Details behind Award: "REGULARS DEFEAT NVA IN VICIOUS FIGHT"
"By SFC Snow L. Wilson" [198th Infantry Brigade Information Office]
[Note: According to an editorial note on the press release, SFC Wilson's account of the battle was published and distributed to soldiers in the unit to call attention and recognition to "The Regulars" outstanding performance in the face of a well armed enemy.]
"(Ye Nen (2) Da Nang, Vietnam) Less than forty-eight hours after it had been landed by helicopters from Chu Lai [on] February 7, LTC William Baxley Jr's (Dillion, South Carolina) First Battalion, Sixth Infantry, 198th Infantry Brigade, was counting its confirmed NVA and Viet Cong kill in the hundreds. Action was so heavy during the first 24 hours that one company was left without officers and another with a 20 year old lieutenant in command. The enemy body count had reached almost 160 and the total after 48 hours reached 240.
Landing in the early evening some elements were barely on the ground before they were engaged with the enemy. The battalion was called in as part of the 1st Marine Division Task Force Miracle to stop a determined NVA and Viet Cong attack on the hugh Da Nang military complex.
Heroism was common in these first few hours. Perhaps the most spectacular were the men of Captain Francis Brennan's (Boston, Massachusetts) Company A who killed more than 150 NVA and hard-core Viet Cong in a fierce hand to hand battle that raged for three hours across a 500 yard rice paddy within the sight of Da Nang air field.
By late afternoon of the first day, February 8, howitzers of the 198th Battery D, 1st Battalion, 14th Artillery had joined the battalion and were hurling shell after shell into enemy positions. The battery, commanded by Captain Elvis Farrow (Shidler, Oklahoma) had been lifted by CH47 "Chinook Helicopters" from Chu Lai that day.
As each company of his battalion arrived at the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines' base camp about 6,000 meters south of Da Nang and Headquarters for the 1st Marine Division's newly formed Task Force Miracle, Baxley moved them out in the darkness to blocking positions in the north and southeast. Although unknown at the time, Brennan's Company A, and Captain Max Bradley's (Athens, Georgia) Company C were moving straight into the middle of an enemy battalion. (Intelligence later estimated the unit was 60 to 70 percent NVA soldiers).
As the helicopters arrived, marines led the 198th soldiers to assembly areas with a minimum of delay. So anxious were the Marines to help that one jumped on a truck carrying men of Captain Dal Prather's (Dimmit, Texas) to its attack position the following day. The young Marine had fought in company B's toughest battles for a day and a half before he obeyed a direct order to return to his unit.
Action started for the "Regulars" (a name won the the Sixth Infantry in the War of 1812) when a small Marine outpost at Lo Giang, just across the river from Da Nang, was hit at 3:45 a.m. The Marines had taken about 25 mortar rounds and saw 20 to 25 enemy in OD uniforms moving to the northeast toward Company A's position.
Brennan started moving his company at first light from his position near a hamlet called Thon Giant to a blocking position at Lo Giang (1). In the meantime Bradley was moving his company from Mieu Dong (1) on a northeast sweep to Brennan's new position. As they began to move, both companies started to immediately receive fire.
While crossing a swamp at 9:40 p.m. [a.m.] just west of Quang Chau (2) Bradley's force suddenly came under intense fire from an enemy force of unknown size. With his forward elements pinned down in the open, Bradley called for helicopter gunships. Although an enemy 50 caliber machine gun swept the skies for them, the gunships dived in firing their rockets and mini-guns at the Viet Cong positions, allowing Company C's pinned down platoon to escape. The enemy ground fire, however, continued with such intensity that Bradley's company could still not move forward.
At 11:30 a.m. Company A was moving toward the village of Lo Giang (1) when it was hit by heavy automatic weapons fire from that hamlet and another called Co Man. As the men started to deploy to a position south of Thon Giang hamlet, the Marines at Lo Giang radioed they were surrounded by 200 to 300 enemy.
Continuing on toward the cluster of huts, Company A found itself again under heavy fire shortly after noon. An enemy mortar then opened up from the village at 12:40 and a few minutes later Brennan pulled his company back out of range. Rockets and intense small arms fire then started hitting Company A from enemy positions southwest of Thon Giang.
