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derivative filename/jpeg
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363-01330 to 363-01342.pdf
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Digital Object Identifier
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363-01330 to 363-01342
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Title
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Article about Marines returning to Khe Sanh
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Description
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Original title: "K/S khesanh." Article by Keever on the Marine Corps' return to a Khe Sanh outpost
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AI Usage Disclosure
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Draft transcripts were automatically generated via Google Document AI and are currently under review. Please report significant errors to Archives & Special Collections at archives@unl.edu.
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Transcript
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5020 886
yy nnm
khosanh 1 (normass/doope)
KIS.
KHI SANJI, SOUTH VIETNAM, OCTOBER 9-The American Marinos returned to
onec-beatogod Khe Sanh combat base with mixed omotions.
The generala were jubilant.
Commanding the return to the
Raymond
in base abandoned 92 days before, Maj. Gen. Ray Davis said the ground
operation into and around i Khe Sanh symbolized "the major shift in the
relative power between the Allies and the North Vietnamese" operating along
the demilitarized zone.
20 the
"The Marines have been squeezed into a smaller area,"
commandor of the Third Marine Divisionhich now operates along the
western two-thirds of the 40-milo-line. "And this has increased our
combat power many fold." In addition, the general said the Marines
"have just thrown the last of their (North Vietnamese) elements back
across the Ben Hai". The Ben Hai river runs through the middle of the
six-mile-wide DZ, which separates North and South Vietnam.
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khesanh 2 (normass/deepe)
Other generals talked of how the new and successful Marine tactics
of increased mobility and flexibility had blocked Communist movements
around Khe Sanh with much more effectiveness than when 6,000 Marines
were once besieged there for 77 days beginning January 21.
But, middle-echelong staff officers were cynical-and they may
have reflected in a nutshel-th nutshell the over-riding significance of the
return to Khe Sanh,
dramatize how good
one officer
The Marines are being used as a political pawn to
the situation is up here before the American election,"
grumbled, "This whole Khe Sanh operation is political. "There's not
enough th NVA (North Vietnamese Army) ground troops around Khe
Sanh to worry about. They should let the Marines do what they're
designed to do-get the NVA. Stick around-things will be alot more
interesting after this gee-whiz Khe Sanh deal for is over."
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khesanh 3 (normass/deepe)
Intelligence sources had assessed that a North Vietnamese battalion-
highly fragmented into small units-was operating around Khe Sanh as a
screening force to protect Communist trails and transhipment movements into
Marine
Other sources talked of more lucrative targets for operations-
where up to five North Vietnamese battalions were thought to be mame
the area.
concentrated.
a
There were not many of the "old hands" left who had endured the
agonizingly electric 77-day siege of Khe Sanh that began on January 21.
One, however still along the DMZ, however, was the Navy doctor who had
helped treat the 2000 two thousand wounded/and evacuate the 250 dead
sustained during the siege. Sitting in a sunny, comfortable bunker
west of Khe Sanh, the doctor reminisced:
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8080 906
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khesanh 4 (normass/doope)
"There was a time durint during the siege when I wondered if I'd
get out alive. I still can't believe the whole thing. I kopt a diary
and now I wonder why I wrote dom & some of those things.
The younger troopers who had arrived in Vietnam after the harrowing
days of Kho Sanh had passed were either blase or else apprehensive about
returning to baso.
Cpl. Bruno Miller, a 20-year-old native from of Dallas, explaineds
"Most of us have forgotten about Khe Sanh. Many feel the Marines yo
should not have pulled out of it because it gives 'Charlie' (the Communists)
more ground to fight in."
Standing in a holicoptor lending sone waiting to be lifted into tho
operational area, he continuod s
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khesanh 5 (normass/deepe)
"I don't mind going into
-but I'm not happy about it.
I'd
rather stay back--I have 52 days left (in Vietnam)." The other troops
are worried too. We're losing to many men over here.
Our y unit hasn't
been hit too bad, but my brother-in-aw law is in another regiment and it
h has been hit pretty hard all the time."
