What we did know was that unless we prevented the fall of Dak Pek and Ben Het, we at Dak To would be cut off and fighting in both directions.
While day-and-night air strikes continued to pound both NVA road-construction operations, in early April the 5th SF Group decided to bring in a MIKE Force (composed of Vietnamese Rangers) to attack the road builders and their security battalion near Dak Pek.[15] Once that was accomplished, they would reinforce Dak Pek defenses.
The Rangers were lifted into Dak To by C-123 aircraft, then air-assaulted into the Dak Pek area by helicopters with gunship support. When they reached the area, they were almost immediately engaged by a superior NVA force. Two of their accompanying twelve-man advisory team (an Australian captain and a U.S. SF NCO) were killed during the first few minutes.
Faced with overwhelming firepower, the losses of key advisers, and heavy losses of their own, the Mike Force broke off the engagement, leaving the remainder of the advisory team there. We were able to extract that team before dark, together with the bodies of those KIA (the defenders of Dak Pek were not involved in the action, and remained in place at the camp).
It took three days for the disorganized and retreating remnants of the Mike unit to be assembled at Dak To and flown out.
It was obvious that the NVA would eventually lay siege to Dak Pek and was willing to pay a high price for the camp. As air strikes continued, Dak Pek was reinforced with an infantry battalion from the 1st Brigade, together with thirty preplanned Arc Lights (a total of ninety B-52 bombers), which would be employed when the attack came.
The attack came in early April — by an estimated NVA regiment supportedby tanks — but was unsuccessful. Our preparations had paid off. The few surviving NVA withdrew back to the sanctuary from which they had come.
Ben Het would come next, and we expected the same-perhaps even more, because this infiltration route had greater strategic value. If Ben Het could be knocked off, it was a straight shot over a major road network to Dak To, on to An Khe (the division base for 1st Cav), and then to the coast and Da Nang.
Two major pieces of key terrain dominated Ben Het: a hill to the west, and another to the east — each within supporting fires distance of the other. It would be awfully tough to take Ben I let without controlling both hills. The 3rd Battalion, 8th Infantry (reinforced), was given the mission to occupy these hills and defend Ben Het. The plan called for air strikes on the western hill summit to clear a landing zone, followed by an artillery prep, and then by the landing of two companies. Once this hill was occupied, the rest of the battalion would occupy the hill to the east.
When the first flight, carrying a rifle platoon, touched down, they immediately came under fire from an NVA force that had already occupied the hill. Artillery fire was shifted to the hill's western back side, while the remainder of the two companies were landed at its eastern base. By nightfall they had fought their way up the hill, driven off the NVA force, and linked up with the platoon at the summit. The eastern hill was occupied without incident.
For the next two days, the two hills would be developed into defensive positions, completely bracketed by the fires of five supporting artillery battalions.
Meanwhile, the 7th/17th Air Cav conducted daily screens to the west of Ben Het to detect infiltration. When it was detected, the plan was to stop it with artillery and air strikes. But things did not quite work out that way. In spite of thousands of rounds of artillery, 846 close-air-support sorties, and 99 Arc Lights — all during a three-week period in May 1968—Ben Het and the two hills were hit by three regiment-size NVA attacks.
At first light on the mornings after each of these attacks, the 7th/17th Cav would pursue and engage the attackers all the way to the border. As one Cav commander reported back, "The foot trails through the dust of the bomb craters are three, four feet wide, and many are covered with blood and dragged body trails."
The NVA never succeeded in taking Ben Het, and their casualties must have been enormous. Yet after each attack they withdrew to their sanctuary to refit and come again.
During this same period, several smaller NVA units were also discovered in the hills only a thousand meters north of the Dak To airstrip, and Arc Light strikes had to be brought in danger-close (within 350 meters of friendly positions) to neutralize them. Somehow, at least a battalion-size unit had managed to get through, because on the night of the main Tet Offensive, this unit attacked the South Vietnamese province headquarters located in the village of Tan Can one kilometer cast of the Dak To base complex. Supported by an Air Force gunship, the SF-trained CIDG defenders acquitted themselves well. At least 125 NVA bodies littered the clearing around the village.
During the Tet campaign, practically every unit in the 1st Brigade area of operations was attacked, yet not a single unit's defenses were penetrated, and the NVA suffered heavy casualties.
In retrospect, we can assume that the heavy fighting during the November-December '67 battle for Dak To and in the April — May '68 fight for Dak Pek and Ben Het had significantly reduced the 2nd NVA Division's capability to accomplish their part of the Tet campaign.
Though the NVA and Viet Cong suffered heavily during Tet, that did not break their will or change their designs on the Central Highlands. Nightly bombing did little to stop the convoys rolling down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Both the glow of headlights and the green tracers from NVA antiaircraft weapons were clearly visible from the firebases our battalions occupied.
During the next two months of my tour, hardly a day passed without significant contact with at least a company-size NVA unit, and there were two or three battalion-size attacks against our battalion firebases as well.
Twice a week, a resupply convoy — usually fifty to a hundred trucks escorted by military police, helo gunships, and tanks — would run from Pleiku to Kontum, and then on to Dak To. Even though the jungle had been cleared 100–200 meters on each side of the road, the convoy was often ambushed by at least a company-size force. Sometimes the fighting was so intense that the tanks would fire on each other with beehive rounds (flechette) to clear off the NVA.
I rotated from Vietnam in July 1968. While I was there, the 1st Brigade, together with the Special Forces teams and their Montagnard defenders, controlled and defended the Central Highlands, never losing a battle, and never abusing, violating, or oppressing the people there.
All of us who were able to come home felt that the cause for which we fought and sacrificed was worthy, justifiable, and right — our own freedom and the freedom of those we had been sent to defend.
I have the utmost admiration and respect for all with whom I was privileged to serve, especially the soldiers of the 1st Brigade and the Special Forces teams, and for their sacrifices and accomplishments in relieving the plight of the Montagnards. I also share their sorrow over the tragedies suffered by the Montagnards after U.S. forces were withdrawn. Though all Montagnards endured terrible retribution from the NVA — many were killed, and many others died in reindoctrination camps — the extraordinary and heartfelt efforts of the SF teams who served with them saved many others, who now live in the United States as productive citizens.
DEEP RECONNAISSANCE
Tom Clancy resumes:
15
MIKE Forces were handpicked, specially trained, quick-reaction forces modeled along the lines of U.S. Army Ranger units. Each unit had about fifteen hundred men and an advisory detachment of twelve to fifteen U.S. and Australian Special Forces members. Each field force/corps area had its own MIKE Force. The first one to be trained was comprosed of Chinese Nungs, recruited for their fighting ability, but due to the shortage of Nung recruits, practically all other MIKE Forces were manned by volunteers from Vietnamese Army Ranger units.