On 11 May 1970 troops from Delta 1-7 First Cav combat assaulted into an abandoned NVA base camp in Cambodia. In a very short time, the vast area, shown above as the choppers touch down, would be transformed into the ill fated LZ Ranch.
Ranch was the first of a trio of US bases in Cambodia manned by 1/7 Cav and 1/21st Artillery. Colonel Everette ‘Moose’ Yon, the battalion commander, was likely responsible for it’s poor placement, the eastern berm too close to the wood line. “I want to give the gooks a chance,” he is alleged to have said.
On 16 May ’70, Delta 
Company, in from patrols, had perimeter guard. Early that morning, sappers crawled past the trips and claymores on the eastern berm, defended by Delta’s fourth platoon; killed machine gunner Mike Dawson; then headed for the TOC, where they tossed satchel charges and grenades into bunkers and shot GIs at close range.
Fourth platoon rallied and killed the sappers inside the perimeter. Medic’s third platoon, guarding the sector facing north, was not near the attack, and took only minor casualties. However, third platoon RTO Mike Wilson and Captain Leland Hylop went over the berm–Mike with a shotgun, the Captain with an AR-15–and killed several NVA. After the surviving artillery crews yelled ‘fire in the hole!” and shot a red flare into the sky, HE and fleshette rounds were fired directly into the wood line. The shells crashed through trees and scrub before exploding with a loud fiery BANG. Snoopy dropped basket ball lumes, close air support (ARA) worked out.
A dawn patrol dragged in more enemy dead. Like the sappers killed on the base, they resembled wiry porcelain dolls. Mike Wilson and Medic tossed three corpses into bomb craters and covered them with lime.
Medic received this account from Delta 1/7 Cav pointman Ralph Crowe
Two days after our air assault into Cambodia, we only had the berm up and had just set out the concertina wire. There were no bunkers or fighting positions yet, so we were vulnerable to attack. On the second day we set out trip flares so that the slightest movement would set them off. With the trips butterflied, there was no way a sapper could get past the wire.
The evening of the third day, a CH-47 flew in. Later, when the chopper took off, the downdraft blew out an entire sector of our trips. It was getting dark; we were unable to replace them. We were dangerously open to attack.
I was on guard that night from 2 to 3 AM. A guy from our platoon, Tex, in the position next to ours, had gone over the berm to relieve himself. I remember looking at my watch at 2:30 AM thinking “only thirty minutes to go.” Tex heard something so he popped a hand lume. As soon as it ignited, the tree line lit up from the rockets and mortars being fired at us. I’d never seen anything like it, a solid wall of fire.
I heard AK-47 fire coming from inside the berm, and woke up the guys in my squad. We formed a small perimeter around each position, facing inward and outward. Eight sappers had breached the berm, blew up stuff, killing and wounding GIs.
Six of the sappers were killed close to where they came in. Two tried to get through our position. The guy with the satchel charge was killed immediately. We saw a guy running along the berm who we thought was our platoon sergeant, but it was the other NVA sapper. There were three of us sitting there: me, Stanley, and Bill Shupe; Stanley and me sitting together. Stanley was breaking down M79 shells. He said to the sapper, “What’s happenin’ man?” The sapper fired point blank on full automatic, and missed. Shupe said, “He shot at us Ralph,” and I said, “No shit!”
The sapper jumped over the berm, running for the tree line, but we went to work on him. When I say work, I mean a couple of 16s, an M60, the M79 grenade launcher. Somehow the sapper made it back to the wire, setting off our trips, some of the only ones left. When he hit the concertina, he was taking so many rounds, shaking so hard, there was not much left of his body. To this day, I wonder how he missed us, firing so close up. We thought we were hit. It reminds me of the divine intervention scene from the movie Pulp Fiction.
Eight two-man sapper teams had breached the berm. It was estimated there were thirty six teams between the berm and the tree line. Two of the eight sappers were killed in front of our position, the one with the satchel charge taking a shotgun blast to the head. We got the other guy after he jumped the berm. Artillery lowered their guns to zero degrees, and fired flechette rounds directly into the tree line.
The incoming and out going fire was tremendous. After I ran out of ammo, I grabbed the 90mm recoiless rifle and fired flechette rounds into the tree line the rest of the night. LZ Ranch defenders had five KIA and twenty-three wounded. The next morning, we saw it could have been worse. An unexploded rocket lay right outside our position.
If Vietnam was bad, Cambodia was hell. I can’t begin to explain how I felt. The next morning I had to suck it up. “Move out. Crowe, you’re on point.” It seems as though I’m still walking point, probably to my grave.
