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The Marines stationed at Con Thien were constantly frightened.
The military base located near the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone was
subjected to daily artillery fire by the People's Army of Vietnam,
and the casualties were so significant that entire battalions had to rotate at least once a month.
The base became a key target for the North Vietnamese because it offered the Americans
miles-wide views to the coast and north of their country, but it was also highly
vulnerable to artillery and described as hell on earth by those who spent time on it.
The base was established for the McNamara Live to prevent the enemies from infiltrating the DMZ,
but despite occasional help from other branches and desperate cries for help to Washington,
the Leathernecks were mostly alone atop the remote hill and had to rely on each other to survive.
The relentless and brutal battle forced the Americans to be more prepared if they wanted
to achieve any kind of success during the upcoming Tet offensive, while the Leathernecks honored the
Marine Corps code of ethics and courageously defended their post until their last breath…
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Hell On The Hill
Con Thien, loosely translated to Hill of Angels, was home to an American base established in 1967.
The small hill mass was located north of Cam Lo and only two miles
south of the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Vietnam.
Only large enough for a single infantry battalion reinforced with tanks and artillery,
the Con Thien base provided miles of unobstructed view of the enemy positions.
The McNamara Line, a barrier as wide as almost seven football stadiums, cleared,
sowed, and filled with seismic and acoustic sensors and minefields to prevent the North
Vietnamese from infiltrating the Demilitarized Zone, stretched to the east of the base.
Still, the operational strategy that was established by Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara had fatal flaws, and it received heavy backlash from dozens of top Marines.
In addition, even though the base atop the hill was designed to block
North Vietnamese incursions, it merely diverted the enemy.
To top it off, stripped of all forest cover, Hill of Angels was well within the range of
North Vietnamese 152- and 122-millimeter artillery coming from across the Ben Hai
River in North Vietnam, whose people cleverly hid their guns within the hills and bushes.
Con Thien was an easy mark, but it was also of high strategic value; if captured, the hill
could serve as a launching pad for strikes on the essential American staging area at Dong Ha.
General Vo Nguyen Giap was in charge of attacking the base. Giap had led Vietnamese troops to defeat
the French in a similar situation in 1954, and he tried to replicate his victory in Con Thien.
Meanwhile, to defend the remote outpost and keep an eye on the enemy's activities in
and around the Demilitarized Zone, infantry battalions from the 3rd
Marine Division rotated into the Hill of Angels on a regular basis.
Between February of 1967, when the Americans arrived, and their departure two years later,
the position was the target of daily poundings by North Vietnamese artillery and mortars.
Over 1,000 rounds of artillery were fired on a typical day at Con Thien,
leading to over a thousand casualties and countless more injured.
Soon, the Leathernecks stationed in Con Thien began referring to the hill as a hellhole,
a meat grinder, and simply put, the place where Marines went to die.
Mounting Attacks
In the early hours of May 8, 1967,
the Marines stationed at Con Thien were subjected to the most vicious attack yet.
Just before 3:00am, a flare lit up the night sky. It was a signal
for North Vietnamese sappers to creep towards Con Thien and begin the attack.
Suddenly, the enemy guns showered the Hill of Angels with shells and mortars just as
the North Vietnamese sappers rushed to the McNamara Line, blasting gaps in the
barrier with Bangalore torpedoes and tossing satchel charges into every opening they saw.
Despite the suddenness of the assault, the Marines fought back as best as they could.
The attack on May 8 marked the first time that the North Vietnamese used flamethrowers
during the war, and it finally convinced the US officials that something had to be
done about the enemies positioned in the southern area of the Demilitarized Zone.
General William Westmoreland then ordered the Marines to flush out
the North Vietnamese from their southern hideouts.
To achieve this goal and thwart the Communist efforts in the area,
the Marines conceived a three-layer plan. One part involved the 3rd Marines Division,
which launched Operation Hickory on May 18.
Hickory started with an extensive artillery bombardment of nearly 700
rounds of different-sized shells directed towards suspected enemy fortifications near Phu An.
Fighter jets then delivered further hits, with 750- and 1,000-pound bombs saturating
the area with napalm as elements from the Marines advanced to secure the perimeter.
