Sp4 DANNY YATES
Artillery Surveyor
I arrived in Vietnam on July 24, 1966 where I was assigned to the 2/9th Arty, 3rd Bde, 25th Inf Div in Pleiku. I made it home on July 21, 1967.
WE WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO GO THERE!
Shortly after we arrived at Duc Pho, someone
wanted coordinates of the top of the hill, so another surveyor and I were
sent up to the top -- by foot. Along the way, we found a trip wire
across the trail, tied to a potato-masher style grenade. When we got
to the top, everyone was so upset that we had walked up, telling us that the
hill had been mined by the French, the Marines and the Viet Cong!
When we finished our survey, a Huey was sent up to get us:)
ENEMY ENTICES FRIENDLIES TO FIRE ON EACH OTHER
In the early part of 1967, we had just moved out of the Central Highlands to the flat, coastal area of the South China Sea, not far from Phu Cat, at a place called Bronco Beach. One night as I was in my tent writing letters home, a machine gun on a nearby perimeter bunker suddenly started firing. I threw on my helmet, grabbed my web gear in one hand and my rifle in the other, and started running in the darkness toward the bunker. As I was running, I noticed three or four reddish-orange lights lined up horizontally in the distance. They seemed to be wavering a bit. To this day, I do not know if I figured out what they were, or I tripped, or just plain divine intervention, but my face hit the ground as the bullets screamed by, a few inches over me. The lights I saw were tracers, and I had been running head long into a burst from an M-60 fired from a nearby Army camp a short distance away. A soldier behind me was hit in his bunk. The VC had fired a couple of rounds into our LZ, and some into the other Army camp, and the two camps started firing at each other. The sad thing was this went on for several nights with a mini firefight breaking out between the two Army units for several minutes just after darkness fell on Bronco Beach.
Footnote:
Danny adds that there was lax discipline on Guard Duty at times. It led
him to pull
all-night duty for his
own peace of mind and security.
This story appeared in the Denver Post on 26 Jan 1967:
100 N. Viet Soldiers Trapped in Big Cave
SAIGON, South Vietnam – (UPI) – U.S. Infantrymen Thursday trapped an estimated 100 North Vietnamese soldiers in a cave where the Reds held women and children hostage and shot to death an American officer when he tried to save the civilians. It was not immediately known how many women and children were being held by the Reds in the massive granite cave fortress. The cave-clearing operation took place in the Bong Son area in the Central Highlands.
A group of American paratroopers made one of the rare combat jumps of the war on a sandy peninsula along the coast to clear the way for a helicopter assault by the 1st Air Cavalrymen driving inland toward the cave fortress
complex. UPI Correspondent Leon Daniel was with the American infantrymen in the dangerous operation of clearing out the natural caves honeycombing a jungle-sloped mountain in the highlands about 280 miles northeast of Saigon.
When soldiers of the 25th Infantry Division, supporting the 1st Air Cav in Operation Thayer II, first ran onto the huge cave complex, they heard voices of women and children inside one of the dark, dank tunnel mouths.
The commander of one of the infantry companies went up to the mouth of the cave and tried to talk the civilians into coming out. First Lt. Jerry Orenstein, 23, of New York City, said a North Vietnamese soldier pushed a woman and child out of the tunnel, using them as a shield.
The company commander,
Captain Steven Childers, B/1/14, lowered his gun, and the North Vietnamese shot him through the head, killing him instantly.
Please see Tribute from classmate Frank N. Hall below.
The cave was blown up with explosives, sealing in the Communists.
**********************************************************************
Comments from both Arty Surveyors Danny Yates & Bob Wilson, re: destroying the caves
Danny Yates
I spent about 5 days with the infantry there. My job (as
Artillery Surveyor for the 2/9th) was to get coordinates of the caves for
subsequent B-52 bombings of the caves. At the time, I thought
the B-52's were a little overkill, but having read the article after all these
years, it makes more sense if you never wanted anyone to see what/who were in
those caves.
Cave Explosion in the Hon Noc Mountains
Bob
Wilson
When
the engineers set off that huge explosion, shown in an aerial picture, it sucked
all the CS gas that had been sprayed in out of the cave, and we got caught in
it. We tried to escape the gas by going up the hill, but it moved faster
than we did. I remember lying face down with my hands covering my face, my
nose, mouth, eyes and lungs burning like fire. But the worst part of that
ordeal was listening to the screams and cries of the women and children that
were trapped inside. Their cries were muffled by the tons of rock that had
crashed in on them. It was the most haunting sound I’ve ever heard.
And I had to listen to it all night because the few times I was able to doze
off, I was awakened by rats crawling all over me. I had the opportunity to
fly over the site after the B-52’s had bombed it, and what was once a hill was
now just a pile of rubble. Sad experience.
***********************************************
TRIBUTE
TO CAPT STEPHEN CHILDERS
Steve and I, were USMA., 1963, classmates, were in, the same company - H-1. He
was, an outstanding swimmer and should, have been captain, of the swim team. I
was stationed, in Munich, Germany, while Steve was, in Augsburg, about an
hour's, drive away. When I took, a 2, week course, in Augsburg, I stayed with
Steve. He was always gracious, friendly and professional. I heard, that the
reason he was killed, in Vietnam, was when, his troops were ready, to open fire
on a cave - Steve said, "Wait - there are women and children in
there." Because, of this delay, he was killed, by enemy gun fire.
Compassion would be, a good addition to add, to his many values. Col., (Ret.)
Francis G. Hall, Jr., USA., USMA., Classmate.
Jan 2, 2007
submitted
by Frank Hall on The Wall
Frank Hall
ccifh@comcast.net
USMA., Classmate and Friend
4534, LaSalle Ave., Alexandria, VA., 22304, USA
Goodbye, to a fellow, classmate and friend
http://thewall-usa.com/guest.asp?recid=8918