A footnote: I learned only recently that radar had detected a huge enemy force headed our way. They should have told us. It could have prevented LZ Ranch from being overrun.
Medic received this account of the attack from Delta 1/7 Cav fourth platoon squad leader Carl Lee
“Mike Dawson and I were pretty close and we shared the same hooch at LZ Ranch during our stay there. Hooch being two ponchos snapped together to form a tent to house our air mattresses for sleeping. The night, or should I say the early morning of May 16, 1970, Mike and I were awakened at around 2 AM by gunfire and explosions everywhere. We both sat up and started to put our boots on. Mike just slipped his on and didn’t bother to lace them up. He said he had to get to the bunker to help Heaton, as he was the assistant gunner. I remember telling him to make sure his boots were on tight so he wouldn’t trip. That was the last time I would ever get to talk to Mike.
Mike no sooner made it to the bunker, than one or more grenades exploded on top of the bunker where Mike and Heaton were located. Mike was mortally wounded while Heaton was peppered with shrapnel. I too, was hit by a piece of shrapnel in my left knee. In all of this confusion I saw a North Vietnamese coming over the berm headed straight for my location. I had to lay motionless,since I had left my M16 on the bunker some thirty feet away.
The mortar pits were now firing off more illumination rounds, so visibility was almost like daylight. The gook, now standing only four feet away from me, was so close, I could see long whiskers hanging from his chin. He was heavily armed with several grenades and a AK-47 hanging from around his neck. I just knew I would be killed, but I guess he thought I was already dead, because he decided to go over to one of the 105 artillery pits behind us and started hurling grenades at it.
This is when I got Heaton’s attention to let him know we had a gook inside our perimeter. He saw the gook and killed him with his M60 machine gun. That’s when I ran to the bunker and got Heaton some more rounds for his machine gun and found Mike beside the bunker. I held Mike in my arms and tried to talk to him and I told him he would be all right. He didn’t say anything to me, but I could see from all of his wounds, one arm almost severed and his breathing very forced, that all I could do was just comfort him now. He died in my arms a short time after that.
Heaton and I kept up a volley of firepower the rest of the morning until day break. That’s when our captain and some others got to us for help. Everything was over, but it was nice to see some friendly faces. The Air force began bombing the woods out in front of us which gave us some time to check on things.
We carried Mike’s body off and readied it for transportation back to the rear area. They did a body check and I think they found a total of seven GIs and eighteen gooks killed. I checked on the dead gook that had stood near me, and I was allowed to have anything from him I wanted to keep. I got his NVA belt and star buckle, NVA knife, and hammock. I still have all of these items today.
That afternoon I was sent to Long Binh hospital to have my knee wound X-rayed and checked for internal shrapnel. It took hospital personnel three days to finally get to me due to so many other cases that were worse than mine. I still have a one-inch scar on my left knee as a reminder and too, my Dad’s birthday is May 16th.
I did contact Mike’s family a couple of years ago and sent them some pictures of him from over in Viet Nam. I told them that he had died in Cambodia which surprised them,because the Army had told them that he had died in Vietnam. Good ole Uncle Sam!
Do you remember the bunker complex and zapper training facility inside the wood line at LZ Ranch? They had taken vines and formed them to resemble rolls of bobbed wire. You could see where they had been practicing their crawling techniques in anticipation of the real thing. Of course we brought them the real thing and put it in their back yard. I remember too, we had only placed one strand of bobbed wire around our perimeter and everyone didn’t like that, especially since we had found that zapper school in the wood line. Also,there was high grass between the wood line and our berm to make matters even worse. You add the dense fog on that morning and we’re talking gooks in the wire!”
Delta 1/7 Cav fourth platoon squad leader Odell Newton sent Medic this account of the attack
“Delta Comp
any’s fourth platoon had three bunkers close to the wood line. I had shaped my bunker like a castle tower. I was in the bunker next to Dawson. A guy name Pack was also in Dawson’s bunker. We had the 90mm with Andy Grines as my gunner. Our platoon consisted of Lt. Occhialini, Sgt Mac and myself. We also had two RTOs, “Sweetcakes” (Spec 4 Johnson from Iowa) and “Sourpuss” (a Spec 4 from MO, I think). We also had a Latin guy named Marcelo Guerra, a Shake ‘N Bake like myself.
We had three automatic ambushes go off in the late afternoon. When we went out to investigate, we found many blood trails and body parts. While investigating the last one, right after dark, we could hear the wounded gooks moaning and bodies being dragged away. After we came back to the LZ, a gook from the wood line fired a B40 at our tower that missed by about twenty meters, but landed inside the base.
