the rest of A Company, up the mountain. At the top, A Company rolled over the last bunker line and made it to the top. The wounded Captain Harkins set up a perimeter defense tied into C Company, turned the company over to Lt. Gordie Atcheson, and then began his laborious trek down the mountain.
To the southwest, B/1/506th was in a tough battle. The 3d Platoon attacked up Hill 900 but, about a hundred meters from the top, met a grim fate. Claymore mines hidden in trees blasted the point squad, killing the point man and wounding seven others. Two platoons of NVA, firing satchel charges, roared down the hill through the shattered platoon, then raced back up through it again. Fighting was close and brutal. Fifteen minutes later, the 3d Platoon had ten dead and was surrounded by a pile of NVA KIAs. Lieutenant Colonel John Bowers, CO of 1/506th, ordered Capt. William Stymiest, C Company CO, to send a force up the hill to relieve the battered 3d Platoon. In a two-hour fight, C Company made it to the top, where sixty-five dead NVA littered the area.
By the end of the day, most of the troops of the 29th NVA Regiment had been killed or were trying to escape across the border to Laos. From his helicopter, Honeycutt could see the NVA running in all directions off the mountain. B/1/506th was still in a blocking position to cover the southwestern draw. Honeycutt brought in two fighter-bombers to strafe up and down the draw and then brought in artillery fire.
The Rakkasans on the top and slopes of Dong Ap Bia found a landscape that resembled what they imagined hell must be like. Throughout the area, they found NVA pith helmets, AK-47s, stick grenades, bloody bandages, and RPGs. In the center of Hill 937, a line of Rakkasans came across a group of fifteen NVA who were apparently shell-shocked. Without waiting, the Rakkasans killed them all. Four of the NVA had been chained to trees. All of them wore patches that read: "Kill the Americans."
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Honeycutt began the mop-up operation at about 1500. One POW, eighteen-year-old Pham Van Hai, told his interrogators that 80 percent of his hundred-man company and the 29th NVA Regiment's 7th and 8th Battalions had been nearly wiped out. Later, Sp4 Johnny Jackson and his squad, searching the top of the mountain, found an underground room containing the stripped and stacked bodies of more than forty NVA soldiers. Other Rakkasians searching the mountaintop discovered in its deep tunnels, a huge hospital, a regimental CP, and many storage areas containing 152 individual and 25 crew-served weapons, 75,000 rounds of ammo, thousands of mortar and RPG rounds, and over ten tons of rice.
The 3d Battalion of the 187th suffered 39 killed in action and 290 wounded. The total casualties of the American taking of Dong Ap Bia was 70 dead and 372 wounded.
The losses inflicted on the NVA in Dong Ap Bia are debatable. The G2 Section of the 101st estimated the NVA dead at 633, based upon actual body count. But no one could count the NVA running off the mountain, those killed by artillery and air strikes, the wounded and dead carried into Laos or the dead buried in collapsed bunkers and tunnels.
The 3/187th's battle for Dong Ap Bia was over. For the next seventeen days, the other three battalions would continue to mop up the mountain. But on 21 May, the Rakkasans were evacuated from the area to Camp Evans for a stand-down at Eagle Beach.
While the other battalions were policing the Dong Ap Bia battlefield, one imaginative soldier found a piece of cardboard C-ration box, wrote on it, "Hamburger Hill," and nailed it to a charred tree trunk. Shortly thereafter, another, perhaps more practical and blunt soldier, had added beneath the sign, "Was it worth it?"
