Has there ever been a good place to have a battle? If so, Ripcord was as good as any, and better than most.
July 1.
The day dawned clear and temperate, a few clouds high overhead, and a hint of fog in the dark, deep valleys below. Nearby mountain peaks loomed dark, their shadows mixing with the thick foliage.
On the towering Coc Muen, over 1,400 meters high, enemy observers looked down on Ripcord from a distance of several kilometers. Closer to the fire base, enemy gunners readied their weapons. They could observe clearly the GIs on Ripcord going about their morning tasks--checking wire and claymore mines, going to chow, relieving themselves at the latrine, and checking their weapons. Artillerymen sat or stood near their 105mm and 155mm howitzers. Laying siege to Ripcord was not going to be an easy chore.
At 7:02 a.m., a North Vietnamese mortar crew on Hill 1000 stood by their weapon. A crew member picked up a 60mm mortar shell, armed the fuse, and held it over the open tube. At a nod from the crew chief, the soldier let the round drop down the tube, striking the firing pin as he ducked away. "Thonk."
Quickly, the NVA soldier dropped four more rounds as fast as his team members could hand them to him. Thonk, thonk, thonk, thonk!
With five rounds in the air the crew picked up their weapon and base plate and scurried for cover. The fight was on.
The mortar rounds impaced near the defensive wire on the fire base and did no damage. Artillerymen from Bravo Battery, 319th Artillery, responded rapidly with counter battery fire, but the enemy had disappeared.
Throughout the day enemy firing continued. Sometimes using recoilless rifles, sometimes using mortars or .51 caliber machine guns, the North Vietnamese continued to pepper the fire base with shot and shell.
As the day wore on, Charlie Co., 2/506th, labored up the steep slope of Hill 902, just a couple of kilometers south of Ripcord. By late afternoon they had gained the crest of the hill and faned out to secure a defensive perimeter. Charlie Company's 3d Platoon had been sent to Ripcord the day prior for a day's rest--some rest--and the company had only two platoons and the command post, about 60 men with which to defend Hill 902.
Capt. Tom Hewitt, the new company commander, could observe enemy heavy machine gunners in the valley below Hill 902 and just south of Ripcord. Concerned about giving away his location, Hewitt called in artillery against the enemy targets, but the North Vietnamese managed to duck into their bunkers before the rounds could be adjusted on target, only to come out firing after the barrage had been lifted.
Hewitt had his men ready a couple of light anti-tank weapons (LAW) and directed them to engage the enemy gunners. The LAWs fired true and knocked out the enemy position, but Charlie Company's position was now compromised. The men dug in and waited for night.
Darkness enveloped C Co., and while they were settling into their nighttime routine of radio watch and perimeter security, a North Vietnamese infantry company led by black painted sappers crept slowly up a draw leading to the American perimeter. About 11 p.m. they struck without warning.
Charlie Co. was caught by surprise in the pitch darkness as satchel charges began exploding in and around their perimeter. Some soldiers, fearing it was a mortar attack, hunkered down in their foxholes, only to die there when the enemy tossed deadly explosives in to their positions. Other soldiers, realizing their perimeter had been penetrated, popped flares and star clusters to give light by which to see to fight. The explosion of grenades and RPGs peppered the night, and the flash and crackle of AK47 and M16 rifle fire ripped across the mountain top.
Gary Steele, a rifleman in C Co., remembers that "it was like a thousand flashes of light, bigger than any 4th of July fireworks you ever saw at home."
Hewitt was killed early in the fight by a rocket propelled grenade. His forward observer was knocked unconcious. No other officer was present to call for fire or direct cobra gunships. The tactical operations center on Ripcord and Lt. Col. Lucas were alerted to the danger, but were unable to raise anyone on the radio.
Finally, a trembling voice crackled over the airwaves. SP/4 Mueller, hunkered in a foxhole, had managed to find a radio and call for help. His normal stutter was made worse by fright, but he made contact with battalion and help was on the way.
"Now," recalls Steele, "it was our turn," and Charlie Company began taking the fight to the enemy within and without their perimeter.
Slowly, in twos and threes, GIs began hunting down their tormentors in the flickering light of illumination rounds. "It was eerie," said Steel, who would later be medically retired due to wounds he sustained that night.
Finally, the enemy had enough, and melted back down the slope of Hill 902 the way they had come. Most of them, that is. At first light several enemy soldiers in stay-behind positions were discovered and killed. The final tally was a portent of things to come. Charlie Company had eight men killed, including the company commander, and most of the rest had been wounded. One man, SP/4 Steve Harber was missing, and only his right boot with his foot still in it and a dog tag in the laces could be found. Fifteen enemy dead littered the hill top.
That morning, as Capt. Jeff Wilcox helicoptered into Hill 902 to take over Charlie Company, enemy mortars and recoilless rifles resumed their fire against Ripcord.