At about midnight, I had guard duty. I had been awakened not by the previous guard, but by gunfire. I looked at the bunker next to mine and saw two or three gooks, dressed only in loincloths coming from the direction of Dawson’s bunker. I awoke Andy Grimes and the rest of the men in the bunker. I looked to the front and saw gooks in the wire. I tried to blow our Claymores, but the lines had been cut. Grimes fired one buckshot round from the 90mm. Sgt Mac took out the gooks between Dawson’s bunker and ours. I took out one that was running behind our bunker toward the TOC. I remember the 155 being fired with the muzzles almost level with the ground.
I recall heating up a C-ration right next to a dead gook the next morning and watching the bodies being shoved into a hole and covered with lime. I recall a colonel coming out and pinning Bronze Stars on our platoon, I think that my medic got two Silver Stars. I recall many lifers who were not in harm’s way getting many awards.
I can still recall the sounds of soldiers dying from both sides. I have relived Ranch many times over the past 38 years.”
Bravo/HHC 1/7 Cav grunt Mike Hudzinski sent this account:
“I was in a bunker in the middle of the LZ Ranch the night that the NVA hit us. They thought it was the 
TOC as one of the dead gooks had a map on him that had us marked as the main target. Evidently we had been scouted from the tree line during the day. There were six of us in the hole that night. It was hot as hell. We did odd-man-out to see who got what little air was stirring at the bunker entrance. I was in the back due to losing the toss first with Spec 4 Jim Cummings, the CO’s orderly. Next to me was Donnie Toland, the battalion barber,then Jim. In the doorway was Spec 4 Emilio Supneta from Delta Company, a short timer waiting to go home. On the front right side, Sgt. Friday from S2/3, and my buddy Spec 4 Jim Ford.
When the shit hit the fan, I woke up and looked out towards the bunker entrance. All I could see and hear were bright yellow flashes, a loud blast/pop, then maybe 8-10 rounds of AK at point blank range. We we’re on the deck and digging in the dark for our M16s. My buddy Jim was killed instantly by a Chicom grenade, which landed on his cot and blew him almost in half. Emilio was shot in the head twice point blank and died instantly. Sgt Friday had a sucking chest wound and was medevaced back to the states later on.
Donnie, Jim, and I all three survived physically. Mentally I died right then. We had blood and guts splattered on us and all along the interior walls of the bunker. Blood was an inch deep in the mud, and I can to this day smell every drop the boys left behind. I was so traumatized that I don’t remember much after that. It was the worst day of my life and still is. I can still see those seven guys laying lined up in body bags out in the hot sun waiting for the choppers to take them home. And to make it even worse, they gave a Purple Heart to Major Cady. I was told that he hit his freakin head on a timber trying to get into the real TOC to save his butt. He had to get stitches. I was hacked to the max when I saw that.
The next day, I was still numb from all that had happened and had a hard time dealing with my buddies deaths. Me and Donnie slept in that same damn bunker the next night. We tried to bury the blood and guts in a hole we dug back in the corner,but no matter how much we covered it up, it smelled like death. I didn’t go back in there anymore and slept on the ground next to a couple of sand barrels from then on until we left Ranch and went to LZ Corral.
I have stayed quiet for all these years, and this is the first time in like forever that I have even said anything. I was always one step ahead of the grim reaper the whole time I was in Nam. There were several times I should have died. My coin flip with Jim Cummings is always with me. If I had lost the toss you’d be sending him emails instead of me. Know what I mean?
Medic received this recollection by Bravo 1/7 Cav grunt Arlen Ervasti
“I was on LZ Ranch during the incident. That night sappers made it in to the perimeter. They came in by the side close
st to the wood line.They shot and killed the guy on guard and started pouring over the berm. We got quite a few coming in but the dumbass platoon sergeant made us quit shooting when they ran past us as we might hit someone on the other side of the perimeter. I told the dumb ass that I don’t miss, but to no avail. Three sappers made it into the center of the base.
I was sleeping above ground with my poncho attached to another guys to make a tent when the shit hit the fan. There is a picture of our tent in the photos. I am sure they had satchel charges on them, as they had shoulder bags too. They went directly to the TOC and one trooper came out and hit a gook with an entrenching tool and killed him. I sure would like to know who it was…any idea? With the flares going off it was kind of surreal,like movement under strobe lights.
