Marine Brigade 258
Colonel Ngo Van Dinh
Marine Brigade 258 was the result of Task Force B established by Lieutenant Colonel Ton That Soan in 1965. Task Force B was present in all four of the military regions:
1. In operations at the end of 1965 in Ba Gia, Quang Ngai Province.
2. In operations during 1966 in Viet An, Quang Tri Province.
3. In operations in 1967 in Bong Son, and An Lao, in Binh Dinh Province.
The Task Force's Command post was stationed at Duong Lieu. The 2nd Marine Battalion was camped 2km away from there. I attended a meeting at the Command post which ended in the late afternoon. Lieutenant Colonel Soan invited me to stay on and have dinner. I let my driver head back to my unit, stating that I would call him when he was needed. On the way back, my jeep was ambushed and my driver, Corporal Danh was captured by Vietnamese communists. Patrol helicopters along National Highway One observed the event and reported to the 2nd Battalion to have him rescued. The VC shot him dead before dispersing to escape.
4. In operations in Saigon during the 1968 Tet Offensive.
Under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Soan as Task Force Commander, the 2nd Battalion had been twice awarded “Citations Before the ARVN”, for its victories at Giao Duc, Dinh Tuong Province in 1967 and at Khien Hanh, Tay Ninh Province in 1968. Other battalions in Lieutenant Colonel Soan's Task Force also received awards of recognition.
5. In cross-border operations.
At the beginning of 1970, Marine Brigade 258 under the command of Full Colonel Ton That Soan was the first marine brigade to conduct cross-border operations into Cambodia. In June 1970, Colonel Soan was to attend a course on Command and General Staff at the Military University of Da Lat. He handed command of the Brigade over to Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Tri, who was the former commanding officer of the 1st Marine Battalion.
In 1971, Brigade 258 also participated in another cross-border operation, known as Lam Son 719, into Laos.
In July 1971, upon finishing the course on Command and General Staff at the Da Lat Military University, I received an immediate assignment and boarded a C123 aircraft bound for Quang Tri. A helicopter was waiting for me on my arrival and flew me to Brigade 258 Command Post in Mai Loc. Once there, I was to replace Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen ThanhTri as the Commanding Officer of this Brigade. A jeep was waiting for me on the Mai Loc air strip and drove me directly to the Brigade Headquarters.
Lieutenant Colonel Nguyen Thanh Tri used to live next door to my family in Camp Nguyen Van Nho in Thi Nghe so we knew each other by sight. After signing the requisite hand-over documents, we shook hands and bid each other good bye. Lieutenant Colonel Tri headed to the air strip in Mai Loc to board the aircraft which had brought me.
The hot wind at noon which blew in from the direction of Laos burnt my cheeks, which for the past six months had been in the temperate climate of Da Lat.
Lieutenant Colonel Do Dinh Vuong the executive officer and other staff officers briefed me on the current situation. The area of responsibility of the Brigade consisted of:
* A number of bases which had previously been established by US Marines, at the Truong Son Range and the areas in the south west arc of the Ben Hai River.
* The area in the west where the principal deployment was, and from which the enemy could approach and attack ARVN positions which were relocating from Quang Tri to Gio Linh.
In an arc north east of the marines' positions were units of the 3rd Infantry Division: Regiment 56, Regiment 2 and Regiment 57. These units were stationed at bases from Tan Lam, Carroll, Con Thien C1, C2, A1, A2, A3, A4 to Gio Linh.
The distance between Dong Ha and Gio Linh was about 18km. Fire Support Base (FSB) Mai Loc was in the District of Huong Hoa. The chief of that District was Major Dong, an old friend who had been in the same unit as me (the 1st Battalion) in the 1955. I decided to visit him. It was a poor district, much poorer than the others. The people were thin. Their main source of livelihood came from the cultivation of green tea.
The day I took Command of Brigade 258 it was composed of:
* The 2nd Battalion, commanded by Major Nguyen Xuan Phuc, camped at Holcomb.
* The 6th Battalion, commanded by Major Do Huu Tung, stationed at Sarge and Ba Ho.
* The 3rd Battalion, under the command of Major Le Ba Binh, served as a reserve force at FSB Mai Loc.
* The 3rd Marine Artillery Battalion under the command of Major Tran Thien Hieu. (For some unknown reason the 2nd Marine Artillery Battalion was never a component of my Brigade.)
