TBS 2-67 Cruisebook_Updated_7Jan23

James D. Carter, Jr.
with mortar ire, 3d Platoon, about 400 meters
behind 1st Platoon, was also hit and six of its
Marines were wounded. Later, the platoon would
suffer more casualties when an F‐4 mistook it for
an NVA unit and dropped a pair of 250‐pound
bombs, killing six Marines and wounding a dozen
more. Both Carter’s and Reyes’s platoons were
now burdened, indeed almost immobilized, by the
duty to care for their own wounded and dead.
There were so many bodies to carry that the men
were exhausted as they tried to reach suitable
landing zones for helicopters to pick them up. The
helicopters received such heavy mortar attacks as
they landed that only three men could be
evacuated before Carter had to “wave them off.”
He moved the platoon to another site that he
thought would be safer, but the results were
nearly identical. Third Platoon’s experience was
very similar, particularly as Staff Sergeant Reyes
tried to evacuate his casualties. That night, both
platoons dug in with most of their wounded and
dead still with them.
The Bravo CO, Captain Sayers, and his 2d Platoon
departed the base in two helicopters to join the
rest his company. The helicopters were able to
evacuate a few of the more critically wounded
from the 1st Platoon and then the 3d Platoon
positions before heavy incoming ire drove them
off. At least some of this burden was lifted, but
Company B Marines still had a number of
wounded and dead bodies to carry with them.
Much of that day, 25 April, was spent trying to get
helicopters in to evacuate the casualties. Around
late afternoon, the three platoons of Company B
started moving up Hill 861 in hopes of eventually
linking up with Company K/3/3 the next day. They
had moved about 800 meters before the thick fog
and darkness forced Sayers’s men to halt at
around 2130. The fog was so thick, remembered
Staff Sergeant Burns, that “I couldn’t have seen Ho
Chi Minh himself if he had been walking right
behind me.”
Company B, therefore, set up defensive perimeters
and ambush locations for the night. At around
0500 the next morning, the enemy began a heavy
bombardment of the Khe Sanh base with recoilless
riles, 82mm mortars, and rockets. These weapons
were located on the eastern slope of Hill 881S,
perhaps only 400 meters away from Company B.
They were close enough that the Company B
Marines could see the muzzle blast of the
recoilless riles through the fog and could hear the
mortars. Captain Sayers called in an artillery ire
mission, and adjusted the rounds by sound.
Thanks to holes in the fog and the use of 105mm
illumination rounds from the howitzers, the
Marines were able to verify the destruction of the
recoilless riles, and the ire ceased. Fortunately,
the fog seemed to have decreased the accuracy of
the enemy ire on the Khe Sanh base, as most of
the 100 rounds landed just outside the perimeter.
Staff Sergeant Burns, for one, concluded that
Captain Sayers’s ire mission “probably saved a
few lives.” It certainly reassured the Marines of
Company B.
While Company B had been regrouping on the
twenty‐ifth and evacuating casualties on the
north side of Hill 861, those remaining in B/1/9
walked back into Khe Sanh. Trucks were available
for the move, but the remnants of B/1/9 chose to
walk. It was a matter of pride after 4 days of
constant enemy contact.
2Lt James D. Carter, Jr., wounded with shrapnel in
M‐23