1st Battalion 22nd Infantry

The Jungle

Two map sheets put together. Brown contour lines go across the entire area shown, and indicate mountains. Green shading indicates heavy jungle covering those mountains. (Yellow green color of map on left and blue green color of map on right both indicate the same thing.) LZ (Landing Zone) Winnie, the Battalion forward headquarters and Fire Support Base, is in the center. “KIA 9-10-1970” is the enemy bunker complex where two men from my platoon were killed on September 10, 1970. “BN Helicopter crash” is where our Battalion Commander Lieutenant Colonel Barney Neal and his Artillery officer Lieutenant Jimmy Nobles were killed the next day on September 11, 1970, when their helicopter crashed on the way to join us at the enemy bunker complex.
LZ Regular is the small firebase built near the end of the operation.

Where we were September-October 1970

In September and early October 1970, Company C, 1st Battalion 22nd Infantry (C 1/22 Infantry), as part of the 4th Infantry Division, carried out a search and destroy mission against the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) in the jungle covered mountains of Binh Dinh Province during Operation Wayne Forge. The official 4th Infantry Division Operational Report Lessons Learned (ORLL) for the period indicated the enemy forces in the area of operations for our Battalion included elements of the 3rd NVA Division, the 6th Battalion of the 12th NVA Regiment, and the 90th Sapper Battalion. The area we operated in was south of Highway 19, roughly 15-25 kilometers southwest of Binh Khê and about 20 kilometers due south of the An Khê Pass. It was quite remote, real wilderness, with no roads, villages and not even the primitive hill people of Vietnam, the Montagnards living out there. There was nobody out there but us, the North Vietnamese Army and the jungle animals. All of the area we worked in was mountains and most of those were covered with triple canopy rainforest, jungle so thick we couldn’t see the sun in the daytime or the moon at night.

Normal platoon strength was about 44 men, but all four platoons in the Company were understrength at the time. My platoon, 3rd Platoon “Sidewinders” was operating with about 25-28 men when I was first assigned to it. That included a number of men from our Company’s Weapons Platoon (4th Platoon “Popeye”) who were temporarily assigned to the three rifle platoons as riflemen. When the guys from Weapons Platoon were later pulled out to build a firebase, the loss of their numbers left us operating with about 18 men in our platoon.

On this mission 3rd Platoon never ran into the enemy in large numbers. When we came upon them it was only a couple or a few of them at a time. A couple times we shot at them and a couple times they initiated the firing, but without fail, they quickly ran away every time. My platoon did not engage in any big fight, but one of the other platoons did get into a substantial firefight one night. I had a friend in that platoon named Roger, with whom I had gone through training at Fort Polk. Roger had been in that fight and had picked up a souvenir from it, a North Vietnamese pith helmet. He showed it to me when the platoons linked up for re-supply soon after that fight.

My platoon did, however suffer the only deaths in our Company on that mission when Chuck Reed and Joseph Jackson were killed in action (KIA) by a booby trap (mechanical ambush) at an enemy bunker complex. The booby trap had been set by one of our own platoons. Somebody mismarked it on a map or somebody misread the location on the map, and 3rd Platoon walked right into it. Our Battalion Commander, Lieutenant Colonel Barney Neal and his Artillery Liaison Officer Lieutenant Jimmy Knobles were killed the next day. They died when their helicopter crashed, as they were flying out to join us at that enemy bunker complex.

The bunker complexes

1st Battalion 22nd Infantry (1/22 Infantry) was released from control by the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division on August 21, 1970 and was temporarily assigned to control by the 1st Brigade of the Division. On August 28 enemy forces attacked a convoy on Highway 19 east of An Khê. To counteract the enemy attack 1/22 Infantry was combat assaulted by helicopter to the location of that attack. As reconnaissance elements indicated the enemy retreated to the south, 1st Brigade directed 1/22 Infantry to move to the south of the highway, and Operation Wayne Forge began.

For about a week 1/22 Infantry moved through the jungle covered mountains just south of Highway 19, a few kilometers southeast of An Khê (minus Company D which was brought to An Khê to act as security). The week was largely uneventful. Intelligence and reconnaissance reports estimated the enemy’s base of operations might be located further south. Accordingly, on September 7, Battalion Headquarters was moved from Camp Radcliff at An Khê, to LZ Winnie, the Battalion forward firebase approximately eight kilometers to the southeast. One platoon of Company A was brought to LZ Winnie to act as security while the rest of Company A and all of Company B remained near Highway 19.

