While trucks and forklifts were not exactly delicate equipment, the base motor transport personnel had their share of problems. These vehicles were used constantly. During the summer and fall of 1967, they were used to haul rock for the repair of the runway. Throughout the siege, the drivers carried ammunition from the berms to the distribution points and supplies from the drop zone to the combat base. Many of the trucks were in bad shape and mechanics worked around the clock to keep them rolling. The biggest headache was caused by flat tires, of which the constant shelling produced an abundance; the drivers became paste and patch experts of the highest order. More often than not, these men were caught out in the open when the enemy decided to pound the base. Since their cargo usually contained high explosives, the drivers had good reason to be apprehensive. Some simply bailed out of the cabs during the attacks and dived for cover; others, performing a wild imitation of the Grand Prix, raced for revetments. Needless to say, the base speed limit of five miles per hour was frequently violated.[(174)]
When there wasn't any work to do, many Marines created some and the threat of enemy tunnels provided a powerful motivation. When the word spread that the enemy might try to dig under the base, the tunnel ferrets went to work. Many of the defenders became fascinated with the prospects of uncovering a "mole" and their antics were near comical. It was not uncommon to see a man crawling around in front of his position, patting the ground with the flat side of a shovel, and listening for hollow spots. Others drove metal stakes into the ground and listened with stethoscopes by the hour for tell-tale signs of digging. If they heard something, the next step was to dig a large hole in front of the enemy so that he would tunnel himself into a trap. Some self-appointed water witches walked around with divining rods and waited for the downward tug which meant that they had discovered a subterranean intruder. When the news media got into the act and publicized the possibility of tunnels, the regimental commander began receiving scores of letters from around the world with "If I were you" themes. One American planter who lived in Sao Paulo, Brazil, wrote and suggested that the Marines purchase commercial sensors like the ones he used to detect bugs which fed on the roots of his trees. Another suggested that the defenders strap hand grenades onto rats and turn them loose in the tunnels.[(175)]
Unknown to the Marines at the time, the enemy never tried to tunnel under the base. The KSCB sat atop a plateau, and the slopes were wrinkled with deep ravines. Colonel Lownds later surmised that the enemy would have had to go so deep to keep from breaking the surface that such excavations were impractical. The men of Company K, 3/26 did, however, discover one tunnel leading toward Hill 861 and called in air strikes against it; at the base itself, the North Vietnamese limited their digging to trenches.[(176)]
Unlike the phantom tunnels, the trenches were very real and served as a constant reminder of the enemy's intentions. These networks were quite understandably a source of concern to the defenders who watched with fascination and no small apprehension as the trenchlines drew closer and closer each day. Working at night or under the cover of fog, the North Vietnamese often moved their lines forward as much as 200-300 meters at a time. There were several methods used to counter the trenches with artillery and tactical air strikes being the most prevalent. Lieutenant Colonel Hennelly's batteries provided constant fires during the night especially to the east and southeast where the heaviest enemy siegeworks were concentrated. The VT-fuzed ammunition with its deadly airbursts no doubt hampered the enemy efforts considerably. During the day, attack aircraft hit the trenches with every type of aerial ordnance from 20mm cannon fire to 2,000-pound bombs. At night, TPQs were run to within about 250 meters of the wire while Mini and Micro Arc Lights were targeted from 500 to 1,500 meters.[(177)]
In addition, the Marines along the perimeters concocted their own schemes which added to the displeasure of the enemy. During the day, Lieutenant Colonel Wilkinson's men registered on the close-in trenches with their M-79 grenade launchers; these shotgun-like weapons fired a 40mm projectile to a maximum range of about 375 meters and produced a frag pattern approximately 5 to 10 meters in diameter. At night when the North Vietnamese were digging, the Marines periodically lobbed these rounds into the trenches and disrupted the sappers.[(178)]
In spite of the harassment, the NVA launched several attacks against the base from the trenchlines during the last 10 days in February. At 1245, 21 February, the North Vietnamese fired 350 mortar, rocket, recoilless rifle, and artillery rounds into the eastern sector and followed up with a company-sized probe against the 37th ARVN Ranger Battalion. The enemy troops, however, did not attempt to close with the South Vietnamese and, after a distant fire fight, withdrew at about 1500. Although no body count was ascertained, the Rangers estimated that 1/13 artillery and their own defensive fires had claimed from 20 to 25 of the enemy. Six Marines from 1/26 and 18 Rangers were wounded during the encounter.[(179)]
On 23 February, the base received the worse shellacking of the siege. In one eight-hour period, the installation was rocked by 1,307 rounds--a total which surpassed the daily high received at Con Thien in 1967. Many of the rounds came from the 130mm and 152mm artillery pieces in Laos. The runway took several hits but the Seabee and Marine working parties filled the craters and quickly replaced the damaged strips of runway matting. At 1600, the barrage touched off a fire at one of the supply points and 1,620 rounds of 90mm and 106mm ammunition were destroyed. Cumulative friendly casualties for the day were 10 killed, 21 medevaced, and 30 wounded but returned to duty.[(180)]
Two days later the Marines suffered one of their most serious setbacks. On the morning of the 25th, the 1st and 3d Squads, 3d Platoon, B/1/26 departed Grey Sector on a patrol to the south of the base; the patrol leader was a second lieutenant. The two squads were reinforced by an 81mm mortar FO, an S-2 representative, a Kit Carson Scout, one rocket team, and a machine gun section (two guns).[65] Each man carried 500 rounds of ammunition and six grenades; each machine gun team had 1,800 rounds. Their mission was to sweep to the south along a well-defined route and attempt to locate an enemy mortar which had been harassing the Marines. The patrol leader was assigned three checkpoints from which he was to radio his position and progress to the company commander, Captain Pipes. The lieutenant was under strict orders to follow the planned route and keep within sight of the base as much as possible.[(181)]
Around 0900, the two squads reached their first checkpoint; the lieutenant made the required radio report and the Marines started on the second leg of their trek. Unknown to Captain Pipes, the patrol had deviated from course and was actually about 600 meters south of its scheduled route. Shortly after his first transmission, the lieutenant spotted three NVA soldiers walking along a road which branched off Route 9 and ran northwest into the FOB-3 compound. The North Vietnamese were apparently trying to suck the Americans into a trap--a trick as old as war itself. In spite of warnings from the Kit Carson Scout, the young patrol leader took the bait and pursued the three men; the decision was to cost him his life.[(182)]
The Marines moved south across the road, chased the North Vietnamese and ran head-on into an ambush. A heavily reinforced NVA company was entrenched just south of the road in a crescent-shaped bunker complex, the tips of which curved to the north. When the trap was sprung, the patrol was caught squarely in the center and, in essence, was double-enveloped by stationary positions. At first the Marines opened up and gained the advantage but the enemy fire gradually built to an overwhelming crescendo and the patrol became pinned down. When the lieutenant realized the full implications of his predicament, he dispatched the 1st Squad to flank the NVA emplacements from the west. The maneuver might have worked but the squad leader did not hook out far enough to the west before turning back in on the enemy positions. Instead of hitting the tender flank, the 1st Squad walked into more blistering, frontal fire. When the lieutenant was unable to raise the squad leader on the radio, he sent one of his few unwounded men, Hospitalman 3d Class Frank V. Calzia, a U. S. Navy corpsman, to find out what had happened. The corpsman returned later and reported that every man in the 1st Squad, except one, was dead.[(183)]