The soundless death coming from the “nowhere” always shattered the guerrilla morale. The initial shock and the ensuing panic usually prevented the enemy from executing necessary defensive measures. By the time their leaders decided what to do, it was too late for them to do anything but flee or perish. So whenever given a chance we killed in silence.
Scouting the Phu Loi mountains, Gruppe Drei spotted twelve terrorists as they were moving across a narrow footbridge suspended eighty feet above a deep gorge. Our sharpshooters went into action with their telescopic, silencer-equipped rifles. Within seconds the twelve Viet Minh were dead; their bodies fell into the abyss to be swept away by the swift current. The footpath leading to the bridge circled a cluster of rocks. Subsequent groups coming toward the crossing could not see the bridge and consequently were unaware of the fate of their comrades. Thinking that the group ahead of them had already crossed and entered the woods, the enemy detachments kept coming in groups of twelve at hundred-yard intervals. They were in turn shot off the bridge quietly but efficiently. Our sharpshooters exterminated three groups before one mortally wounded guerrilla entangled himself in the supporting ropes and remained hanging over the precipice in plain sight. Even then we managed to kill seven more Viet Minh who rushed forward to help what they thought was a comrade in distress. The rest of the enemy then dispersed among the rocks and we refrained from any further activity. The enemy could do nothing but watch our side of the gorge. Hours went by while the opposing parties waited in tense expectation; then we spotted a couple of guerrillas crawling toward the bridge. The sharpshooters allowed them to proceed until they showed their heads; alas, that was the last guerrilla endeavor to reach the bridge. Our sharpshooters were quite capable of hitting a man in the head from five hundred yards.
At another time we encountered a small Viet Minh detachment as it moved single file down a trail. Our sharpshooters went into action. They began by shooting the last man in the file. With a bullet in the brain, one does not make much noise. The rearmost terrorist dropped and those ahead of him marched on unaware of the mishap. A dozen terrorists could be liquidated before their comrades realized that they were under attack.
In such attacks the survivors would disperse and take cover, not knowing where to turn, where to shoot. The sudden realization that the jungle was no longer their ally, that it harbored an invisible adversary who killed in silence, the thought that they might be sitting in the center of a deadly trap, demoralized the enemy. In my opinion all troops engaged in antiguerrilla warfare should be issued rifle silencers. It was the kind of opposition the Viet Minh dreaded: the unknown, the unseen, the unheard death. One should remember that the majority of their troops were primitive men, naive and superstitious. When fighting against primitives, every psychological “trick” that one could think up should be exploited; the fact that the Viet Minh had discarded their spears and bows and, thanks to the benevolent Soviet supplies, now brandished rifles and automatic weapons did not cancel out the fact that they were still primitives. Except for a few of their higher leaders, the average intelligence and general mentality of the Viet Minh fighter was that of the Stone-Age man, educated only in the art of killing.
With my battalion at large in their jungle sanctuaries, the guerrillas could no longer set up camps in the hills or in the villages. Only at the constant risk of severe punishment could they light open fires, play music, chatter aloud, laugh, or sing. When they ignored the new rules of the game, death came to them swiftly and unexpectedly. By the end of our fifth week in the Communist rear, the Viet Minh High Command had mobilized about five thousand men to trap and exterminate us. Their equipment had been seized from the French or was the very best that their Soviet and Chinese patrons could offer.
But we moved too fast for their liking and slowed down only to trap a posse that came too close for comfort. We annihilated one large Viet Minh detachment and decimated two others. Inestimable casualties were caused by the mines and booby traps which Sergeant Krebitz planted in their path. Once, when a Viet Minh company followed us for over a week, Riedl and Schulze lured it into a depression and blasted a sixty-foot cliff over the lot. Another posse marched headlong into Karl’s flamethrowers and was burned up before it had a chance to utter a death cry. But regardless of their losses the enemy kept pressing us. We, too, suffered casualties; two men here, five men there—something we could not afford.
Having established our presence in the Phu Loi mountain area for the benefit of our pursuers, we quit the district quietly and cut back to the Nam Ou river; so as not to reveal ourselves on the way, we refrained from bothering enemy-held localities, which we bypassed. Camping down near the bank we spotted a number of barges floating downstream, loaded with guerrilla supplies. Xuey suggested that we should allow them to proceed undisturbed. During a reconnaissance trip, Xuey had discovered a major Viet Minh depot in a village some eight miles from where we were. “We should not spoil the big catch by destroying a small convoy,” he said and I agreed with him. The barges were coming from China and were heading for that depot anyway.
Moving through the dark field the battalion deployed swiftly. By dawn the village was completely surrounded. We moved in shortly after sunrise and encountered no resistance. No one in the settlement professed to know anything about weapons, or the Viet Minh, though in the huts we discovered a quantity of Communist propaganda material. From a pole hung the flag of the Liberators.
“The guerrillas put it there two weeks ago, when they were passing through our village,” I was told. “The Viet Minh commander said that if we removed the flag, they would burn our village.”
No, there were no terrorists in the locality.
But we knew that a large number of terrorists were around. We had kept the place under observation since the day before and had seen many armed guerrillas who could not have departed during the night. Schulze and Riedl had covered every exit—the road, the footpaths, and even the river. Sergeant Krebitz and Xuey had counted at least fifty terrorists coming and going in the village, unaware of our presence in the nearby woods. Then they must have spotted us and scurried to safety. Now everything appeared quiet and peaceful.
Why did the enemy decide not to resist? Either because they found us too strong, or because something in or about the place was much too important to be revealed.
The Viet Minh had resorted to one of its favorite tricks of camouflage: guerrillas dispersed among the dwellings, posing as members of the various families, or, submerged among the peasants, engaged in some peaceful activity in the fields. Some could have also withdrawn into secret tunnels or cellars to “sweat it out” until we departed.
We rounded up the male population, save for men of advanced age, and separated them from the women and children. While Pfirstenhammer and Suoi questioned the women about the men, Xuey, Schulze, and I concentrated on the men. Among them we discovered a few individuals who could have been local or visiting terrorists but we never executed anyone on mere suspicion. I employed a simple but effective method for weeding out terrorists: I requested the women to name and describe their male relatives who lived under the same roof. The identity of husbands, sons, brothers, and other genuine relatives was quickly established. Answers and descriptions given by the men had to match those given by the women. When the mutual replies showed discrepancies, the “adopted relatives” could be flushed out in no time.