Part 1 - Vietnam War, Lt. Larry Swank's perspective on the Battle at Lo Giang, Feb 8, 1968

[Music] [Music] i was working for the fbi back in right out of high school graduating 64. i went up to washington with some friends of mine and we worked for the bureau for a year and i was taking a couple of courses at night at the at a local college so i had enough hours so the draft board would stay away from me and then they changed the policy and you had to go full time and take 12 hours or more to be exempt and and so i i lost my exemption and then i knew it wouldn't be long until they came after me so i went down and saw some recruiters looked at all the different services um ended up volunteering for the army my brother had been in the army been airborne and uh and i joined and i i selected administration that i tested high and i wanted to go into something that would probably not be direct combat related it didn't work out too well but i went into postal operations and uh fort benjamin harrison indiana they used to call that uncle ben's rest home and i graduated as a postal clerk and went to a movie with a friend one day on post and they had this big advertisement do you you know would you like to be an officer you know go down to building 43 75 and take the test so i went down and i took the test i passed the test and i went to artillery ocs and and so basically a year almost almost a year after i got in those orders to go to japan as a postal clerk i ended up going to vietnam i had i graduated from artillery ocs went to fort polk louisiana where i was a training officer and a few of us artillery lieutenants saw d.a circular and we were talking about that ba circular and it uh we volunteered for the big guns over in vietnam the eight inch 175 howitzers and we thought that would be if you have to go to vietnam you might as well be 15 to 20 miles back with the big guns and so we thought we'd be relatively safe but get good experience and be able to and and not be directly assigned uh you know we we wanted to control our assignment somewhat got to vietnam spent six months with the big guns we were in the rear area uh it was relatively safe this was before the first big ted offensive i went over in june of of 67 and because a bunch of us had come over at the same time they wanted to trade us around to other units so we wouldn't all leave at the same time and so i was traded to a direct support 105 artillery unit and i reported and the first question they asked me was have you been a forward observer and i said no and so they told me to report the next morning and i'd fly out and join my unit so i ended up with alpha company first of the sixth infantry and uh this was out at lz chippewa and it was a a great outfit and they we we saw a little bit of action around the chula area nothing really significant no no major battles or anything like that and and i had gotten used to firing artillery i used to put us to bed every night with bringing in rounds close so we'd be nice and secure in the event we were attacked and things of that nature and and then we had um so i i really became part of the command group i didn't know a lot of people with company they had come over together they had trained together for a year and a half they all knew each other very well and i did become well acquainted with captain brennan of course company commander worked with next to him every day several of the several of the ncos who were in the command group i knew well mostly uh joe piccarelli who was the you know became friends with him and um the joe was killed in may of 68 and uh the he was that death was probably the you know we went through a lot of combat but that death was the the hardest thing for me in vietnam uh was losing losing him the um we had um so that's how i got to vietnam and how i got to the unit and um and i served with the unit from january of 68 until almost the first of may of 68 and then i went to their parent headquarters which was still in the field and i was their artillery liaison officer and i was supporting the artillery guys from all of the companies in the first to the sixth alpha bravo charlie company and and delta and uh we had we were out on lz center and there was a lot of action in that area and surprisingly the company and the battalion lost more men in may of 68 over the month than they did um at lojang uh the big battle in february uh where we had so many killed and wounded we had we were actually back at back at a base camp in the rear area the first of the sixth infantry and specifically alpha company but the the the whole brigade was the jump brigade i mean jump battalion for uh for the americal division so the first to the sixth infantry was designated to go to any trouble spot and they were the first to be deployed um they were having problems uh with the tet offensive um we had lost of course we lost way we lost a lot of bases that were out in the in the you know not near the major population areas we even had problems in the major population areas and there was a lot of concern that they might lose the da nang air base which was a critical facility for fighting the war in the i-corps in northern vietnam and it was imperative that they that the enemy not overrun that that position so f uh westmoreland um uh basically made a decision to move elements of the americal division in to support the marines at da nang the marines at the nang the third marine amphibious force was the command group and in fact were they was the command and control group for the americal division but they didn't like to mismix forces they didn't like the army and marines fighting in the same area because we had difficulty