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NOVEMBER 9, 1967
By Dick Detra
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Operation Shenandoah II was a 1st Infantry Division (Big Red One) operation covering an area northeast of the Michelin rubber plantation. During October and November 1967 some of the 188th flight crews served under operational control of the 11th and 145th Combat Aviation Battalion’s and worked with aviation units based at Phu Loi, Phouc Vinh and Lai Khe. The battle of Ong Thanh, located 5 miles east of the Michelin rubber plantation, where the Iron Triangle and War Zone C virtually merged, began on the morning of October 17th. It was one of the most costly enemy ambushes of the war. The ambush occurred near the boundary line between Binh Long and Binh Duong Province. As Alpha Company, 2/28 Infantry “Black Lions” of the 3rd (Iron) Brigade commanded by Lt. Colonel Terry Allen, Jr., whose father had led the Big Red One during World War II in North Africa and Sicily, searched the jungle for the elusive 271st VC regiment, enemy fire suddenly erupted from all sides. Colonel Allen was among those cut down in the first burst. When the battalion’s operations officer, Major Donald W. Hollander, who had been an All-American end at West Point in 1954, tried to reach the battalion to take command, he was also killed by VC fire. Although the 271st lost 106 men killed, they took a heavy toll on the Black Lions of the 2/28: 57 killed, 75 wounded and 2 missing in action. Medevac helicopters were unable to land in the area on the 17th because of the overwhelming enemy fire. These are the names of the men killed in Action at Ong Thanh.
On the 18th, the 188th worked out of Lai Khe with the 173rd AHC “Robin Hoods” in support of the Black Lions. That morning a 2nd platoon slick crewed by Crew Chief Sp/5 Ron Merlock and Door Gunner Sp/4 Dick Detra got the mission to ferry some of the dead back to Lai Khe. During the flight from Ong Thanh to Lai Khe the wind blew a few of the poncho body bags open, exposing the faces of the dead. Detra was distraught after recognizing the faces of some of his buddies from basic training at Fort Lewis, Washington and advanced infantry training at Fort Polk, Louisiana. It took most of the morning to get the job done. On November 7th, the 188th celebrated their November 1, 1966 one-year anniversary, when they formed up at Fort Campbell, Kentucky with the 101st Aviation Battalion. Thanks to First Sergeant Ramon DePalm, Sr., everyone enjoyed live entertainment, a BBQ, and the cooks even baked a cake with the words 188th AHC spelled out on the top of the frosting. It was good for morale after the bitter fighting they experienced during the siege at Loc Ninh. Thanks to the efforts by the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division reconnaissance units Camp Rainier was put on amber or red alert every night in early November. Elements of the 101st VC Regiment had been spotted just east of Dau Tieng and there was a high probability that the enemy intended to attack and overrun Camp Rainier. Because of the closeness of Dau Tieng to the base camps southern perimeter 3rd Brigade command expected that the VC probe would focus on the 188th’s company area and the air field. LTC James Merryman, commander of the 269th CAB made sure that all of the 188th slicks were dispersed every night to the 269th CAB and 116th AHC at Cu Chi, which was considered more secure. At 2100 hours on November 9th the 188th company area and airfield were hit with 167 rounds of 82mm mortar fire, heavy sniper fire and a ground attack by elements of the 101st VC Regiment that had earlier infiltrated the village of Dau Tieng. Prior to the ground attack on the base camp VC sappers infiltrated the concertina wire and slit the throats of four soldiers from an artillery unit who were asleep in a bunker next to the southwest main gate and then blew the gate off. PFC Michael Holloway, WO1 Howard Liston, Sp/4 Ed Pettinato, and Sp/4 Leo S. Howell were also wounded during the battle. It was standard operating procedure for the pilot’s to make their way to the WEB airfield to protect and get any flyable aircraft up and out of harms way. Since most of the slicks had already been dispersed to Cu Chi the Spider counter mortar team ran to their gunship’s and took off. Circling over head the Spiders made continuous gun runs, under heavy fire, on the village. De Palm, a two tour Korean War veteran, earned a bronze star for his efforts that night. Top had a big brass artillery shell that he would beat on to use as an alarm to warn his young troops that the company area was under attack. That night he had instructed all of his crew chiefs and door gunners to bring their M60’s back to their hootches. When Top heard the first mortar rounds exploding high up in the rubber tree canopy, sending red-hot shrapnel down on their positions and into the GP medium tents he sounded the alarm. Everyone grabbed their weapons and made their way to the trench line that ran between the bunkers along the berm. Non-flight personnel were tasked with supplying ammo to the troops on the perimeter. The first mortar rounds hit close to the orderly room wounding Major Charles M. Graham, Captain James W. Searcy, Captain Maurice Charbonneau and the 154th Medical Detachment flight surgeon Captain Phillip A. Snodgrass. The 188th had a crew chief and a door gunner assigned to each of their 31 helicopters, minus the Spider counter mortar team, so they had at least 58 M60 machine guns dispersed along the company perimeter line plus two .50 caliber machine guns that Top had scrounged from the Special Forces in exchange for M60 parts. One was positioned at bunker number one at the southwest main gate and the other was set up on top of bunker number four, which was the closest bunker to the village. When “Charlie” started cutting through the concertina wire Top gave the order to his young aviators to open fire and the entire perimeter opened up on the village as flares exploded overhead. A VC sniper on the roof of one of the closest structures to the perimeter was lit up by a flare exploding above his position and as he looked up, it was the last thing he ever did. DePalm said, “Within 15 minutes, we had them either dead or running.” After Top gave the order to open fire on the village a 2nd Lieutenant from Base Operations Control (BOC) came over and jumped on him, telling Top he was supposed to get clearance from the BOC before firing on the village. He wanted to know who gave him orders to fire. “Shit” he said, “They were firing into our area, what more do you need?” Top thought what a stupid thing to ask, “We were being hit by a ground attack.” After hearing from his 2nd Lieutenant, the XO from the 3rd Brigade, 25th Infantry Division’s BOC called Black Widow 6, LTC James McWhorter and asked him if his men could handle the assault on their sector of the perimeter. McWhorter’s response was, “No problem.” 