That same day Company C (Charlie Company) was airlifted approximately 15 kilometers south of the highway, to look for enemy base camps, which according to reports, were thought to be in that area. Two Combat Tracker dog teams were sent from Brigade to join Company C. The next day, on September 8 at 9:45 in the morning Company C discovered a small enemy base camp at grid reference BR 599322.

In that base camp there were eight hootches of various sizes. (To a G.I. any structure out in the jungle was a "hootch". Huts made out of bamboo, logs and thatch were thus called "hootches".) Each hootch in this camp had a bunker underneath it with overhead cover. In the hootches was found a minor quantity of small arms ammunition, grenades, uniforms and clothes, and some documents. Among the documents were four diagrams of American Fire Support Bases, with plans for approach and attack against those bases. Some of the finds were sent to Battalion Headquarters and the rest was destroyed along with the hootches which were burned. No enemy soldiers were encountered at this camp.

The next day, on September 9, at about 9:10 in the morning, 3rd Platoon of Charlie Company observed and engaged two enemy soldiers wearing green fatigues near the enemy base camp at grid reference BR 599322. In a short exchange of gunfire one of the enemy was killed while the other got away. No Americans were hurt by the enemy’s fire. The dead North Vietnamese Army soldier was armed with an AK-47 rifle. It was my squad, 1st Squad of 3rd Platoon, who engaged the two enemy soldiers. Several men of 1st Squad hit one of the NVA soldiers with their gunfire, but he continued to return fire and attempted to evade. Our squad leader, Huey Livingston, ran to within a few feet of the man and dispatched him with a final shot.

After finding that enemy base camp and engaging those two enemy personnel, the Company then fanned out its platoons, to each cover an adjoining grid square on the map, planning to move each platoon about 700 meters per day to look for more evidence of the enemy. Continuing to search through the jungle, at about 3:40 in the afternoon, Charlie Company’s Command element and 1st Platoon discovered an enemy bunker complex at grid reference BR 601313. This complex consisted of about nine hootches of various sizes. Each hootch in the complex had a bunker underneath it, with overhead cover above each bunker. In addition there were five fighting bunkers, each of which had two feet of overhead cover made out of logs and dirt. The area of the complex was about 200 meters in diameter. No enemy personnel were encountered at the complex, but two AK-47 rifles with loaded magazines were found there.

The next day, on September 10 at about 11:15 in the morning, 3rd Platoon found another enemy bunker complex at grid reference BR 597315. This large complex was quite spread out, and covered an area of about 500 meters across. It consisted of nineteen above ground hootches of different sizes, the largest of which was a mess hall type of structure about 15 by 30 feet long with two ovens in it. There were no fighting bunkers at this complex, but each hootch had a bunker underneath it with overhead cover. There was a considerable amount of arms, ammunition and supplies at this large complex. The Daily Staff Journal of the Battalion mentions some of the items found there, such as recoilless rifle ammunition, small arms ammunition, equipment and documents. As with the other complex, there were no enemy personnel encountered.

I remember being at that complex the next day or so and seeing a lot of rice. I have a vivid memory of seeing a Thompson submachine gun there in very rough condition, along with a few bolt action rifles. I along with another guy carried a Soviet or Chinese made .51 caliber heavy machine gun down from the complex to a landing zone further down the mountain.

At about 5:20 in the afternoon of September 10, 3rd Platoon was moving in an area 4 kilometers southwest of Hon Giang Mountain, and just south of the large bunker complex, in order to set up an ambush covering a trail leading to the complex, when the point element walked into a mechanical ambush that had been set up by 1st Platoon at grid reference BR 596304. The mechanical ambush consisted of a claymore anti-personnel mine wired to a battery and detonated by a trip wire. Charles M. "Chuck" Reed and Joseph E. "J.J." Jackson, both of 3rd Platoon, were killed by the blast. I've talked with several guys who were there that day and everyone remembers the incident differently. My memory of it is that our platoon had been informed of the mechanical ambush, and its location was noted on our maps, but someone either marked the map incorrectly or someone read the map wrong.

The Daily Staff Journal indicates the mechanical ambush was set up by 1st Platoon only about one hour before 3rd Platoon walked into it. The Daily Staff Journal for September 10 also shows that at 6:00 p.m. a routine dustoff (medical evacuation) was requested for a man who was in shock. That man was Huey Livingston, the squad leader for 1st Squad of 3rd Platoon, the Squad to which Reed and Jackson belonged. When Livingston saw the bodies of the two men, he went into shock and had to be evacuated. He was back leading the squad and humping the boonies with us in a few days, but the sight of his two men, all torn up by the claymore was too much for him to handle for the moment.