communicating difficulty with support activities it's not like it is now with good joint forces operations and and they so they didn't call on the americal division but westmoreland basically forced the issue and so they they uh they called us together we knew there was an alert it moved so fast we didn't have any maps we didn't know where we were going we got on choppers with a basic load of ammunition so so we basically flew up uh to this marine corps base with no knowledge of what we were going to do when we got off the helicopters up there i stayed with captain brannon close to him and he was trying to get information from the marines on where are your forces where are we going to operate what's the mission the the marine corps commander on the base really didn't know he knew we were coming and he didn't know how we were going to be used they finally figured out that we needed to be a blocking force and make sure that nothing happened to the airfield brennan got on the line and got the americal division supplies to just start flooding that base with ammunition and equipment and and um the marines were a little shocked to see all this stuff coming and uh we uh on the the the seventh uh we got in there and um started to get dark uh but we had to move out and put ourselves in position so we marched from uh from that camp up the railroad tracks which paralleled route 1 up towards the nang and when we got to a little river right below danang we turned to the right and went out towards the ocean and maybe oh not not even half a mile and uh around the village of lojang and uh we camped that night uh well really we didn't we got there about two o'clock in the morning and then we got up around six in the morning so we didn't get much rest but the it was uh right there south of da nang probably less than two miles from the danang airstrip and we positioned ourselves along the river by the graveyard and basically uh in a big line heading um heading east and west and paralleling the river and uh and we were the and that's how we got into you know into position um what happened then was uh in the it was the morning it was very interesting because we had we did finally get maps we knew where we were we didn't know where the enemy was we didn't know exactly what was happening and then an old man came running from the village and the villagers were pouring out of the village of lojang off to uh our east and um and old man came over and he says uh buku vc bucavisi and and uh i wasn't quick enough to write down you know 100 200 300 because he would have understood that because then he would have told us there were like five or six hundred we had no idea we we thought that there were maybe a bunch of ec in the village but we had no idea who was there and we had no idea it was the north vietnamese army not just it wasn't viet cong uh it was an nva brigade and it was um a season fighting unit and their mission was to overrun the airfield and so we were put in as a blocking force uh to help protect that we we decided to um captain brennan decided that we were going to move on the village and he was fairly cautious which was good he had another tour in vietnam he had previously been there and that probably saved a lot of lives in the end we we were online and if you could if you can view this on the east side more towards the ocean was the second platoon and on the the mountainside on the right side of this formation moving south our formation was moving south on the left side or the east side was the second platoon on the on our right side moving towards the village or a little to the west um the we had the third platoon uh the command group was in the middle we were right in between the second and third platoon and then behind us uh the first platoon was uh a few about 100 yards 150 yards back in reserve and then remaining at the rare area where we had uh camped and where all our gear was was the mortar platoon as we were lining up to go across the field uh and this was probably five or six hundred meters of an open rice paddy and towards a tree line which was the village i fired a couple of artillery rounds in to adjust them to get targets in case we needed them and about that time which was around i think 10 in the morning i saw a bunch of artillery fire or mortar fire about a thousand meters off to our right and turns out i didn't know i really didn't know for 35 years later that that was a group of marines who were going in to help a a marine base that was in that village a little civic action platoon group cap group and it was called cap echo 4. it was cap civil civil action or civil assistance you know platoon or whatever it was and then it was with their echo company and it was number four so cap echo four was the was the group uh they actually had a little base in that village that village was uh they knew everybody there they worked with them for years they were there to um make sure that the village was you know supported the the government everything was secure for the village and there were 15 of these marines and they were in a truck and as they got close to the village they they got mortared and attacked and and overran by several hundred north vietnamese soldiers we couldn't see that well we couldn't see around the corner of the trees we you know i could see the fire going on the mortars going in i thought it was our guys i thought it was charlie company who was over in that area and i thought they were firing into that area and um turns out these 15 marines were all killed or captured one of them became a prisoner of war uh the the commander of the group the lieutenant told them not to send anybody else