Strike Team Idaho

In November 1968, I was a team leader (one-zero) of Spike Team Idaho. John "Bubba" Shore was my assistant. We were running top-secret missions for MACV-SOG (Military Assistance Command Vietnam - Studies and Observation Group) out of FOB-1 (Forward Operating Base) in Phu Bai, South Vietnam. 

We'd been detailed to assist FOB-6 near Ho Ngoc Tao. Intelligence estimates had NVA strength across the Cambodian border at more than 100,000, and the terrain for our first target was flat as a pancake. The mission: Locate one of three NVA divisions that had disappeared. 

As our team sat at the launch site in Bo Dop, a chopper landed with a Thanksgiving feast, complete with hot turkey, cranberry roll, gravy, and mashed potatoes. As we finished overindulging, Air Force Hueys arrived to slip us into Cambodia. 

The insertion was slick and quick. We flew into the target area at treetop, full speed. We were so close I was worried about branches hitting my feet. 

Because this was an area where FOB-6 teams had been taking serious casualties recently, the command and control chopper remained airborne a few miles away, far enough where NVA troops couldn't hear the bird but close enough for radio contact. 

Special operations teams could only go ten klicks into Cambodia. If attacked by NVA troops, we were "forbidden" for using fixed-wing assets - assets we used heavily in our Prairie Fire AO, assets that kept us alive when surrounded by hundreds of NVA troops. 

Not only were the rules different in Cambodia, but instead of the dense jungle foliage of Laos, it was more like the thinly wooded central New Jersey countryside, I had hunted a few years earlier. With no double canopy, we could see sunlight. And we could see straight ahead, through the trees, more than 100 yards. 

During our first break, because the vegetation remained thin, I had Phouc, our point man, and Bubba put five-second fuses in two claymores - the openness of the wooded area made me hinky. Then we moved on. 

Sau, my counterpart, spotted smoke, and we moved toward it. Sau said, "No VC," and we continued forward. As always, Sau's reading of the NVA was correct. We were in an NVA bivouac area, the smoke originating from a fading fire. 

I started taking pictures, but Sau was nervous. His eyes were getting bigger. His speech was quicker. Heip, my interpreter, was getting nervous from talking to Sau. Sau was quick, smart, agile, and fearless. He could smell the NVA and knew how they worked. 

I wanted to see if we could find a cache and suggested going further west. 

Not waiting for Heip's interpretation, Sau looked at me and said, "Call helicopters now! Beaucoup NVA come now!" 

I must have had an incredulous look on my face because I couldn't hear anything, and I certainly didn't see any NVA troops. 

Sau turned to Heip, now more than a little agitated. Before Heip said a word, I turned to Bubba, who was tail-gunner in our formation. I signaled our point man to head back to our LZ. 

Heip explained: "Sau say this is enemy camp. We're beaucoup lucky because no VC here. But, he found hundreds of fresh footprints going there," he pointed south. As Bubba passed me, I told him to give me a claymore mine with a five-second fuse. 

"De!" (Go) Sau hissed. "De, de mou!" (Go quickly). 

We were in Cambodia. Alone. With no fixed-wing aircraft. And Sau's eyes were as wide as saucers. 

As we moved forward, Sau backpedaled, hastily covering our tracks. We had only gone a short distance when Sau hissed: "Beaucoup VC! Beaucoup, VC!" 

I could see pith helmets coming from the south. I radioed the C&C helicopter, told them to return with Cobra gunships, and to pick us up at the primary LZ, ASAP! C&C said they'd have assets on site in 10 minutes. 

I fired my M79 in the NVA's direction, two high bursts, which slowed them down for a few seconds. I yelled to Bubba to move out. The race for life was on. 

Sau hissed to Heip and pointed north. Damn, there were pith helmets and NVA uniforms coming at us from the north, too - at a dead run. The elements from the south were from the division, which had left the base camp, and the NVA from the north were moving into it. 

