Will to Win

For a month, the North Vietnamese have tried at all costs to seize the valley of Dak To, a natural tunnel from the Ho Chi Minh Trail into the Central Highlands. The U.S. has been just as determined to hold onto Dak To at whatever price. That head-on clash of wills resulted last week in some of the war's most savage fighting, on Hill 875, overlooking Dak To. After a five-day battle, U.S. troops finally took possession of the summit--and discovered why the Communists had fought so long and hard to defend the bamboo-wreathed elevation. Hill 875 proved to be a giant supply depot of bunkers, tunnels and interconnecting passageways burrowed into the earth. It was one of the most massive, deeply entrenched fortresses encountered in the war.

In three weeks of hill-to-hill fighting, U.S. troopers and their South Vietnamese allies killed, according to actual body count, 1,599 North Vietnamese soldiers. U.S. military experts feel that the actual number of Communist dead probably ran two or three times that high, because the enemy carries off with him so many of his comrades' corpses. U.S. losses were also fairly high. In last week's single battle, 150 U.S. paratroopers fell and another 250 were wounded--the grim measure of American determination to deny Dak To to the enemy.

Neither Food nor Water. The battle began when the 2nd Battalion of the 173rd Airborne brigade neared the top of the first of Hill 875's twin ridges. Communists in concealed bunkers suddenly slashed the lead company with withering machine-gun fire. The battalion's trailing company moved back down the hill to try to cut out a helicopter landing zone for reinforcements. A flanking North Vietnamese force, poised waiting for the troopers, pounced and hit them hard.

Crouching, dodging and crawling, the Americans returned up the slope to link with the shattered company coming down. They made it only because one soldier, wounded in both legs and disobeying orders to retreat, propped himself and his machine gun up in the middle of the trail. He held the Communist attackers at bay until his company got away, gunning down an estimated 17 before slumping dead over his smoking barrel. The beleaguered battalion regrouped and called in air strikes. As the jets roared in at 500 feet to blast the top of the hill, one released a 500-or 750-lb. bomb too soon. It burst in the tall trees just above the battalion's command post, killing 30 U.S. paratroopers, many of them wounded who had been pulled up to the headquarters area for safety.

With the burst of the misplaced bomb, the real ordeal of the battalion began. Eight of its 16 line officers had been killed, the other eight wounded. Only two of its three company commanders were alive. Only one medic had survived to treat the wounded, who lay bleeding and covered with grime on all sides, moaning for lack of morphine. Rescue and relief helicopters tried to reach the battalion, but were driven off by enemy rocket and machine-gun fire; twelve helicopters went down in the five days of fighting.

For the men still able to fight, there was no food. Worse, for the wounded fighting for their lives, there was no water. Next morning a relief battalion set out from Fire Support Base 16, less than two miles away. So dense is Dak To's bamboo jungle that it took more than ten hours to reach the embattled men. When the rescuers finally arrived, the survivors mobbed them for food and water. But the incoming battalion had taken only enough supplies for itself, and had consumed them all on the long march.

Flamethrower Targets. It was to be 50 hours before the Americans got food or water. Some of the wounded undoubtedly died as a result, and because they could not be helilifted out to proper medical treatment. The dead were piled six high and hastily covered with ponchos, arms and legs protruding from the grim mass. So tight was the U.S. perimeter that one soldier had to move bodies to dig himself a trench to sleep in, and another used two fallen buddies to keep himself warm during the bitter cold highlands night.

Except for the dead, there was little sleep. Methodically, all day long, the Communists walked 82-mm. mortar shells, five and six at a time, back and forth across the paratroopers' perimeter. U.S. air and artillery blasted back. Waves of screaming jets swept over, searing and shearing the hilltop bunkers with fragmentation bombs, 750-lb. explosives and napalm canisters. The Communists were so securely shielded that they could be heard firing back even as the jets came in on them. When a group of troopers rushed a bunker and dropped eight grenades inside, a Communist appeared at its mouth moments later and tossed out two of his own grenades, killing two of the Americans and wounding three. At last the Americans managed to work their way down the hill to cut out a landing zone. The wounded were led down in a line and helilifted to hospitals; food, water and ammunition finally began to pour in. The encouraged troopers seized the initiative and once more tried to assault the heights, crawling over fallen trees, their flamethrowers leading the way. But the flamethrowers proved to be perfect targets--one man was incinerated by a hit on his own canister--and once again relentless fire from the enemy bunkers drove the Americans backward.

A Grisly Desolation. For one more day and night the two battalions waited while fighter-bomber pilots hammered the head off the hill, flying some 150 strikes during the battle. The next morning, the weary G.I.s claimed their reward at last. Scaling the ridge, they met only scattered sniper fire and a few mortars lobbed from a nearby hill. The North Vietnamese had abandoned Hill 875 during the night, taking many of their dead with them. The summit was a grisly desolation of charred and splintered trees, burned-out machine guns and blackened fragments of bodies.

Helicopters flew in a hot turkey dinner for the victors. One paratrooper sat down to inscribe inside his helmet: "Nov. 23rd. Hill 875 is over. Thanksgiving Day." At week's end the survivors of the battle of Hill 875 held a simple memorial service, laying out the boots of their fallen comrades on a wind-whipped slope.

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