Everyone in 3rd Platoon, and indeed, many of the men in Charlie Company were emotionally affected by the incident. Knowing that we were deep in the heart of the enemy’s home turf, with his base camps and bunker complexes all around us, was enough to rattle anyone’s nerves. And now we had to deal with the deaths of two of our buddies. At 6:40 p.m. the bodies of Reed and Jackson were transported by helicopter to the Base Camp at An Khê.

The next day, September 11, Lieutenant Colonel Barney K. Neal, the Commander of 1st Battalion 22nd Infantry, and his Artillery Liaison Officer, 2nd Lieutenant James L. Knobles of 4/42 Artillery, left LZ Winnie, the Battalion firebase, in a small helicopter, to come join us out at that large enemy bunker complex. At about 1:20 in the afternoon they had flown only about two and a half kilometers from the firebase when the aircraft crashed at grid reference BR 529325. The pilot was lightly injured but both Neal and Knobles were killed. A platoon from Company A was inserted by helicopters at the crash site to act as security while the bodies were recovered. Lieutenant Colonel John Ching assumed command of the Battalion later that day at 6:00 p.m. It would be a week or more before we learned the crash was officially determined to be a result of mechanical failure. Until then, we speculated the helicopter had been shot down by enemy action.

For the past three days Battalion Recon had been operating about two kilometers southeast of Company C’s area of operations. At about 4:45 in the afternoon of September 11, Battalion Recon found another bunker complex at grid reference BR 581281. Recon heard voices at the complex and employed small arms fire against it. They then backed away from the complex, requested artillery support, and 4/42 Artillery fired into the complex for about twenty-five minutes, then 6/29 Artillery fired into it for about ten minutes. This complex had four hootches of various sizes, one small storage hut, and three fighting bunkers. The bunkers had minimal overhead cover of only about six inches thick. All structures were destroyed by the artillery. Though they had heard voices at the complex Recon did not actually see any enemy soldiers there, nor did they find any bodies afterward.

Meanwhile, continuing to investigate each grid square on the map adjoining the location of the original base camp found on September 8, Charlie Company on September 12 found a small storage hootch at grid reference BR 602315 which contained a quantity of homemade explosives. I remember those explosives looking like rough “concrete” blocks with empty or hollow tin cans that had obviously been stuck in their middle before the “concrete” hardened. The Daily Staff Journal described them as “300 lbs of hand cast explosive in various sizes blocks with tin cans molded inside blocks.”

That same day at 3:50 in the afternoon Battalion Recon got into a fight with two enemy personnel at grid reference BR 583278, resulting in one wounded enemy soldier being captured, along with his AK-47 rifle. The wounded enemy was flown back to An Khê by helicopter.

On September 13 at 10:30 in the morning Battalion Recon engaged 3 or 4 enemy personnel at grid reference BR 582277, employing small arms fire and artillery support. All enemy soldiers got away.

We remained near those bunker complexes for several days. On September 13 Battalion headquarters instructed that one block of those homemade explosives was to be sent back to them, and the rest was to be left at one of the complexes where it could be destroyed with everything else. A bunch of the blocks had been carried down the mountainside to our bivouac location, and I was one of several guys who had to empty our rucksacks and put one of the blocks in them, and carry the blocks back up to one of the complexes where they could be blown up with the other stuff.

Engineers were flown out from the 4th Infantry Division Base Camp at An Khê to join us and destroy the two complexes. There were four or five unexploded aerial bombs found at one of the complexes. The Engineers wired everything up at the complexes for demolition and the word was passed to us to seek cover, by the cry of "fire in the hole!" I don’t remember what I was doing at the time, but I do remember getting in my foxhole when the warning was sounded, and standing upright in the hole when the Engineers detonated all those explosives. The Daily Staff Journals do not indicate it, but I believe this was September 14.

We thought we were a safe distance from both of the complexes, but when the Engineers set off the explosives, our world erupted around us several times. The sound was deafening, the ground trembled mightily, and chunks of trees and pieces of the jungle came crashing down all over, as guys scrambled for their foxholes or other cover. I was knocked down into my foxhole by the violent shaking of the ground from the explosions. We looked at one another as if we had all just survived an atomic blast, and were amazed that no one was hurt by it. The next day we moved out and continued our searching for more enemy soldiers and their bases of operation. Though we discovered a couple more hootches and encountered a few more enemy soldiers, for the rest of the mission we found no more bunker complexes or base camps.

Copyright © Michael Belis 2020

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