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Foreword copyright ©
2012 by George W. Casey Jr. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of
America. For information, address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New
York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Keith, Philip A.
Blackhorse riders : a desperate last stand, an extraordinary rescue mission,
and the Vietnam battle America forgot / Philip Keith.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-312-68192-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4299-4095-5 (e-book)
1. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Campaigns—Vietnam—Tay
Ninh. 2. United States. Army. Armored Cavalry Regiment, 11th—
History. 3. United States. Army. Cavalry Regiment, 8th. Charlie
Company. 4. Vietnam War, 1961–1975—Jungle warfare. 5. Vietnam War,
1961–1975—Regimental histories—United States. I. Title. II. Title:
Vietnam battle America forgot.
DS558.4.T39K45 2012
959.704'342—dc23
2011033223
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
1
ALPHA TROOP: MEN OF IRON,
STEEDS OF STEEL
out would not return until March of 1972. In that long stretch of
time, the regiment would engage in many actions, such as the one
that is the subject of this book; be led by nine different command-
ers, including Col. George Patton Jr., son of the legendary General
Patton of World War II; and three of its members would receive
the Medal of Honor.
In March 1970, the 11th Armored had three squadrons with four
troops in each. Troops are akin to company-sized units but slightly
larger, about 160 men per troop. Alpha Troop, in 1st Squadron, was
commanded by Capt. John Poindexter and had an official allowance
of thirty-one “tracks”: nine M-551 Sheridan tanks, fifteen M-113
ACAVs, three mortar tracks (modified M-113s), and four armored
command and admin vehicles.
On March 26, Alpha Troop was short one M-113. ACAV A-13
had been disabled by a land mine a few days earlier. Their roster had
“somewhere around” 110 or 115 men present for duty. Exact lists were
hard to maintain. Squad and platoon leaders could generally keep a
precise count or a mental list of all the men for whom they were re-
sponsible; then again, they might not all be present. A few were al-
ways on R&R (rest and relaxation); some were detailed to rear echelon
duties helping the XO (executive officer—second in command) with
supplies, rearmament, the squadron kitchen, and the like. There were
always broken bones, wounds, and a myriad of illnesses to deal with,
all of which constantly kept at least a few men in the hospital.
The main weapon in the arsenal of Alpha Troop was the M-551
Sheridan tank (see appendix 3 for a more complete description of the
Sheridan and its history). The troopers assigned to Sheridan crews
in Vietnam tended to be equally divided between those who loved
the Sheridan and those who hated it with a passion.
On the negative side, the Sheridan had been designed, in part,
to be “air drop capable,” that is, deployable by parachuting it into
hostile environments. This proved to be a particularly useless de-
sign characteristic in the jungles of Southeast Asia. It also meant
that the Sheridan had to be much lighter than its predecessors (the
hedgerow-smashing main battle tanks of World War II) so it could
be hauled around by air. The turrets would still be made of steel,
but the hulls were made of aluminum and could, unfortunately, be
penetrated by mines, rocket-launched grenades, and heavy-caliber
machine-gun bullets.
The Sheridan fired caseless ammunition which meant “without
solid brass casings.” If a round was roughly handled, the projectile
could easily separate from the pelletlike explosive used to fire it,
which meant that there were many instances when highly flammable
bags of explosive particles would be rolling around in the bottom
of the tank. This was not at all desirable in a hostile warfare envi-
ronment where sparks and flame were ever present.
The Sheridan’s diesel engine was quite reliable and could run all
day at top speeds of over 40 mph, but there weren’t many roads in
the bush, and the Sheridan had a frustrating tendency to overheat
quickly when it was asked to bust jungle (smash down or roll over
trees and foliage). The Sheridan was cramped for a crew of four
and, of course, had no air-conditioning: Temperatures inside the
hull often exceeded 100°F.
There were some design aspects to love: The Sheridan rarely
threw track; that is, the mechanical treads so critical to its locomo-
tion rarely came off, even in the jungle. It had a really big main gun:
a whopping 152 mm cannon. This gun fired either a high-explosive
artillery-type round or the very popular “beehive” round. The bee-
Alpha Troop: Men of Iron, Steeds of Steel 13
hive was filled with ten thousand tiny aluminum-alloy darts that
could shred wide swaths of foliage or, unfortunately for the NVA,
large groups of men. Last but not least, the Sheridan was relatively
easy to maintain, from a mechanical standpoint: a very valuable char-
acteristic in the middle of the jungle, where there were no handy
repair shops.
The troopers could love the Sheridan or hate it but, as they
themselves were fond of saying, “and there it is.”
The other main vehicle in Alpha Troop’s inventory was the ubiqui-
tous M-113 ACAV, or all-purpose track. (See appendix 4 for a more
complete description and a brief history of the M-113 in Vietnam.)
The M-113 was used for just about every motorized function imag-
inable: troop transport (its original design), light tank (it mounted
a .50 cal and two M-60 machine guns), roving minimedical ward,
mobile mortar platform, repair vehicle, tow truck, and so on.
In Alpha Troop, the ACAV was a mainstay and provided a light,
mobile, and spirited gun platform. It could also haul a squad of
infantry to wherever troops were needed. It had a crew of four: a
driver, two M-60 machine-gunners, and a track commander (TC).
The TC operated the .50 caliber machine gun from a rotatable cu-
pola atop the ACAV.
Like the Sheridans, M-113s were mostly made of aluminum.
Also like their big brothers, they didn’t provide complete protec-
tion, but they could deflect small-arms fire and generally withstood
RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) unless the aim was dead-on.
The M-113s proved to be nimble and reliable, but compared to the
Sheridans, they threw track more often— especially in swamps or
bomb craters.
The infantry derisively called the M-113s “buckets,” but that
was probably more out of pride in their own role as the “Queen of
Battle” (an old reference to the queen in chess, which, like the in-
fantry, is the most versatile piece on the board). The cavalrymen
14 blackhorse riders
scoffed at that. They rather liked the M-113, at least more than run-
ning around on a battlefield with nothing more between them and
eternity than a steel pot (helmet) and a fatigue jacket.
As Team Alpha set up their NDP on the night of March 25, they
found themselves in an open area about the size of two football fields.
They would be very exposed, but so would any enemy that might
try to creep up on the troop at night. They were just west of the
nearly deserted town of Katum. It had been another long day of
exhausting patrols and fruitless searches for an elusive foe.
Spirited horses and canvas-topped prairie schooners were only
ghostly memories to these modern-day cavalrymen, but some old
habits died hard. As they settled in for the night, the troop “circled
their wagons” as a precaution against an adversary with a penchant
for nighttime attacks. The Sheridans and stubby ACAVs were placed
in a huge circle at 10-meter intervals, all guns facing outward to-
ward the black wall of jungle. The command, mortar, medic, main-
tenance, and FO (forward observer) tracks were centered in the
middle of this laager. The infantrymen, as their forebears had done
since conflicts immemorial, dug in and tried to find comfort in
shallow foxholes between the tracks.
The commander of each track rigged a claymore mine about 50
feet in front of his vehicle. This small, directional antipersonnel
device would blast steel balls, shotgun-style, at any enemy seeking
to storm the NDP. The claymore was tethered to a thin detonating
cord that the soldier on watch in the track would keep handy. Out
beyond the claymores, the troopers often set out trip flares. These
illumination rounds were wire-triggered and intended to expose
anyone sneaking up on the laager during darkness. Then, on top of
these precautions, each Sheridan main gun was loaded with a can-
ister round. Vigilance and preparation were paramount to survival
in “Indian country.”