By the end of May, the invasion of the southern part of the Demilitarized Zone was finished,
resulting in almost 800 casualties on the North Vietnamese side and 140 lost Marines.
Although the Leathernecks tried to retaliate as best as they could with artillery and airstrikes,
their efforts were not enough to stop the incessant attacks on Con Thien each day.
Then, on the night of July 2, Marine troops from the Alpha and Bravo companies launched Buffalo,
a sweep operation in the northern side of the base.
Still, poor communication and planning allowed an undetected enemy force to viciously ambush
the Marines, and the attack became the single worst day for the Marines in Vietnam.
Well aware of the Marines’ tradition to not leave any body behind,
the North Vietnamese patiently waited for the American troops to return.
The Marines Fight Back On July 4, 1967, while people back in the United
States mainland celebrated Independence Day, the Communists attacked using a six-company front.
As the Marines returned to retrieve their fallen compatriots, the fighting quickly escalated,
and by nightfall, another battalion was helicoptered in to act as reinforcements.
The following day, aerial observers spotted North Vietnamese troops crossing the Ben Hai River,
and Captain Burrell H Landes quickly climbed a
tree to witness the sizable Communist force heading towards Hill of Angels.
As the battalion approached the lines, the Captain inquired an aerial observer about
the size of the incoming unit, who only responded: [QUOTE] "I'd hate to tell you."
Suddenly, hundreds of rounds impacted the hill. This time,
however, the Leathernecks had a trick up their sleeve.
When the enemy formed and attacked, the Marines moved heavy accurate artillery to only 250
feet from the perimeter. The lines would not be penetrated that day on the Leathernecks’ watch.
When the North Vietnamese sappers began tossing satchel charges and blocks of TNT
at the nearby Americans, one Corporal began flinging them back at the enemy.
The fight was brutal, and the few North Vietnamese that managed to penetrate
the perimeter were all ambushed, while all the lines remained held.
Operation Buffalo ended on July 14, and the number of casualties was close to ten times
higher than the North Vietnamese’s. According to official Marine documents
and first-hand accounts, the operation was: [QUOTE] "The worst single disaster
to befall a Marine Corps rifle company during the Vietnam War."
While top Marine Corps generals repeatedly complained that the
McNamara barrier plan was irritating and useless,
the men followed the orders to protect and maintain the line, no matter the cost.
Along with combat units, engineer companies also showed tremendous
courage working in the open and in daylight hours with heavy equipment,
suffering a higher percentage of casualties than all the rifle companies at Con Thien.
Gone But Not Forgotten
The North Vietnamese continued to put pressure on the Americans throughout the summer and well
into the fall, as Hanoi officials had plans to make the Marines around the Demilitarized
Zone as miserable as possible with their heavy artillery, particularly in Con Thien.
The relentless attacks hit their peak on September 25,
when a reported 1,200 rounds hit the Con Thien base.
Commanding General William Westmoreland, who was in charge of Vietnam operations,
was eventually succeeded by General Creighton Abrams,
who adopted a more flexible position along the McNamara line by relying on the Air Force’s
airstrikes and Navy long-range artillery in response to the North Vietnamese sorties.
Still, the constant shelling and looming threat of North Vietnamese assaults took
a physical and psychological toll on the rotating Marine battalions,
who went in and out of the base every thirty days.
By early 1968, however, the People's Army of Vietnam focused their attention on a besieged
Marine base at Khe Sanh, and the imminent threat toward Con Thien began to subside,
albeit with sporadic fire that continued to further destroy the base.
Ultimately, the supposed barrier and warfare plan that Secretary of Defense
McNamara had envisioned would turn the tide of the war proved to be a dismal failure.
The constant torrential monsoon rains transformed the red dirt around the hill into a quagmire,
and the never-ending shelling left many survivors totally demoralized, with the
miserable feeling of being constantly overrun and attacked etched in their minds forever.
As Marine historian Eric Hammel put it:
(QUOTE) “Americans were bound by the moral poverty of their political leaders, and the
North Vietnamese were bound by the intellectual inflexibility of their Communist doctrines.
The soldiers of each side suffered mightily in the stalemate that ensued.”
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