At FSB Mai Loc there were different groups of American Advisers; advisers to the Marines, the Infantry, the Artillery… ten altogether, not including the American Advisers attached to each of the Marine Battalions. A number of them stayed with the Brigade Headquarters. Others were at Fire Base Sarge where they had a very sophisticated infra-red night vision telescope which enabled them to see NVA movements in the dark up to a distance of 20 miles away. This was a new military instrument which was being tested in the Vietnamese battlefields. Entry into the bunker were this equipment was located was extremely limited, even to Americans. I was invited to enter and cast an eye over this new instrument. They explained to me that with the telescope, they could see a communist smoking a cigarette 20 miles away in the dark. I felt a wave of relief knowing that the battalions camping here would be safe. Not a single VC would be able to approach this place without being spotted first.
Changes and relocation of units from one base to another were all executed by helicopters. The NVA had calculated on this and were able to shell instantly the moment helicopters were seen trying to land. Their 160mm mortars were devastatingly accurate and deadly. None of the bunkers in the bases would be able to withstand their power. However, they were only able to fire when there were no patrol and reconnaissance aircrafts overhead.
At night VNAF C130 aircrafts armed with 12.7mm guns and flares would come when requested. Resupplies to units were also performed by helicopters once a week. And every mission to resupply or medivac was always escorted by gun ships.
In September 1971 Fire Base Ba Ho was heavily shelled and simultaneous attacks on multiple fronts were launched. The most aggressive assault was in the direction of Mai Loc. It was probable that the NVA were fearful of the reinforcements which were coming in from that direction. Aircrafts were called in to provide close air support, sometimes bombing right on the base fences. The Viet Cong suffered heavily losses. Some of them succeeded in entering the base. After bouts of hand to hand combat all the VC in the base were killed.
The Commander of the 6th Battalion sought my permission to let Group B of the Battalion withdraw out of Ba Ho. Seeing that a prolongation of the situation would be disadvantage to us, I agreed to the retreat in order to avoid further losses from the shelling. The enemy had deployed strongly along two roads: one from Sarge to Ba Ho, and the other from Mai Loc to Ba Ho. We had frequently used these routes. When the last contingent of Group B had withdrawn, our aircrafts bombed right inside the Ba Ho Fire Base.
The Commander of the 6th Battalion and the American Adviser attached to it reported that all of Group B had completed the descent from the mountain and was now assembled at the foot. I radioed Major Canh directly and told him to lead his troops in the south westerly direction, the further away the better.
I reported the withdrawal to I Corps Headquarters and requested helicopters for a rescue operation. Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam, some staff officers and about nine American Airforce officers (among them a Lieutenant General) of a Combat Air Patrol squadron came to Mai Loc. I briefed them on the situation. After having listened to my oral submission, Lieutenant General Hoang Xuan Lam did not ask a single question, nor utter a single word. As for the Americans, they agreed to the rescue. Since Lieutenant General Lam had no thoughts either way I was scared that the Americans might change their minds. But eventually the rescue operation was underway. It was an extremely dangerous heli-lift and fortunately it progressed without incident. I suspect that the presence of a number of American Advisers in Group B had motivated the decision to perform the rescue. Had there been no Americans amongst that group, there would have been a litany of technical reasons as to why a rescue would not have been possible.
To this minute, I stand by my suspicions as to their motivations. I think back to when the 2nd Marine Battalion (under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ton That Soan, Commanding Officer of Task Force B) was performing operations in the forests of Tay Ninh. We were moving at night when we encountered the enemy. Fighting broke out resulting in many casualties. The fighting continued. My American Adviser informed me that my unit was to withdraw out of the area so that B52s could bomb it. I looked at him. It was virtually impossible to move 3km out of there in the middle of the fighting and in the darkness. I had no idea where that order had come from. Who had issued such an order? IV Corps or somewhere else? And why had the order been issued through the American Advisory channel? I conveyed the order I had received to Task Force B Headquarters and requested interventions.
My American Adviser was still standing there waiting for my answer. I was exhausted and reflected on the situation before me. Then I turned to him and said shortly: “My battalion has encountered fierce contacts with the enemy. There dead and injured marines here and I am not going to go. If there is not going to be an order to divert the B52s to other targets, then so be it: let them drop their bombs. You can report through your American Channel that we will not be moving anywhere in this condition. Bombs away!” I spoke sharply and recklessly knowing almost with a certainty that they would not bomb us when an American Adviser was present in the unit.
