Hard-shell Crabs

We can feel the rumble in our bodies as we hunker in covered positions up on the wall watching two Marine M-48 tanks approach like a pair of circus elephants lumbering along nose to tail. The trailing tank brakes to a halt near a distant intersection while the leading vehicle grinds toward us. As it passes a closer intersection, a clutch of grunts sprints from cover and falls in behind it. There’s a lieutenant among them and Steve is following close on his heels. Company Gunny is shouting over the roar of the diesel and the whine of the transmission as the tank advances in ultra-low gear to keep from outrunning the infantry.

“We move when the tank gets just ahead of us. Stand by!” Gunny waves at Tank Lieutenant who waves back. Across the street and through the alleyways on the other side we can see other grunts moving. It looks like three elements involved in this deal, the guys moving through the houses on our left, the guys following the tank and the rest of us up on the wall. It bothers me to see Steve hugging the tank. We’ve seen more than a few grunts dinged when small arms fire ricochets off a tank’s armor and everyone shoots at a tank. Rifles and machineguns won’t hurt the damn thing, everyone knows that but no one seems able to resist shooting at a big, fat target. Its battlefield mojo and the gooks are suckers for it.

As the tank passes us on the left, Steve looks up and I wave my bandaged hand at him. Then it’s time for us to move. Philly Dog shouts for me to stick with him so that’s what I do, stumbling and staggering behind his broad butt from cover to cover along the rubble-strewn surface of the wall. We make maybe 100 meters before the gooks decide we’ve gone far enough. A sheet of rifle, machinegun and RPG fire erupts all along the eastern wall on either side of the disputed gate tower. Up on the wall there’s not enough room for everyone to bring his weapon into action, so Philly Dog calls a machinegun up and then prepares a LAAW for firing. I’m scrambling out of the back-blast area and watching the street where the tank has halted in a cloud of dust. Rounds are sparking and shrieking of its armor. The grunts are hugging in tight behind the engine deck and I see Tank Lieutenant screaming into the T-I phone he’s pulled out of the box on the rear fender.

Philly Dog fires his LAAW toward the tower and shouts for another one. The tank looks like a big ugly hound sniffing for scent as the turret swivels and searches. The gunner on the inside is looking for a suitable target to engage with the 90mm main gun. Seems like all the gooks ahead of us are firing at the tank but there’s enough rounds coming our way to let me know we haven’t been forgotten. Steve is huddled near the left track when the cannon finally cranks and the tank rocks in recoil sending up a cloud of dust.

Two more rounds blow chunks out of the eastern wall as the rattle and boom of the .50 caliber machinegun in the tank’s cupola adds to the din. The incoming slows a bit under the impact of the tank fire and we are alerted to move. We’re trying to get our shit together when a rocket gunner in the upper reaches of the gate tower cuts loose with an RPG.

The rocket hits the tank just below the main gun mount and the vehicle seems to shudder. Grunts scramble and scatter right and left to get out from behind the wounded beast which is beginning to emit oily clouds of black smoke. The last place anyone wants to be right now is inside that tank. If it penetrates, an anti-tank rocket round just makes a pinhole in the armor. The damage is done on the inside where shrapnel sprays through the vehicle like a shower of white-hot razor blades and turns the crew into instant hamburger.

Flames are licking up from the engine compartment now and hatches spring open on the top of the turret. What’s left of the crew is trying to bail out, which causes the gooks to increase their fire. Those of us who have got a shot fire back in an effort to give them a chance, but it’s not enough. One of the tankers is halfway out of the smoking vehicle when he’s hit. Blood runs in rivulets through the caked mud and dirt on the turret. Company Gunny has found a blooper somewhere and is cranking rounds up toward the tower in what seems like full-auto mode.

Through the clouds of ugly black smoke around the tank, a couple of Marines are running into the street and climbing up through the flames on the engine deck where they’ve got at least some cover from the incoming. One of them is Steve. The other man looks like Tank Lieutenant. Steve grabs the bleeding tanker and pulls him the rest of the way out of the tank while the Lieutenant reaches inside a second hatch and jerks crewman into sight. They have just gotten the two wounded tankers down off the engine deck when the vehicle begins to shudder under a series of explosions that send gouts of flame and more smoke into the air. That’s the death spasm; ready ammo stacked around the turret is cooking off which means anyone left inside is lost.

On the street to the rear of the tank, Lieutenant is waving for help and a couple of corpsmen sprint from cover to give them a hand. Tank Lieutenant stands and waves come on at the second tank which has remained parked through the whole episode. Tank Two rumbles forward with its coaxial machinegun spitting fire. There’s barely enough room for it to squeeze by the dead vehicle in the center of the road and in the effort the left track takes out a section of wall that had been cover for a clutch of grunts. They scramble in one direction while Steve and the rescue party scramble in another carrying a limp and bleeding tank crewman.

Tank Two is firing on the move and headed directly for the eastern wall. One of its main gun rounds gouges a big chunk out of the Dong Ba Tower and the top section of the structure leans precariously. It’s as if someone had dropped the starter flag on a stock car race. Marines on either side of the street leading to that tower are running and gunning, sprinting forward, ignoring those who fall around them. There’s momentum now but who knows if it will be enough to get us that tower.