Sau and I placed the first claymore behind a tree and ran. The NVA were now running and shooting wildly. 

We sprinted to catch up as the claymore exploded. The NVA kept on charging. Sau quickly placed his five-second claymore in front of a tree and ran. We sprinted toward our team as the second claymore detonated. We felt the backblast as we ran. 

At the LZ, Heip placed another claymore toward the charging NVA. To the north, Bubba rigged a claymore with a contact detonator on a tripwire. As the tide of pith helmets flowed toward us, Bubba and I opened fire with our M79s, and Sau and Heip opened up full-auto with their CAR-15s. 

More NVA emerged from the smoke and tripped Bubba's claymore. The rest of the team jumped on the chopper, and I fired the last claymore as a wave of NVA troops got in front of it. The blast gave me a few seconds to make the Huey. 

As we pulled out of the LZ, several NVA burst from the woods, surprised to see the choppers. One NVA tried to stop, his boots kicking up clumps of mud as he tried to bring up his AK from port-arms. 

I watched the mud kicking upward toward the rotors as the door gunner, and I hit him in the chest with a burst, stopping him suddenly - so suddenly he reminded me of a cartoon character whose head and feet moved forward while his chest and stomach were slammed with lead, driving him back into the woods. 

When we landed at Bo Dop at 1400, the Air Force pilots invited us for Thanksgiving dinner. We were starved. The narrow escape from Cambodia was sobering. If the Air Force had delayed a few more minutes... 

As we rolled out of the mess hall, one of the SF launch site people said we had to get back to FOB-6 ASAP for debriefing.

I reported directly to the CO, who said, "Give me a thumbnail description of what happened, so I can send that to Saigon, then we can eat our Thanksgiving dinner and do the detailed report afterward. That makes it two Thanksgiving dinners and one mission. Not bad for a day's work," 

"Make that three dinners," I laughed. 

Bubba and I ate the third dinner. But this time, we passed on the second helping and thanked God for the U.S. Air Force. 

Editor: Some time ago, John Meyer sent TWS the URLs to a six-part story on the attack at Marble Mountain on August 23rd, 1968, which was included in his book "On the Ground: The Secret War in Vietnam." Its length was such that we could not post it in Dispatches. We also had just posted in the April 2015 Dispatches an article entitled "Six Days on Marble Mountain" by Neil R. Thorne. That story was more about a SOG Hatchet team firing on the NVA raiders from Marble Mountain. 

If you recall, that article dealt with a large NVA force hitting a MAC-V SOG FOB and mission launch site below Marble Mountain in Da Nang. The attacking NVA numbered at least 100 and were armed with AKs, grenades, satchel charges, and RPG-2 launchers (or B-40s as they were called in Vietnam).

Most of the attacking NVA died in the three-hour attack, but they killed over two dozen Americans and over 40 Montagnards who manned the Recon Teams or the Hatchet Force alongside Americans.

Rather than deny our members the best account ever written on the early morning attack on Marble Mountain, we are posting Meyer's complete story below in six parts; five, which were posted in SOFREP. To read Part Six, the reader needed to subscribe to SOFREP magazine. So as not to leave our readers in the lurch, we are posting the essence of Part Six following Part Five.

It is an excellently, highly informative account of one of the worst days for Special Forces in Vietnam. At the time, I was operating in Saigon following the 1968 Tet Offensive as a member of 5th Special Force Group's Delta Project. While I had heard of this horrendous attack, I didn't know the details until I read Meyer's account. 