Returning to the situation at the Ba Ho Fire Base, it transpired that in the retreat Group B of the 6th Battalion could only carry the wounded marines with them; the dead had had to be left behind. The next day the NVA also had to withdraw from the base because of the air strikes and the pounding of the Artillery. Helicopters hovered right above Fire Base Ba Ho to test what the enemy reaction would be. After several instances of this without seeing any activity by the enemy, a squad including an American Adviser was heli-lifted there. His role was to call in and direct accurate air support. They landed safely.
Company 1 of the 2nd Marine Battalion, under the command of Captain Lam Tai Thanh, advanced by road from Mai Loc and re-occupied Ba Ho on the same day. The bodies of the marines killed in action were recovered and transported to Mai Loc. Corpses were placed in body bags, which were then placed in slings ready to be picked up by the helicopters for transportation to Mai Loc. Among the 23 dead was Captain Pham Tuan Anh, from class 21 of the Military Academy at Da Lat. (He was the son of the famous fortune teller Kim Son in Saigon.)
Captain Quach Ngoc Lam had to write down the names on the tags attached to each body bag before they could be transported to Saigon. He reported that his list had 24 bodies. A review revealed that the 24th bag contained a corpse in a yellow uniform. In the darkness it had mistakenly been bagged. The body was later buried in Mai Loc.
In Mai Loc there was an American Adviser to the Infantry who was fluent in Vietnamese. He played a role in the following story: One night, one of the Battalions (either the 9th or the 2nd, I don't recall which) reported that one of their squads had during an ambush mission shot dead a Vietnamese communist and captured an AK47 and a radio PRC25. It was a simple account but the American Adviser asked me if I knew the name of the communist that had been killed. “Sir, can you please get someone to check and see whether the communist who was shot was called Thu? Just look inside his 'non coi' (the NVA mortar shaped hat) to see if his name is written there.”
I was surprised and asked him “How on earth do you know that his name is Thu?” The American Adviser stated that he had been talking every night with a Vietnamese communist named Thu, and that he had lost radio contact with him last night. I issued orders for the matter to be followed up. It transpired that the communist who had been killed was indeed called Thu. I had no idea how long both sides had been in communication with each other. What possible reason was there for such inappropriate contact between supposed opponents? I decided not to ask the American Adviser. The fact that he would engage in such outrageously inappropriate activities in the first place meant that I would simply get an inane explanation that would only infuriate me further.
Towards the end of September the situation in the area had calmed. Fire Base Ba Ho was repaired and became more solid. Since I had flown to this operational area immediately after finishing the course in Command and General Staff course, I had not had a chace to see my family for some time. As the situation had calmed I suggested that my wife come for a visit to the area of Mai Loc. She would see the fighting zone and get some insight into hardships faced by the troops.
My two elder daughters stayed in Saigon to study. My wife and our youngest daughter went to Tan Son Nhat air base and boarded a VNAF C130 to Quang Tri. There were no chairs on these C130; they had all been removed to make more room for the transportation of military equipment, for medivac or the transfer of dead soldiers to Saigon.
I waited for my wife and daughter at Quang Tri. I met them and took them to Dong Ha district where we ate Chinese noodles before returning to Mai Loc. I went to my command post to work while they stayed inside the bunker. The hot wind from Laos was stirring up clouds of red dust everywhere. The day after my wife's arrival we received orders to conduct an operation 20km to the west along National Route 9 leading to Laos. As the area of operation was out of the support range of the Ground Artillery, our own Marine Artillery was heli-lifted there. Before the operation commenced my senior American Adviser and I flew over to observe the area. The tail on my helicopter was hit by NVA anti-aircraft artillery. Thankfully the tail did not break off but we still had to crash land near Khe Sanh. Some minutes later another American helicopter came to rescue us. Fortunately there were no injuries.