1st flight platoon leader Captain Maurice Charbonneau’s brother-in-law, who was working night ops in the area on an Air Force “Spooky” AC-130 gunship, monitored the fire fight from the air. He said that from the air the red tracer fire coming out from the 188th‘s perimeter looked like a bright red carpet going into the village of Dau Tieng. Our next door neighbors from the 2/12 Infantry shared guard duty with the 188th. Some deserted their bunker positions after the firing started, because they figured an aviation company couldn’t stop the enemy attack and would be easily overrun. During the battle the 2/12 Infantry sent soldiers out through the southern perimeter for a pincer movement and as the grunts very slowly made their way through the village parallel to the base camp’s perimeter they started receiving friendly fire from the 188th’s position. At that point orders came down for the 188th to cease fire because of the friendly troops to their front. The next morning the 2/12 Infantry swept the village again and soldiers from Graves Registration counted 214 dead VC in the village. The bodies were laid out on the road that leads from the Southwest main gate into the village of Dau Tieng. A Sergeant Major from the 269th CAB called Top and told him that Black Baron 6, LTC James Merryman wanted to see him immediately. He was flown into Cu Chi and reported to the battalion commander. Top told him his side of the story about opening fire, the ground attack, 188th wounded and the part about the 214 VC bodies laying out in front of the 188th’s perimeter. Instead of an ass chewing Merryman awarded him a Bronze Star for his actions during the fire fight. The day after the attack Captain Charbonneau was waiting in line for a haircut from the company Vietnamese barber and overheard some of the grunts from the 2/12 talking about the unbelievable amount of fire power engaging the village from the 188th’s perimeter. One of the Vietnamese day workers from the village that worked for Top showed up the next morning and told him, “You cockadau (kill) beau coup (many) VC” The Commander of the 101st VC regiment figured that his soldiers would have no problem infiltrating the village and breaching the base camp’s southern perimeter overrun the 188th company area and air field. They would then link up with other VC elements that had infiltrated Camp Rainier’s perimeter. He didn’t realize that an aviation company could muster more fire power than an infantry company. The M60D machine gun was the most dependable weapon in the Army arsenal and the 188th had a bunch. The aftermath of the attack resulted in a weeklong siege of a Viet Cong regimental-sized base camp found by the 3rd Brigade, 25 Infantry Division troops southeast of Dau Tieng and the destruction of the enemy bastion. Twenty-eight VC were killed by heavy air strikes, artillery, Spider gunship’s and the 2/22 (Triple Deuce) mechanized infantry. Over 400 bunkers, 250 two-man spider holes, and 1,500 meters of trench line were destroyed in the spider web-like base camp. According to 3rd Brigade Commander Colonel Kenneth E. Buell, the base camp was a key to an expected attack on the Vietnamese District Headquarters located in Dau Tieng by the 101st VC Regiment. Papers found among eight of the enemy who were killed in an ambush indicated that the 101st was massing in the area. In eight days over 30 air strikes and thousands of rounds of artillery out of Camp Rainier smashed into the 900 by 800 meter entrenchments. Many bunkers were 10x10x6 feet in size and had 3 feet of overhead cover protecting the VC who were found in the base camp. The first day the camp was discovered, Bravo and Charlie Companies from the Triple Deuce uncovered 100 bunkers before intense enemy small arms and RPG rocket fire forced their withdrawal. The Air Force then pounded the area until it was a veritable dust heap. Returning to the camp, a grenade factory, complete with crude furnace, hand and rifle grenade molds, VC claymore molds, scrap metal, and 300 wooden sand casting frames were found and destroyed. Twelve-hundred ponds of rice, a small number of grenades and ammunition, typewriter, clothes and documents were captured. Twenty dead VC were found within the camp, either in shallow graves or in the blasted undergrowth. Another eight VC, part of a mortar squad that had mortared the battalion command post, were killed by an ambush patrol from C/2/22. During the Black Widows eight-month stay at Camp Rainier numerous VC tunnels were discovered under the 188th company area and airfield. The VC tunneled in from the homes of VC sympathizers in the village of Dau Tieng. The tunnels were dug under the 188th’s company area and the WEB air field. Some of these tunnels were found after the enemy’s rocket and mortar attacks caved in their own tunnels and were subsequently destroyed by the 25th I.D. Before and during Tet ’68 a number of tunnels were found in the company area. One of the Vietnamese day workers was arrested when he was spotted hauling dirt away from a tunnel excavation being dug in the company area. Unfortunately the VC successfully used other tunnels in early 1969 after the 188th had moved north to LZ Sally.
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