Lt. Jack Hart, a 26-tear-01 26-year-old platoon leader from
Atlanta, Ga., with a unit about to be helicopter into the Khe Sanh
area explained:
"Some people are looking forward to returning to the Khe Sanh area--but
some aren't.
1
They're afraid of 'incoming 'rounds from that artillery
the NVA might still have in Laos.
Intelligence showed alot up there
(in the Co Rac mountains of Laos) last month, but our Te I made a visual
reconnaissance of the area and it showed nothing."
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khesanh 6 (normass/deepe).
Even senior commanders are mystified as to what has happened to the
potent 130 millimeter field artillery the Communist had buried in the
MOUNTA #S
sides of the Co Rac sets in Leos. Some officiers believe the artillery
pieces are now being shuttled around to unknown gunpositions in Laos--
but others fear theu tubes are being towed further south,
South Vietnam proper, where they would not be immune from Allied ground
The last time the American officers know that the Communist
the last of the 6,000-
artillery in Laos has been fired was July 6-on the day are tie Marines
forces.
"de-activated"
or abandoned the Khe Sanh base.
even into
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khesanh 7 (normass/deepe)
The return to Khe Sanh began October 4, when in a well-coordinated,
45-minute helicopter shuttling operation, Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion of
the 4th Marines was landed several hundred yards from the northern end of the
old Khe Sanh runway. Their landing zone had been--during the 77-day
siege period--the bunkering position of the 1st Battalion of the 9th
Marines on a finger-like knob directly overlooking the combat base. The
troopers of this unit-responsible for securing and moving air-doppo
air-dropped supplies from the drop zone at the end of the runway-had
convinced themselves they had heard Communists tunneling under their
hill-knob with shovels swaddled in burlap sacks. The Communists never did
blow up the hill and Marine positions, but when Kilo Company landed their
there last week, the low knob was hardly recognizable because of the
Marines' demolition and bulldozer work as they departed.
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khesanh 8 (normass/deepe)
Kilo Company had also been the last company out of the Khe Sanh
area during the evacuation lastly in July. Gunny Seat Sergeant
Kilo's.
Raymond Hatchell, 38, of Florence, S. C. remembered well their departure
from Hill 471, 500 yards away from the garbage dump road of the Khe Sanh
combat base.
"Just as we were leaving, I was awfully busy," the senior sergeant in
the company explained.
"About 5 p.m.
we got a radio message that we were
Then the helicopters came in and said that
to hold on Hill 471 that night.
The
we'd have to evacuate that on five minutes tiv notice.
When the
NVA saw all the activity that we were getting ready to move out,
they
started mortaring us. They threw in 40 or 50 mortars on us and I had to
move the company 400 meters away from there so the helicopters could come
Then we were tremima flown out. That's
in.
how we left Khe Sanh."
Last week, though, Kilo company landed unopposed on the position-
"With not one shot being fired" and was followed by Marine engineers,
who with "book-hoe" machines dug out circular indentations for the
Marine and Vietnamese artillery themed and trenchlines fomathe
andburse bunkering positions for the Marine troopers.
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This position was codenamed "Nanking Fire Support Base
actually a prelude to the infantry operation the next day mur
WAS
and was
tiller
It had been necessary to move the artillery forward in order that the ground
as troops would consistently during the operation be moving under the
umbrella of indirect fire support; Kilo company was x necessary to protect
the artillery position from/ground attacks. The ground operation that
followed the next day was called the " "Nanking Action" because only
4th Marine Regiment were info involved--
gean infantry units from the
AND 3051
"
and in the 1920s the 4th Marines were based in China. This bit of
historical nostalgia did not mean much to the young Marines, however;
The ope
on charts an official chart, one youngster had spelled ft "Nan King.
"He probably thought it was the name of someone someone's girl friend,"
an elderly or waranoff warrant officer explained.
what these young Marines think about."
"You never can tell
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Through-out the first day, Nanking had no contact with the Communists;
one Marine wassoriously wounded, however, by accidentally stepping on
AN Americ
Marine en
anti-personnel mine.