By now, Brennan, who won a Silver Star on a previous combat tour in Vietnam, knew he had a battle.
Pinning them down by flanking fire in the middle of a hugh rice paddy, the estimated Viet Cong battalion came charging out of the hamlet of Lo Giang (1). In human waves, the black-pajammed, and brown-uniformed NVA and Viet Cong swept forward as machine gunners, riflemen and grenadiers of Company A met them with a hail of death. So determined was the enemy attack that its momentum carried it into the company positions. Hundreds of fierce isolated hand to hand battles swirled through the rice field as Brennan's men fought for their lives in individual combat.
A thousand yards to the southwest, Company C was getting hit by mortars as it moved forward to help Company A. Prather's Company B, followed by the 2nd Battalion, 3rd Marines, Company G, was on the way in trucks.
On Prather's north, Brennan's Company was in a life and death struggle and at 1:30 p.m. the young captain himself was hit. Somehow they (Companies A & B) managed to keep contact with each other as they fought in mud sometimes waist deep in the paddy. By 2:10 p.m. Brennan's radio was calling urgently for gunships and a dust-off (medical evacuation helicopter) for the wounded.
Getting his men and wounded back to what protection a Vietnamese graveyard afforded, the seriously wounded Company A commander radioed his unit could count 78 NVA bodies -- but two more enemy companies were now moving to his south.
Gunships arrived just in time over his position to blast the enemy ranks with rockets and mini-guns and Air Force fighter bombers swept in firing 20 millimeter cannons as they dive-bombed. To the south, Bradley's Company C was still under an intense mortar attack. His officers continued to command their platoons despite serious wounds.
Prather, of Company B, and the Marines of Company G, 2d Battalion, 3rd Marines, now started their sweep to link up with Company C. Their two companies were receiving enemy small arms fire.
The combination of individual heroism by Brennan's men in their heroic stand against outrageous odds, helicopter gunships braving fierce anti-aircraft fire and pin-point accuracy of Air Force jets, finally turned the tide for Company A. Sporadic fire from enemy weapons continued to hit the company for another hour, but by then 152 NVA and VC lay dead on the battlefield. Enough enemy weapons were left strewn about the rice paddy to outfit a company.
Mortar rounds continued to hit Company C and Bradley moved his men to a safer position as an Air Force air strike and helicopter gunships came in to knock out the enemy weapons.
At 3:30 p.m. Company B came into range of enemy mortars and were hit by small arms fire. Prather's mortarmen soon silenced the enemy crew with continuous counter-fire, but not before Bradley radioed he had been wounded and no officers were left uninjured in Company C.
The hard fighting "Regulars" were too much for the now decimated NVA and Viet Cong battalion. As it attempted to escape encirclement in the late afternoon, Baxley flew Captain John Hurtado (Sanger, California) his intelligence officer out to take command of Company C and ordered the evacuation of Captain Bradley.
Now admitting the seriousness of his wound, but knowing his company was still able to fight, Brennan turned his company over to 2LT William B. Wendover (Orange, California), a 20 year- old platoon leader, described as a natural leader, mature far beyond his years.
With most of the "Medevac" helicopters desperately carrying the battalion's most seriously wounded from the battlefield within sight of Da Nang, those who could walk, began straggling into the Marine's base camp. It was not until late in the night an accurate count of those killed, wounded, or missing could be made.
By morning, for all reasons and purpose, the battle was over. All that was left was to secure the area. As the day wore on, mounds of enemy equipment was collected, the enemy dead counted, and an estimate made of how bad the enemy force had been smashed.
By evening, the count had reached almost 250 enemy dead with most of Baxley's "Regulars" firmly convinced there were still more to be found. Battalion casualties were 22 killed and 62 wounded.
[Far to the south], at the 198th's base camp, word of the ferocious battle reached several of the "Regulars" about to depart on R&R. Tearing up their orders, they rushed back to catch the first helicopter going north to where their battalion needed every man it could get. And one sergeant, supposed to be in Chu Lai shepherding replacements through their processing, suddenly appeared at the battalion's advanced position near Da Nang. He didn't say how he got there -- and no one asked him."
"The men of the First Battalion, Sixth United States Infantry proved themselves as 'Brave and Bold' ."
Last Updated: Jun 30, 2023
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