Sonoran Desert Digest: 2017

¹DD form 1300 at the Coffelt Database and the Virtual Wall identify Company D, 1^st Battalion, 5^th Cavalry as PFC Dowdell’s Unit of Record on Date of Loss.

²The Coffelt Database and the Virtual Wall identify Headquarters Company, 1^st Brigade, 1^st Cavalry Division as SP4 Barlow’s Unit of Record on Date of Loss

In a shady meadow green

Are the Souls of all dead Troopers camped,

Near a good old-time canteen.

And this eternal resting place

Is known as Fiddler's Green.

Excerpt from

Fiddler's Green

"A Cavalryman's Poem"

Monday, January 2, 2017

Delta Company in Operation Pegasus - Relief of Khe Sanh

Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division, air assaulted into the highlands west of Khe Sanh in April 1968, part of Operation Pegasus. The Battalion's Daily Journals that would normally be the best source for where we were and what we did there are missing, but the Division’s survived. From the 167 pages of the 1st Cavalry's Operations Staff Section (AC of S, G3) covering Operation Pegasus, we've been able to reconstruct most of Delta’s experience.

Operation Pegasus, the Relief of Khe Sanh, jumped off at 0700 on 1 April 1968, when John J. Tolson, Commanding General of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division, sent two Marine Battalions into the attack west along Highway 9 toward Khe Sanh Combat Base, where the 26th Marine Regiment had been under siege by 3 NVA divisions for 11 weeks. With over 400 helicopters, the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) could attack "over the top" so after the morning weather cleared enough for air operations, that's what it did, sending its entire 3rd Brigade air assaulting into "landing zones" commanding the high ground along the Highway 9 corridor.

Over the next few days, the Marines fought their way westward against light opposition while engineer units restored the highway behind them. The Cav’s 3rd Brigade attacked further west and south from LZ’s Mike and Cates, bracketing Route 9. On 3 April, one day ahead of schedule, 2nd Brigade, 1st Cavalry air assaulted into the battle, establishing LZ’s Tom, Thor, and Wharton even further west toward KCSB.

The 1st Brigade, of which Delta was a part, did not enter the battle until 5 April; before that the company was working to the west of Quang Tri. On 2 April at 0632, 2nd platoon’s 1st squad received small arms fire while returning from an overnight ambush. A few minutes later (0707), a returning squad on the far side of the perimeter tripped a booby trap; 2 were medevac’d. Later that morning Delta found two dead enemy soldiers, and a Tokarev 7.62 mm pistol. Early that afternoon Delta air assaulted into a “green” LZ at YD279492 and soon found a cache of rice, 2 rifles, TNT, and ammunition. There’s no mention of the company–or of the 1/12th–over the next two days; we assume the battalion was being extracted to LZ Sharon just east of Quan Tri City in preparation for joining pegasus. Sharon took 25 rounds of 82mm mortar fire the night of the 4th, likely interrupting Delta’s short rest.

The morning of 5 April, 1st Battalion 8th Cavalry, which would lead the two-battalion air assault into

LZ Snapper was lifted to the staging area at LZ stud (Ca Lu). (Delta’s 3rd Platoon, took a side trip at noon to YD209408 to secure a ¼ ton trailer “dropped from an aircraft,”)

1/8th lifted out of Stud at 1300 on the first combat assault into the mountains between Khe Sanh and

1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry and 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry,
1st Cavalry Division establish LZ Snapper on 5 April, 1968

the Laotian border to establish Snapper at XD841345 . Fifty minutes later, the first elements of 1/12th were also in the air on the way to a “green” LZ. Barely an hour and half later, the two infantry battalions, along with two artillery batteries, two Quad 50’s, a searchlight, and a bulldozer were on the ground. Thirty-four more sorties were flown by twelve CH47 Chinook helicopters before dark.

While others dug into the slopes of snapper, B & D 1/12th, moved west into the AO (Area of Operations), where B received small arms and mortar fire at 0500 the next morning. Two were wounded, but not medevac’d. At 0945 Delta found 4 NVA bodies with weapons and equipment 800 meters WSW of Snapper. Documents confirmed this was the AO of the 24th Regiment, 304th Division, Peoples Army of Vietnam (PAVN, or, more colloquially, NVA). At 1915 Delta, at XD833373, having moved 3,000 meters north since 0945, discovered a 37mm anti-aircraft gun with 200 rounds of 37mm ammunition and 5,000 rounds of 12.7mm (.51 cal.).

On the morning of the 7th, 300 meters further north, Delta found B40 rockets and 82mm mortar rounds; a few minutes later, an NVA body “w/steel pot [helmet] and SKS [rifle].” Ten minutes later there’s another cache, with ammunition and “400 new shovels.”

It’s a giant scavenger hunt. It was also a strange, eerie place. 1/12th ‘s B Company reported a “dead dog in bunker.” The next day, “B 1-12 reports the dead dog has moved to a new location.”

The morning of the 8th Delta was “moving in the N [north] portion of AO across red ball [route 9] coordinated w/little people [ARVN ABN task force] who are to the W [west].” Only 400 meters WNW from our overnight position we walked into our first, and only, firefight in Operation Pegasus. The Division’s Journal: “D 1-12 XD829379 0941H made contact w/en sqd. Contact broke at 1030h 5 us wia medevac completed at 1029H. Delta was engaged by AW & SA fire from 4 to 5 positions when moving west two platoons on line. The terrain was forest, relatively open at the ground. In the area were many bunkers, most of them storage for ammunition and other equipment. The enemy fled as we advanced, excepting one wounded NVA soldier who remained, but soon died. A search of the contact area confirmed 3 more NVA KIA.

Delta joined Alpha and Bravo in a night defensive position on high ground 800 meters south of its

3rd platoon, Delta Company, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry sorting
weapons from an NVA supply depot found near Khe Sanh, 9-10 April 1968

contact. The following morning, the 9th, we again crossed Route 9, and 400 meters further north found the cache pictured here. Included were 5 mortars, 6 machine guns, 1 recoilless rifle, 54 rifles, 2 pistols, medical supplies and ammunition. Nearby was a “large grave w/50 bodies dumped in a pile.”

The 1st Cavalry began withdrawing from Pegasus on the 9th, with 1st Brigade HQ, 1/8th, and A Battery 1/19th Artillery off Snapper to Sharon at Quang Tri on the 11th.

Delta was OPCON (Operational Control) to 2nd Brigade on the 10th, and returned to LZ Snapper on the 11th. The 1/12th’s other companies continued the attack west along route 9 to the Lang Vei Special Forces Camp, overrun by the NVA 24th Regiment, 304 Division and the 198th Tank Battalion (PAVN) in February. The camp was in the hands of 1/12th troopers on 12 April. The 1/12th returned to the Quang Tri AO early on 15 April, arriving just as Operation Pegasus officially ended at 0800.