We are within about 50 meters of it when the gook gunner in the tower fires another RPG round at Tank Two. There’s enough incoming on his end to spoil his aim. The rocket streaks toward the tank but caroms harmlessly off the top of the turret causing nothing more than a big gouge in the armor and a shower of sparks. The tank commander doesn’t want to give the rocket gunner another chance, so he wheels the vehicle into a narrow side-street. Unfortunately, that street is so narrow that Tank Two can’t traverse its turret. We are still on the move toward the Dong Ba Tower but the rest of the distance will be covered without tank support. Of course, this is Hue so…

Up the avenue in a crouching run comes a 3.5-inch rocket team. It’s a squatty little gunner built like a block of concrete with an ace of spades inked on the back of his flak jacket. Following him and clutching two rocket rounds is a lanky assistant staggering under a pack board with extra ammo strapped to it. Most of the gooks are still firing at the burning tank, but the rocket guys ignore the ricochets, humping past the derelict in step as if they’re doing some sort of drill on a training range back at Camp Pendleton. There’s cover available but they ignore that and just keep closing on the wall, heading straight up the street in the open until Rocket Gunner passes Tank Two where he kneels and calmly shoulders the big tube. Assistant Gunner flips the switch on the back of the tube to make the electrical connection and checks the back-blast area as if there might actually be anyone out there in the open to be harmed by it.

The first 3.5 round roars away and smacks into a bunker at the base of the tower. It silences a pesky machinegun that’s been cutting into us with grazing fire. That gets the gooks’ attention and a shower of incoming begins to tear up the street and houses around the rocket team. If they’re aware of it, it’s not obvious. Assistant Gunner shoves another rocket into the tube as grunts on either side of the street begin to move. A second round blows into the stone façade just below the RPG gunner and we see him tumble from his perch to thud into the dirt at the base of the tower like a wet sandbag. Rocket Gunner takes a moment to observe the effect of his fire, nods and then sweeps an arm at the tower gate, inviting the grunts to carry on now that’s he’s silenced some of the opposition. As grunts begin to push past them, Rocket Gunner and Assistant Gunner stroll casually off the street in the opposite direction. That’s rounds complete, mission accomplished; just another day on the range.

Philly Dog, Willis and four more grunts are fragging bunkers and picking off some gooks who have decided to un-ass the area and head north along the surface of the wall. Grunts to the rear of us are pitching extra grenades forward. We are less than 30 meters from the base of the tower which is so shot-up by now that it looks something a couple of kids hammered together with an Erector Set. Other grunts are closing on the area from the other side and banging away at the escaping NVA. On our side NVA bodies, riddled with bullet holes and bloody shrapnel rents, are scattered everywhere. Philly Dog’s guys pump insurance rounds into the corpses and keep moving. Company Gunny has taken a round in his thigh somewhere along the line but he’s still humping and ignoring a corpsman who tries to get him to stop for treatment.

Measure of time and distance is long gone and it’s a genuine surprise to discover we’ve actually taken the Dong Ba Gate area. While shot-up squads are reorganized into what passes for platoons, Philly Dog’s outfit is ordered to hold in positions around the base of the tower. It’s getting dark in Hue City and the rest of Delta is preparing to push in another direction. No one up here with us on the wall near Dong Ba knows or cares much what that’s about. Our little portion of the fight is done for the day. What Philly Dog cares about as dark descends over the walls is that his squad is now down to only five men. He says I should probably get back down off the walls to where the rest of the company is spreading out for the night but he’s glad when I decide to stay up there with him at the Dong Ba Gate.

It’s never really quiet on the northside of Hue City but the night passes relatively peacefully with only sporadic shots and a few dull thumps of grenade explosions to disturb the peace as we hunker down in abandoned bunkers. I’m with Willis and two dead NVA in a position just to the right of the battered tower. Willis passes some time jiving at the corpses. “Listen up, motherfucker!” He pokes a finger into the bloody chest of a gook trooper with only half a head remaining and one dark eyeball that seems to stare back at him attentively. “Ain’t nobody to blame but your own damn self. You be fuckin’ with the bull you bound to get the horn. There it is.”

It’s 0430 by my watch when the mosquitoes swarm up from the stagnant water in the moat on the other side of the wall and commence an air strike. Philly Dog sticks his head inside the bunker. “We got movement. Stand by.” By the time we crawl out into the dark, mortars are impacting all along this stretch of the wall. The first three rounds are off to the right but the next barrage is right on the mark, landing with vicious cracks right at the base of the tower and driving us back into the bunkers. That’s followed by a shower of Chicom grenades and RPGs from the top level of the tower. Somehow, we either missed a bunch of gooks up there or they managed to sneak back in during the night. It’s becoming apparent the NVA are making a move to reclaim this position, and there’s no way we can hold against a determined assault. Dog’s blooper man pumps some rounds to the north and we pull back from the Dong Ba Tower dragging two wounded men with us.

From their night positions below the eastern wall, a Delta Company platoon surges into action and charges at the disputed tower. The fight blows back and forth until dawn when the Marines flush the gooks out of the tower, inspect it carefully for stay-behinds, and then set up to hold.

Steve is at the Company CP when I wander back with a re-supply party that’s been sent to bring up chow and ammo for the unit holding at the Dong Ba Gate. He’s got a copy of a diagram distributed at a briefing on The Big Plan. The Vietnamese Marines have arrived and are mustering to the south of us for a drive toward the Imperial Palace. Elements of 1/5 will push along to cover their flanks. Steve has been talking to a dude he knows from Alpha Company and says we ought to go over and see about it. My plan had been to check in at the BAS to have someone look at my hand. The left thumb is swollen painfully and every time I wipe the snot from my nose, it smells putrid. That plan goes on hold.