I did not dare tell my wife and daughter that my helicopter had been hit by the VC. The next morning, before the operation started, I asked my American Adviser to arrange to heli-lift them to Quang Tri, and from there to fly back to Saigon. My wife's mental health had taken a hammering over the years. She had to care for three small children, and had a husband who was continually away on military operations from which he might not return. She had had to act as my representative on numerous occasions to attend the funerals of my officer friends who had been killed in action, among them Nguyen Van Nho, Duong Hanh Phuoc, and Nguyen Ba Lien. All these factors had contributed to the deterioration of her mental well being and she sank into a deep depression. The doctors in Vietnam at the time had prescribed so many sedatives and hypnotic treatments that for the past eight years her memory was effectively gone.
The area where we would be conducting operations was Hickory Hill. It had previously been a US Marine Base where a lot of important military equipment had been buried because it was impossible to carry them all away during a withdrawal. On this occasion, Brigade 258's mission was to enter the base and recover the buried equipment.
The base had been bombed by B52s many times and been the subject of numerous air strikes before a helicopter fleet transported troops to the target. The helicopters landed in a cloud of dust, leaves, twigs and dirt. Fighting started immediately. A helicopter was shot down on a hill side; the crew and marines on board were only slightly injured. The skirmishes were the result of a few VC outposts that had managed to evade the B52 bombs. We managed to wipe them out without too much difficulty.
Having gained control of the base were searched for the military equipment previously abandoned by the Americans. The search was fruitless and it was likely that they had been destroyed by the bombs rather than being captured by NVA troops. After a few days the entire brigade returned to Mai Loc. We were replaced by Brigade 369. Brigade 258 Headquarters and the 3rd Battalion moved to Fire Base C2, while the 9th Battalion moved to Fire Bases A1, A2, A3 and A4 in Gio Linh.
We celebrated the Lunar New Year of 1972 at C2. The first day of this new year fell on 15 February 1972 on the western calendar. After the Lunar New Year, Brigade 258 was replaced by units of the 3rd Infantry Division. We returned to our rear base and rested there for four weeks.
In the middle of March 1972 the Brigade returned to Military Region I and positioned in Camp Evans and the surrounding areas. Brigade 258 was engaged in activities everywhere:
1. On 1 April 1972, Brigade 258 received an order to move to Ai Tu Combat Base to replace the 3rd Infantry Division Headquarters which would relocate to the Old Citadel. Upon arrival we were greeted by intense shelling: the NVA showered us with one thousand 130mm artillery rounds. On 9 April 1972, a NVA Infantry Regiment, reinforced by Tank Regiment 202 attacked the 6th Marine Battalion's position at Pedro Base. At the same time they shelled on the 1st and 3rd Battalions as well as the 3rd Marine Artillery Battalion and Brigade 258 Headquarters at Ai Tu Combat Base. That infantry regiment suffered heavy losses. Tank Regiment 202 was annihilated completely by the combined power of 6th Battalion's anti-tank mines, the VNAF, M48 Tank Squadron, and the 3rd Marine Artillery Battalion. Not a single NVA tank escaped. One of them was captured undamaged and was duly transported to Saigon to be exhibited in front of the Town Hall for public viewing. This was the first time the NVA had used tanks in the battlefields of Military Region I.
2. In September 1972 the Brigade was involved in the operation to recover Quang Tri and the Old Citadel. The Brigade was composed of the following Battalions: 1st, 2nd, 5th, 6th, 9th, and the 1st Artillery Battalion. It was reinforced by Tank Regiment 17 and a M48 Tank Squadron. From 9 April 1972 until 16 September 1972, losses were as follows: 637 Killed in Action, 3,274 Wounded in Action. The enemy incurred the following losses: 5,442 Killed in Action, and 83 captured prisoner.
3. On 20 June 1974 at 9.57am the NVA's naval logistics ship (which transported ammunition and dried rations) was sunk off the coast of My Thuy, in Quang Tri Province. The ship was sailing 1km from shore. The 1st Artillery Battalion shelled in front of it, trying to force the ship to dock at My Thuy. It refused to dock and fired back at us. M48 tanks were on the sea shore and received orders to aim their 90mm guns at it and fire. The ship was hit and slowly sank into the ocean, from which a part of it protruded as the water was not very deep at that point.
In December 1974 I handed Command of Brigade 258 over to Colonel Nguyen Nang Bao. The handover occurred at the Hoi Yen intersection on the “Avenue of Sadness”. I had been assigned to establish Brigade 468. During the four years that I served in Brigade 258 I had had only one rest period of one month in rear base.
By Colonel Ngo Van Dinh
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