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Surrounded Rangers!
I was in Nighthawk, a night-time Hunter
Killer Team. We were working our usual area denial mission when the radio
came to life. A Ranger sniper team was surrounded on a hilltop and the
enemy had worked in CLOSE. The next step would be a large number of
grenades upon the Rangers and then the enemy would spring forward, their
weapons firing on full-auto. The defenders were few, only six men, and
they would be quickly over-run and killed.
We were diverted to their location. We came up on
the frequency of the trapped Rangers. In a whispered voice the radioman
began to fill us in on their situation. They were on the very top of a
hill, which was 400-feet high at most. The hilltop was about 75 feet wide
and then it began to slope away very steeply all around. Obviously it was
impossible to escape other than down the steep trail which they had
ascended hours before. Enemy watchers had either cut their trail or
followed them as they left their LZ insertion point. And now, after
careful tracking, assembly of their troops, and the difficult and tedious
approach to the summit, the enemy was ready. They would kill the Rangers
soon.
The Rangers held their fire. The enemy was close,
too close. If they shot their weapons, the enemy would know where they
were, precisely. Not the “They are over there on that hill” but instead
”there they are, thirty feet away, I see their muzzle flashes” kind of
thing. The only weapon they could use, and keep the enemy guessing about
their dispositions, were the hand grenades on their web gear.
Preparations were being made for the imminent enemy assault. Grenades
were in hand, their pins straightened for easier removal. The thoughts of
each man wandered from making sure that his weapon safety was off and his
finger was off the trigger. No accidental firing, not now. A fleeting
thought of home, Mother, Father, girlfriend, family….no, concentrate.
Death is near, ready to snatch you up and leave your body to bake in the
next day’s sun. Get ready. Ears strain on both sides for a loose pebble,
a weapon scraping a rock, water sloshing in a canteen. The cotton mouth
was there, too; your mouth so dry, you can’t spit. The impending action
forces men to have the urge to urinate to be ready to fight.
Whop, whop, whop—a Huey! Now they all heard
it. The enemy waited. Maybe they could shoot down the helicopter, which
was coming to pick up the Americans. The crew of the Nighthawk gun ship
listened intently to the situation. It would be difficult to get the
Rangers out alive. The enemy was ready and close to the friendlies. I
did not want to injure or kill any of our men. Quickly we formulated an
attack plan. The pilot spoke to the Ranger on the ground and he whispered
back. We maneuvered into position and our flare ship dropped two
illumination flares. The Rangers threw a grenade into some bushes near
the trail. That was my signal to fire the mini-gun. I worked over the
enemy position repeatedly with a steady volume of fire. The Ranger
radioman was yelling into his mic now, “You’re killing them! I can hear
them screaming!” The plan was for the Rangers to run down the trail when
I stopped firing. The Rangers jumped up and bolted down the trail just as
we planned. The last Ranger had his strobe light flashing and it had an
inverted cover with a blue plastic liner so it would not look like muzzle
flashes, nor be readily seen by the enemy. In the moonlight I could see
the remnants of the surprised enemy force running down the trail in
pursuit of the Rangers. I immediately opened fire and swept the trail
repeatedly with a deadly hail of fire from my mini-gun until no further
movement was detected. Our flare ship picked up the Rangers and we
returned them to Chu Lai without further incident. Sometimes you get the
bear… and sometimes the bear gets you.
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