in there that they were being overrun we never got that word we never knew they were under attack they never communicated the marines never communicated with us that anything was going on and so it was um and that particular marine marine lieutenant had you know it's the last thing he said was tell my wife i love her that one gets me every time the uh because it was really sad it was sad that uh um he knew he was gonna die he didn't want anybody else to come in there he knew it was a trap he knew they were overwhelmed he said there were hundreds of of them and don't send anybody else in there we never got that word um and we had um so we were we were lining up going into the village and um as we moved across the field it was kind of interesting because we were we really didn't know what we were going to run into i think if we did we would have fired a lot of artillery into that village we would have brought in air strikes we would have softened the target we would never have gone in wide open and to brennan's credit what he did as we moved across the field was that he stopped us about a hundred meters short of the tree line and he had us get down and lay down a base of fire which is basically the second platoon and the third platoon opening up fire and uh emptying a magazine of ammunition just just a flood of of fire um into the tree line they they stopped and then it's and and and but the noise didn't stop and it turned out that you know the it sounded like it was louder coming back from the tree line than it was us firing into the tree line and the second platoon who was off to our left was really trapped they were in a um they came they came very very close to a group of north vietnamese that were in a trench line that we didn't know was there and and they came out of that trench line and engaged the second platoon they came out of the tree line and engaged the third platoon when we were we had some there was a helicopter in the area that could provide some gunship support and we pop smoke along the line in order to uh so they could see where we were so they could fire into the trees and not fire into us and what happened was the uh we started getting mortar rounds around our smoke grounds because they knew we were at so they started mortaring that and brennan then ordered a withdrawal he wanted people to pull back to the first platoon so that we could dig in and figure out what was going on and then bring in air support he had been in some major battles in his first tour in vietnam and he wasn't going to get the company all trapped as it turned out the second platoon virtually everyone was killed or wounded in the second platoon a couple of guys got out in the um without only i think two or three got out without being wounded the third platoon a lot of guys were wounded a couple killed in the third platoon and in the command group um myself and a recon sergeant that i had with me were the only only people in the command group that didn't get killed or wounded and my the guy who carried my radio my radio operator was shot in the arm and rounds went through the radio and so i was out there really trapped because i didn't have a way to communicate to call an artillery fire and um every time we stuck our heads up above the rice which was just a few feet high um you know all kinds of rounds would go off and you know around us and uh so i stripped the radio off of him and um and encouraged him to try to you know and pulled on him and and started dragging him back towards the rear area must have taken us an hour uh to drag him back at times he wanted to give up he was brand new i didn't even know him don't know his name can't remember his name he had been in country about two weeks he had reported to us the day before i had you know i have no idea who the guy's name is i still haven't been able to find it out but he had a little girl about two weeks before uh just as he was leaving he left country and the girl was born so you know he hadn't seen her so every time he'd try to give up i'd tell him he's got to see his little girl that kind of stuff and pull him on encourage him and and he um and i felt really bad i didn't want to leave him and i was really conflicted because i needed to get to a radio i needed to call in artillery fire and then i heard the artillery fire coming in so i figured somebody else had gotten the back in the rear and it turned out that brennan had got to a radio and my recon sergeant had gotten to the rear and he got on that radio and was uh calling fire and that was good um but it took me almost an hour to drive that guy back and if i hadn't drug him back he he wouldn't live he would that area was fully overrun by the by the enemy and um and what i did was um after i got back to the rear um for the last 50 yards of that i got him up and we walked in and uh you know i held him and and then he got taken care of his i pulled the bullet out of his arm it was it was halfway out anyhow and stuck it in his pocket when the medic came to clean the wound and i said don't let them take that away from you make sure you take that home and he the bullet went in hit his arm uh broke his bones and his upper arm and then popped back out and um the when i got back to the rear i went over to captain brennan he was white as a ghost he had been you know he had been wounded uh he had lost a lot of blood uh he was still trying to command the company and he was he was in control but he was he he looked like death warmed over and

Channel: True Stories from the Vietnam War

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Length: 22min 34sec (1354 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 13 2022