July 7
Tall, ruggedly handsome and all business when it came to combat, Gabe Rollison had started his second year-long tour in Vietnam when he joined the 2/506th. Ranger and parachute qualified, Rollison had been a platoon leader with the 25th Infantry Division down south in 1966-67. Now, he was back for more. He wanted command of a rifle company, nothing less would do.
Andre Lucas wasn't so sure, and suggested that maybe Rollison should settle into the battalion by way of a staff position. "Well, sir," Rollison replied as he stood up, "I reckon I'll just have to find me another battalion." And he prepared to take his leave of the colonel.
Liking what he saw, Lucas quickly relented. Rollison would be placed in command of Delta Company in a few days.
Now, on July 7, Rollison had been Delta's commander for four arduous months. And in that time he and his men had done as much to damage the enemy as anyone, and more than most. This morning, they were going to damage the enemy again.
Hill 1000 posed a daunting challenge, but Rollison would be able to call on plentiful support of artillery, mortars, cobra gunships and even Air Force fighter-bombers, if need be. While platoon leaders and platoon sergeants readied their men the evening before, Rollison worked out his plan of attack. It was a simple and direct approach. Two platoons would move up in platoon column with a third in reserve until enemy contact was made, then they would fix the enemy with suppressive fires while the reserve platoon worked around a flank. In theory, it was a textbook example. Putting it into practice, however, would be another matter entirely.
Neither Rollison nor Lucas, nor anyone else for that matter knew what kind and strength of enemy occupied Hill 1000. Available intelligence was skimpy, and most of what they knew for a fact had come from Granberry's abortive assault by a six-man recon team the day before. Rollison expected some resistance, but he reckoned he could handle it.
Shortly after 0900 the artillery preparation fires lifted, and Jim McCall's platoon fanned out to the left to allow room for the other platoon to come online to the right. SSG Gary Radford was McCall's platoon sergeant, and he brought up the rear of the platoon as it moved farther upslope and into increasingly dense undergrowth. Sp4 Lewis Howard of Macon, Georgia, was walking point.
1st Lt. Jack Flaherty's platoon moved off to the right. Rollison kept his command post with Flaherty. They had about 300 meters to get to the top of the eastern knob on Hill 1000, the objective Rollison had chosen for the attack.
As Delta Company came abreast of the bomb crater where Granberry's men had been hit the day before, a single shot rang out and one of Flaherty's men pitched forward, dead. The fight was on.
At almost the same instant McCall's men began trading fire with the enemy. Howard was hit and called for a medic. Radford rushed forward from the rear of the platoon, but the platoon sergeant was only able to get a hand on Howard's boot before a blast of a satchel charge knocked him back down the slope. Firing intensified. There was no room for maneuver, and not much of an opportunity to mass fires against a well entrenched and very numerous enemy.
Still, Rollison and Delta gave it a shot. The company surged forward, knocked out one bunker, and then another, only to find that the enemy had dug connecting tunnels. "We busted one position with grenades and followed up with rifle fire," McCall remembers, "only to have another enemy soldier fire at us from it a few minutes later."
Rollison radioed for support and a white team of two loaches armed with mini-guns came on station. Lucas, too, was in the air overhead in a loach. The mini-guns began chewing up the jungle, firing at targets and coming so close to the GIs that debris from bushes and trees fell among them.
During one radio transmission to Lucas, Rollison exclaimed, "we got four of their bunkers knocked out. We're moving forward!" And, a short time later, "we're in the middle of a dang bunker complex. The little devils must have 40-50 bunkers here!"
Grenades were at a premium. Lucas had his loach pilot hover low over the fighting, dropping a sandbags of smoke and fragmentation grenades to the embattled troops on the ground. The battalion commander even helped Rollison adjust his throw of hand grenades on one occasion.
Lying flat on his back—the fire was so intense and close that Rollison had no choice—he would flip a grenade over his head and Lucas would mark the explosion. "Right two feet," he'd radio and Rollison would pitch another grenade.
McCall and his men had all they could handle just to keep from getting outflanked on their left by the enemy. Pinned down on one occasion, McCall adjusted the white team's mini-guns within 15 feet of his position, a dangerous move but one that worked to nail the enemy and let McCall move to a more secure location.
Delta Company gave everything they had, but it wasn't enough. Even Rollison's effective use of his shotgun to kill one enemy in his bunker wasn't enough. After four hours of brutal fighting Rollison gave the order to fall back.
Lucas landed in his loach to speak directly with Rollison. The battalion commander was understandably agitated that Hill 1000 was still in enemy hands, such was the threat that it posed to Ripcord. Lucas wanted to send Delta Company back up Hill 1000 right away. But Rollison had lost three men killed and a dozen wounded. His strength was right at 50 troopers, and they were bushed from a long day's fight.
"First thing tomorrow morning," Lucas said, "and I'll have Charlie Company brought in to reinforce you."