Part One
http://sofrep.com/40610/secrets-of-sog-unheeded-warning/

Part Two
http://sofrep.com/40448/secrets-sog-unheeded-warning-pt-2/

Part Three
http://sofrep.com/40697/secrets-of-sog-an-unheeded-warning-pt-3/

Part Four
http://sofrep.com/40838/secrets-sog-unheeded-warning-pt-4/

Part Five
http://sofrep.com/40882/secrets-sog-unheeded-warning-pt-5/

Part Six

A couple of facts about the deadly attack were obvious: The NVA had planned the attack for months, and they'd had good intelligence inside the camp to assist in picking the date. A Vietnamese woman who worked in the personnel administrative office had failed to report to work two days prior to the attack. It was later determined she was a communist agent, a sympathizer who had provided critical intelligence to the NVA regarding the layout and troop strength of FOB 4. Fortunately, in the two days following her departure, staff personnel had closed the old tactical operations center, and the new TOC had been made fully operational on August 22nd, 1968 - the day before the early morning attack on the 23rd.

The camp security forces had also been infiltrated by the NVA. Up until two weeks before the attack, the fearless Nungs had been assigned to base security for several months. The Nungs were a totally trustworthy fighting force trained by Special Forces. For some reason, the Nungs were replaced by members of the South Vietnamese QC (Quan Canh, military police), a corrupt organization known more for its political connections than its fighting prowess. It was well known they could not be removed without the explicit blessings of both local South Vietnamese politicians and the Saigon bureaucracy.

On the night of the attack, the indigenous mess hall had been secured by the NVA, and a map of FOB 4 had been drawn on the wall, designating the main objectives of the attack. While the NVA sapper leadership was briefing its troops in the mess hall, two South Vietnamese indigenous soldiers stationed at FOB 4 had observed the suspicious activity and moved closer to investigate. Their bodies were among the dead collected the next morning, their throats cut before they could sound the alarm.

The following facts have never been reported publicly, nor were they known to many of the men who fought against the enemy sappers that night:

An S-2 officer told the base commander and his command staff that he had heard several reports from other intelligence sources in Da Nang that an NVA Battalion, R-4, was slated to carry out the attack. The S-2 officer said they knew the NVA unit's location, personnel strength, and past successes and failures. This is in addition to the three CIA flash messages received at FOB 4 warning of an imminent attack - warnings that base command staff ignored.

On August 22nd, 1968, less than 24 hours before the sapper attack, three platoons from FOB 4's Hatchet Force command were sent by helicopter to a target 15-20 minutes southwest of the base. Their objective was to make and maintain contact with enemy forces from the 34th NVA Regiment, according to one of the platoon leaders of that mission, Lt. Geoff Fullen. If contact with the enemy could be sustained, local U.S. Marine units were scheduled to follow-up the engagement.

 The early morning launch ended with the helicopters taking heavy enemy fire from the primary, secondary, and alternate LZs. By 0730 hours, the Hatchet Force men had returned to FOB 4.

Meanwhile, on the morning of August 23rd, as the sun rose over FOB 4, more light was shed on just how well-organized and deadly the attack was, and how valiantly the indigenous personnel in the camp had responded to the communist forces.
 
As surviving SF soldiers moved through the camp, it became painfully obvious that, prior to the first satchel charge going off, enemy machine gunners had established clear lines of fire down the pathways that ran between the indigenous barracks and the recon company area. From these predetermined sites, the NVA and VC were able to mow down dozens of indigenous and Green Berets as they emerged half-naked and half-asleep in response to the attack. Bodies were two- and three -deep between some of the barracks.

The SF soldiers also found multiple spots in the perimeter fence where the barbed wire had been cut. There were dozens of blood trails left by wounded sappers as they retreated back into the numerous caves that honeycombed Marble Mountain. The troops followed several of these trails but decided against going into the cave complex. In the end, it was impossible to get an accurate count of enemy casualties. Not only had the wounded escaped, but many of the dead had been removed by either the NVA themselves or by residents of a nearby fishing village who sympathized with them.

They also learned that the NVA launched probe attacks on nearby Marine units, as well as hit two Marine Corps 106mm recoilless rifle positions located across from ST Rattler on the second peak of Marble Mountain. The attack on ST Rattler was also part of the general action plan, as was its strike at the POW camp.
 
