Pacifica Military History Free Sample Chapters.pmd

184 Pacifica Military History
Note: The following article is excerpted from the book AMBUSH
VALLEY: I Corps, Vietnam, 1967—A Marine Infantry Battalion’s
Battle for Survival by with Eric Hammel. The book is currently
available in a $27.50 trade paperback edition published by Pacifica
Military History. It is also available in ebook editions.
MEETING ENGAGEMENT
by Eric Hammel
Copyright 1990 © by Eric Hammel
The Con Thien Combat Base, an isolated hilltop position overlooking
the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Vietnams, was under
siege. During the last week of August 1968, III Marine Amphibious Force
intelligence analysts discovered that the 812th North Vietnamese Army
(NVA) Regiment was preparing to sever Con Thien’s lifeline, the Cam
Lo-Con Thien Main Supply Route. In response to the threat, the 3d
Battalion, 26th Marine Regiment (3/26), which was to have been the
next battalion to rotate into Con Thien, was assigned to relieve two
companies of the 1st Battalion, 9th Marines (1/9), at a roadside position
known as the Churchyard, just north of Fire Base C-2 (“Charlie-2”),
about halfway between Cam Lo and Con Thien. Three of 3/26’s four
infantry companies and most of the battalion headquarters-and-service
company met at the Churchyard late in the afternoon of September 6,
1967. Early the next morning, portions of India/3/26 and Mike/3/26
were ordered to conduct patrols. Both companies had been operating
around the Khe Sanh Combat Base all summer, and neither had ever
operated in the Con Thien area between National Route 9 and the
Demilitarized Zone. The September 6 patrols were more in the nature of
familiarization tours than attempts to locate the enemy. Indeed, the half
of 1/9 that the main body of 3/26 had relieved had not seen the enemy
for more than a week.