The Victory of the Tank Battle
at Pedro 9 April 1972
Dr Tran Xuan Dung, M.D. Major
The battle ground grew around I Corps,
The enemy increased their pressure around Ai Tu Combat Base,
They shelled day and night - around the clock,
Killing the petrified civilians.
In the afternoon of the 8th of April,
The 6th Marine Battalion moved to Pedro,
Wearing their “tiger striped” combat fatigues,
They rushed headlong into the battle ground.
Spreading out along Route 557
In the foggy night they armed their weapons,
The half moon shone in the cold darkness,
And throughout the night, there was the flash of enemy rockets exploding.
Alpha Command Group, positioned in the north east and
On a hill, had good observation.
Bravo Command Group stationed inside the base,
Lying in foxholes, lying in trenches.
On the 9th, explosions accompanied the dawn
And the air reverberated with the revving engines of enemy tanks,
Their rounds of fire caressing the cheeks of the Marines,
Tonnes of iron and steel versus the mere mortal chests of Marines.
The Marines's anti-communist blood ran murderously high,
They had waited all last night,
And were now actually content that their foe had come,
Turning their firearms on the tanks crawling out of the forest.
Seven enemy tanks rumbled forwards,
Heavy clouds hung low,
NVA gunfire from each and every direction,
For the tanks were accompanied by their infantry.
The Marines were within, and the enemy circled their prey.
Marines - several a slippery red from their wounds,
Bleeding and wounded, but courageous still,
Their blood signing the bullets they sent.
A corner of the sky cleared revealing
Earth and stone and gravel flung high from fire
As Marine Artillery simultaneously shelled
The enemy tanks and its chaperoning Infantry regiment.
The communist Infantry fled, the tanks were left to flounder,
They fled like bees from a ruptured hive, seeking refuge in the forest.
Hundreds had been killed, there bodies plainly visible,
For the survivors, their chances of returning back to the north looked slim.
One of Bravo Command Group's outpost
Was pitilessly crushed by the Communists' tanks,
Marines sacrificed their bodies - bodies torn by the fire,
Others gave their legs, even then not daunted by death.
Though abandoned by their infantry,
A phalanx of twenty tanks stormed forwards;
Two of them crushed the fence,
And their tracks screeched their arrival at the base.
“Sea Tigers”, the muzzles of their firearms snorting and shaking with life,
Though their bunkers were crushed, they thought not of death,
Under the tanks, trenches were destroyed.
The uneven duel of hard cold steel against warm human flesh.
Flattening themselves down in the fox holes,
The Marines waited for the tanks to pass, and a suitable time to stand up,
As the tanks screeched passed above their heads,
Upright they emerged, firing their antitank weapons at the tanks' rear.
Some superbly ferocious “Sea Tigers”
Climbed aboard the tanks, and approaching the turrets
Pointed their M16 rifle muzzles down
At the crew, forcing their surrender, and seizing the tanks themselves.
Two communist tanks, hot on each other's heels,
Made for the hill where Alpha Command Group was placed.
The first instantly exploded
In a giant ball of flames.
Over a short distance,
The Marines had previously placed
Antitank mine fields,
Which now exploded in the face of the Communists' scheme to invade.
The 2nd tank stunned and dodged,
Turning its turret around straight away.
The other tanks ran amok,
When they realised they were in mine fields
The 1st Marine Battalion - “Wild Bird”,
In Armoured Personnel Carriers, came to reinforce,
Sent from Ai Tu Combat Base, they began attacking the intruders,
The enemy T54 was soon but smouldering ash.
Their tanks' column formation crumbled,
Nervous T55s, disorientated, confused and cowering.
Those reversing collided with those advancing,
Others fled for the forest.
Overthere another tank had just been destroyed,
A flash of fire, and its tracks stared skyward,
Beside it, another tank retreated...
But not for long, for the tank metamorphosed into a ball of flame.
The NVA ran in disarray,
Abandonning their hiding places,
Those who survived, surrendered terrified,
Those who did not, paid for their crimes, their bodies in pieces.
420 communists killed,
The Marines victorious in Pedro.
And the phalanx of tanks, all the way from the north.
Were transformed into 23 black piles of steel!
Dr Tran Xuan Dung, M.D. Major
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