In a well-coordinated effort, the NVA hit the POW camp at its entrance from Highway 1, its most vulnerable point. Fortunately, Lt. Fullen had his PRC-25 FM radio with him, and when he heard the first report of the NVA hitting the POW camp to release enemy prisoners so they could join the battle, Fullen directed a Cobra gunship to make a gun-run across the northern perimeter of the camp, which broke the back of the NVA sappers' attack on the POW camp.

The NVA also struck FOB 4's eastern perimeter on the South China Sea. Simultaneously, sappers moved through the fishing village south of FOB 4 and infiltrated the compound by simply walking in. The corrupt and compliant South Vietnamese QC obligingly gave no warning. Some of the sappers had been provided with boats by communist sympathizers in the fishing village, and these were used to ferry troops north on the South China Sea, off-loading them on the beach near the POW compound.

As the collection of bodies continued at FOB 4, a formation was ordered for all indigenous personnel. A heavily armed contingent of Special Forces Hatchet Force personnel and Chinese Nung mercenaries oversaw the painstaking process of accounting for and verifying the bona fides of all those assembled. They found several NVA sappers mixed in with the South Vietnamese, trying to pass themselves off as little people. The impostors were separated, restrained, and turned over to Intelligence for interrogation.

In addition, the SF personnel also found a few South Vietnamese from the FOB 4 security force trying to hide among the ranks of the other South Vietnamese troops. The security force men were getting beaten up pretty badly by the Nungs. Everyone understood that the attack could not have occurred unless the NVA had inside help. It was equally clear that the South Vietnamese security forces assigned to FOB 4 had not performed well.

By afternoon, a relief force from 5th Special Forces Headquarters arrived from Nha Trang. While bodies were still being sorted out, Seabees placed bodies of dead enemy soldiers into the scoop of a backhoe, drove across Highway 1, and unceremoniously dropped them in the dump.

At the end of the day, several things were clear:

The NVA/VC sappers executed a well-planned attack, killing 17 Green Berets and at least 40 indigenous troops. Estimates on enemy dead fluctuate between 78 to more than 100. No one will ever know because the enemy was adroit at recovering dead personnel from the battleground, as evidenced by the many blood trails that lead south to Marble Mountain through the wire.

If ST Rattler hadn't been on Marble Mountain, far more casualties would have occurred.

The indigenous troops had also fought valiantly. Without them, the casualty rate would have been much higher.

Fortunately, a few SF soldiers and the Cobra gunship, working with Lt. Fullen on the radio, were able to stifle the attack on the enemy POW camp, preventing hundreds of enemy soldiers from joining the fray.

Lastly, there was a failure of response from leadership in the camp to the many reports of an imminent attack. There was a new S-2 officer in camp, the compound was adjusting to having the Command and Control element moved into FOB 4, and due to the top-secret nature of the secret war, there wasn't enough communication between intelligence, recon, and Hatchet Force staff.

The individuals Killed In Action were: Donald W. Welch, Gilbert A. Secore, Tadeusz M. Kepczuk, Paul D. Potter, Donald R. Kerns, Anthony J. Santana, Albert M. Walter, Rolf E. Rickmers, William H. Bric III, Richard E. Pegram, Charles R. Norris, James T. Kickliter, Robert J. Uyesaka, Talmadge H. Alphin, Howard S. Varni, Harold R. Voorheis.

About the Author 

John Stryker Meyer is an accomplished writer of military topics with two books on his own experiences in Vietnam with SOG-MACV. He is also a correspondent for SOFREP (The Special Operations Forces Situation Report), which presents real operative insight on news, events, and history on special operations forces. Since 1986 he has been a correspondent and contributing editor for Soldier of Fortune Magazine. He has also been a reporter for a number of San Diego newspapers, including the San Diego Union-Tribune. 

For three years (2011-2014), he was president of the 3000-plus members of SOA (Special Operations Association). 

John currently resides with his family in Oceanside, California.