Even after leaving the Khe Sanh area in July, Kilo company had
roved a
on patrolled around the The abandoned remains of the
base at one time, it bivouacked directly across the river from the base.
The company commander,
Haanwez
mmmander, Capt. Sidney E. Thomas, 31, said, "There's no
Return Here.
problem for us returing
I don't feel I ever left Khe Sanh.
We've been patrolling southeast of here. We've been in a mobile posture
and know the area well, so we have no fear in returning."
COMPANY
in April
Capt. Thomas had assumed his/commend of tire essay while it was in
and since then,
Khe Sanh, cfter departing-
had
company moved to other patrol
at Foxtrot Ridge,
bases, had been sent to assist a sister company in heavy contact, had found
on JUNE 18
Communist base camps,
its frontlines one by the Communists art attacking uphill.
killed and 20 wounded; the Communists left 70 dead behind.
the company has suffered 30 killed and 75 wounded.roughly
75 per cent battle casualties in six months. "We've had our share of
and had ye been assaulted on June 19th along his
Kilo lost 20
Since April,
casualties,"
the captain said softly.
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at NANK. NG
One trooper with artillery unit had also been in Khe Sanh in Jube
June after the siege was lifted on April 1, but before it was evacuated
on July 6. He was Sgt. Alan Bollings, 21, of Birminghal Birmingra
Birmingham, Ala, a section chief for the 105 millimeter how howitzers.
"I was glad to come bac up back up here again," he said. "I like
it up here. There's alot better weather, scenery and gunpositions up here.
I was a little suprised in a way. I thought the airstrip had been taken
up-but it still looks the same as af always.
"When I was here in June we were still taking alot of incoming. I
remember we were positioned on the southern end of the runway and we
were lowering our guns so we could fire point blank into a treeline 2500
Sinc After we left Khe Sanh, we began moving from one
meters away
fire support base to another. Coming back to Khe Sanh is just like
another operation. We have to be over here for such a long time it's just
Support BASE
like moving into Landing Hank or Cates."
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The next day-the Marines called it D-Day-other elements of the
4th Marines were heli-lifted at 10 a.m. into two landing zone areas
north and south of Highway 1, near the old Special Forces camp of
Lang Vei-some 8000 meters to the west of Khe Sanh. Their missions
was to begin a sweeping and es extensive searching action town towards
Khe Sanh and the Nanking fire support base. These elements landed without
opposition and have had only sporadic contact to alt date.
The Lang Vei Special Forces camp had been overrun on February 7th-
other
LED down
when Khe Sanh was under siege and whende Allied units were fomaged on
the battle of Hue during the Tet offensive. The camp was overrun with the
introduction of Soviet-made PT-76 armored vehicles-the first used in the s
war
Intelligence reports had previously mentioned Communist armor in the
area--but the Special Forces had not laid out anti-tank ne mines on their
metal,
perimeter,
they were unable to stop the advance of the well-protected
mp mobile pillboxes and the camp fell in a hectic battle.
N
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FAN Element
On D-Day plus 1 a battalion of the 1st Vietnamese Army Division
was helidropped without opposition onto Hill 881 South-the scene of vicious
fighting northwest of Khe Sanh in mid-1967. Heavy radar-controlled
air bombardments preceded the Vietnamese heli-lift in an area where
American helicopters had spotted Communists in heavily bunkered and
ce camouflaged positions.
Since then, the 2500 Allied ground troops continue to search the
and sweep the area with only spea light contact from the Communists.
==end reuter
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Date
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1968, Oct. 9
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Subject
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Vietnam War, 1961-1975; Soldiers; United States. Marine Corps; Strategy
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Location
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Khe Sanh, South Vietnam
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Coordinates
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16.6193; 106.7323
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Size
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20 x 26 cm
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Container
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B6, F10
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Format
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dispatches
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Collection Number
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MS 363
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Collection Title
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Beverly Deepe Keever, Journalism Papers
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Creator
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Collector
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Keever, Beverly Deepe
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Copyright Information
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These images are for educational use only. To inquire about usage or publication, please contact Archives & Special Collections.
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Publisher
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Archives & Special Collections
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Language
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English
