An LA Cop. John Bowermaster
his wife. The men were sitting around the bunker. Arlie joined the conversation with Ed, Everett, and Sergeant Waters sitting around the bunker talking. He noticed Robert was missing. “Where is Robert?” Everett looked at Arlie. “He’s dead, Arlie, he was killed in an ambush.” The joy on Arlie’s face changed to grief. Arlie put his hand to his forehead. “Oh no.” Arlie turned and walked away to be alone.
By late January 1969, rocket and mortar attacks on the firebase were becoming routine at night.
It was common to sleep inside the bunkers for safety. The only options were inside or somewhere close outside the bunker.
After a firefight, Ed noticed several men searching the dead bodies. He asked Robert at the time if they were looking for souvenirs? Robert told Ed, “They’re searching because of the rats! The rats come in the bunkers at night looking for food. You haven’t seen them yet, have you? Those guys have! They’re looking for hammocks, so they can sleep up off the ground in their bunkers. To get away from the rats!”
A few nights after their conversation, Ed was asleep in his bunker. He was awakened when something heavy crawled over his leg. He grabbed his flashlight to search the bunker. A rat! Ed never saw a rat that big in his life! It was bigger than a domesticated house cat. Big enough to kill and eat a house cat.
Ed’s movement didn’t seem to bother the rodent; it continued searching the bunker for food. Ed gave the rat a healthy kick, slamming it against the sandbag wall. The rodent got the message. Scurrying out of the bunker. Ed spent the rest of the night sleeping outside on top of the bunker.
After the next firefight, Ed was out searching the bodies for hammocks. He found two and kept them both, one as a spare.
Firebase Diamond
In February 1969, Delta Company built firebase Diamond, near the Cambodian border in the area called the Angel’s Wing. On a map, the contour of the borders between Cambodia and South Vietnam look like an angel’s wing, giving the area its name.
The purpose of the firebase was to interfere with the NVA’s supply line from Cambodia into South Vietnam. To keep their supply line from being bombed by the US military the NVA brought their supplies south through Cambodia into South Vietnam through the Angel’s Wing. The NVA didn’t like the US Army interfering with their supply line.
On February 23rd and 24, the NVA attacked Firebase Diamond with a ground attack, attempting to breach the perimeter and overrun the firebase. The NVA blew a hole through the concertina razor wire on the perimeter and destroyed a few bunkers. They killed thirty-three NVA, the perimeter held, and they drove the NVA back.
In April 1969, Delta and Alpha companies moved from Diamond I to build Diamond II. Headquarters decided the NVA had shifted their supply line to avoid Diamond I. The two companies built Diamond II on April 5. The NVA attacked Diamond II with another ground attack the first night.
The NVA overran one of Delta’s listening posts. A hundred yards outside the firebase’s perimeter. Four men from First Platoon manned the LP. The LP was overrun before they could retreat back into the firebase, the NVA killed all of them.
The morning of April 14, both companies dismantled Diamond II, moving it again by choppers to their new location still along the border. Late that night the companies completed Diamond III Headquarters sent word to the commanders of Delta and Alpha companies. They received information from the eight NVA prisoners captured during the attack on Diamond II. The NVA’s 272 Regiment was the unit that attacked Diamond I & II and were planning another attack.
By 1:00 a.m., the morning of April 15, they finished Diamond III. It was ready and manned with two infantry companies supported by two 105 howitzer artillery pieces from the Eighth Artillery.
They manned the lookout tower inside the firebase with two men watching the perimeter through starlight scopes.
A handheld device that uses starlight from the night sky to illuminate the ground as though it were daylight, except the viewing images appear as light-green images. The scope allows the viewer to see the entire field of view around the perimeter as though the area was lit with a green light.
At 2:30 a.m., the two operators had plenty of activity to watch. Several hundred NVA soldiers with various weapons outside their perimeter were setting up mortar tubes for an attack. Others were placing 51-caliber anti-aircraft guns in holes being dug in the ground around the perimeter.
The men in the tower, radioed the command post updating the CP. The CP sent men around the perimeter waking men up, advising them to get ready for the attack.
The CP contacted supporting firebases telling them to stand by for artillery support for Diamond III. Delta’s CO contacted Division HQ at Cu Chi requesting they dispatch cobra gunships to Diamond III. At 3:00 a.m. on April 15, the men were bone tired from dismantling Diamond II and building Diamond III. Some men tried to sleep while others kept watch.
When the NVA started their attack on Diamond III, they fired mortars, landing them on one edge of the firebase. They walked their mortars across the perimeter from one end to the other.
This tactic kept the soldiers inside their bunkers to avoid flying shrapnel from the exploding mortars. As they walked, the mortars across the perimeter from the original impact site to the opposite side of the perimeter. The NVA approached the wire with explosive charges to blow holes in the perimeter wire allowing the NVA to breach the perimeter.
After several ground attacks on Diamond I and II, the men knew the NVA’s tactics and what to expect. What the two hundred defenders of Alpha and Delta companies at Diamond III didn’t know was the 272nd Regiment of NVA were attacking them with two battalions of NVA soldiers, one thousand men.
The NVA blew the wire on the Alpha company side and stormed the perimeter. At the time, it was unknown how many NVA got through the wire; they overran and destroyed four bunkers, killing the men inside.
Delta’s CO, Captain Kotrc, was on the radio when the mortar attack started. He ordered artillery support to fire firecracker rounds over Diamond III. Firecracker rounds are delivered from an eight-inch 155 mm artillery shell that carried high explosive rounds inside, the size of golf balls. Small bomb-lets eject from the eight-inch shell at an altitude over the target, Falling like little umbrellas to the ground. On impact, they spring back into the air about six feet above the ground, exploding in the air like hundreds of M-26 frag-grenades. Delta’s CO contacted Cu Chi, advising them Diamond III was under attack and needed cobra gunships to respond.
The Twenty-Fifth Aviation Battalion in Cu Chi had crews on standby. The phone in the scramble shack rang. The two crews were told the ground attack on Diamond III had begun, and they were being overrun. The pilots ran to their cobras and started the engines while the copilots remained behind in the shack to receive coordinates and radio frequencies of Delta Company’s CO.
After a quick briefing on the phone, the copilots ran to their ships, as they closed the cobra’s cockpit doors the pilots already lifted off heading down the runway. Heading to Diamond III, the cobra pilots contacted Delta’s CO, asking where he wanted the cobra’s ordinance placed.
Captain Kotrc advised the gunships all their men were inside the wire. Everything outside the wire was unfriendly and all theirs. Captain Kotrc passed the word down the bunker line, the cobra gunships were coming in.
Diamond III was receiving artillery support from other firebases. Artillery high explosive rounds were exploding everywhere outside the perimeter. When the cobra gunships arrive overhead, one of the pilots told the men later, the display of firepower stunned them at as they approached Diamond III.
It was clear from the amount of red and green tracers streaming through the air, Diamond was under siege. The cobra’s pilot told the men later, they wondered how anyone could survive what they were watching on the ground. The scene shocked them.
The pilot of the first gunship overhead tilted the nose of his cobra forward into a dive to make his first run at the enemy. The pilot seated in the front squeezed the trigger on his electric mini gun mounted on the nose of the cobra.