follow up to "A TRIBUTE TO SMITTY"
(excerpt from SEVEN FIREFIGHTS IN VIETNAM)
When the 2d Platoon pulled back into the company perimeter, Staff Sgts. Michael A. Plank and Edward J. Smith and Spec. 4 Leroy W. Rothwell established a three-man outpost position fifteen meters to the right front of the 2d Squad sector. From there they angled M16 and M79 fire across the trail and up the hill. Although the expected assault did not come from up the trail, it did come swiftly.
Suddenly materializing from their jungle concealment, fifteen to twenty of the enemy, their AK47s firing full automatic, rushed the 2d Squad. Two paratroopers were hit; then the squad leader, Spec. 4 Shafer, took a fatal round. Sergeant Smith rallied the squad and kept the perimeter intact. It was the first bitter taste of things to come.
Minutes later a North Vietnamese force of the same size struck on the opposite side of the trail, near the left front of the 3d Squad. With flanking fire support from nearby 1st Squad riflemen, the second attack was also repelled.
At the outset of the battle, two key figures were wounded. Captain Baird was hit twice, but remained in effective command of his company. Captain Lawrence Clewley, forward observer from the 3d Battalion was wounded while directing artillery fire. Spec. 4 Ernie Fulcher directed artillery fire for the rest of the day.
At 1400 the 308th F-100s of the Tactical Fighter Squadron hit an area just outside the 2d Squad with 250-pound bombs, napalm, and 20-mm cannon shells. Crouching behind a log in front of the squad, Sergeant Smith and his companions in the outpost felt the concussions of the bombs roll over them. It was very close. A medic who had been crawling toward the outpost, was wounded by metal fragments as he vainly shielded the lifeless body of a comrade. "That second air strike was right in there," Smith recalled. "If we'd been on the other side of the log, we wouldn't be here now."
Plank and Rothwell, who had been wounded in the preceding firefight, moved back from the outpost after the last bomb landed, leaving Smith, who was rapidly expending the last of his ammunition. Sergeant Smith, was becoming a favorite target for enemy snipers concealed in the tall trees. Spec 4 Grady L. Madison dashed forward, bringing him badly needed M16 and M79 ammo. Smith reloaded and fired into some trees at his right. A sniper who had lashed himself to a tree limb tumbled out of his perch; head down, his body swayed grotesquely.
Shortly before 1500, the wounded Rothwell snaked his way back to Smith. Minutes later, with AK47s stuttering, about fifteen North Vietnamese soldiers bolted from the jungle and charged the 2d Squad. "They came running right at us through the trees and scrub," Rothwell later observed. "We started knocking them down with our fire."
Sergeant Smith added, "Those we didn't hit ran past us to the undergrowth on the right. After they swept past us, we heard movement to the right and occasional fire."
This wild stampede temporarily ended serious enemy probing in the 2d Platoon area.