After the battle, the platoon sergeant said he was short-handed so I had to wait for reinforcements before I could leave Ranch. When I finally went back to the bush we took incoming and a guy was wounded but we landed anyway. Later someone was killed by a falling tree probably blown over by C-4. I turned 20 on May 31st. I say this with certainty,I never felt like an FNG.
Medic received this recollection of the attack from 4th platoon Delta 1/7 grunt Greg Lewis
After landing in the wide open field that would become LZ Ranch we went on patrol. Almost as 
soon as we did we found a large bunker complex. We were called back and told to pull guard. I had a bad feeling about this place. We were too exposed. We put out trips and Claymores. That night it was eerie but quiet. The next day we filled sand bags,dug in,and squared away the bunkers.
That night I had guard next to the bunker where Dawson, Heaton, and Carl were asleep. It was near 2 AM but I’m not sure. A trip wire went off and a flare blew and I set off the claymore mines. Things got jumbled like in a nightmare. It was dark and I seemed to be running low to the ground while shooting at sappers. They were inside the berm. I didn’t know what happened to Dawson, Carl, and Heaton. I heard explosions. There was chaos. I don’t know how long it went on. We got air and artillery support and the tree line seemed to burst into flames. The ground shook. I stayed near the berm and kept low,shooting at sappers. After a while things quieted down.
When the sun rose I stood up: there was smoke and everything was in disarray. I smelled death. I saw bodies being collected. An officer asked, “How are you?” I was so shocked out all I said was, “This is terrible.” He tried to be nice. He said we were brave. That afternoon the cooks set up hot meals.
A chaplain was flown in. At the service for the KIAs my squad asked me to speak. I remember saying what a great strong guy Mike Dawson was, that he’d never be forgotten.
Medic received this account of the attack from retired CSM Mike Dunn, a Chief of Section with 1st/21st Field Artillery
I was there on 16 May when we got overran. My crew did their job and at the end of the fight my howitzer fired the illumination for the LZ to have light. During the fight I remember the Cobra’s coming in right in front of my howitzer and firing into the tree line. What an awesome sight that was. Man they were really something. During the fight I was hit in the back of my left arm with a large piece of shrapnel but fortunately it hit me flat and only left a large red mark and soreness. I also experienced rounds flying right next to my head and hearing the noise as they passed. Needless to say I got a little lower at that time. Our base piece (the center Howitzer that does the initial firing) was wiped out when the gooks threw a satchel charge in the bunker and Chief of Section Charles Hamilton was killed. Everyone else inside the bunker was wounded except for one guy who decided to sleep outside under a trailer.
Medic received this recollection from Curtis Price, FDC, B Battery 1st/21st Field Artillery, 1st Air Cavalry ’70
Several of the FDC–an advance party–flew in on Huey’s with some of you grunts. The initial assault had already landed and the LZ was HOT.* Not much of a party, you ask me! The chopper landed us in the tall grass about seventy-five to one hundred yards away from the main body, off to the right, facing the tree line. We hunkered down in place, every once in a while popping up to see if any enemy were close.
As usual, they had retreated, and we went to work setting up communications with the battery. That night was one of the darkest nights I can remember. We were so tired from the move—one base to another—and having to build a new Fire Direction Control. We had to have at least one layer of sandbags on before we could rest. I remember filling sandbags—then I fell asleep. When I woke up it was daylight, and I was still holding the sandbag to be filled!
After a couple of days we built the FDC but hadn’t had time to build our sleeping quarters. “Hawk” (his name was Hawkins, I believe) and I were sleeping under the quarter ton trailer used to haul the FDC equipment and personal belongings. A couple of the guys were sleeping in a pup tent off to our left, and damned if I know where the rest of them were.
Anyways, that night—well early morning, Hawk and I were awakened by what we thought was a mad minute. When I lifted the poncho up that was on the trailer, I saw the two guys that were in the pup tent running, and trying to pull up their pants, green tracers whizzing by them. That’s when I knew it was no mad minute! I turned to Hawk and said, “Do you think we shou …” That was all I got out of my mouth, when there was an explosion behind Hawk. BOOM! White light. Me gone!
I low-crawled as fast as I could to the FDC entrance, which was just an earth ramp leading down to the bunker. I flopped over into the ramp, and ran inside, not even noticing that I ran right over the guys still trying to get their drawers on! They hollered at me to watch where the hell I was going. I hollered back, “Get the fuck outta my way!”
It seemed like forever for Hawk to get down to the bunker. When he did come down, I asked him what took so damn long to get down here. He said that when I low-crawled to the bunker, he watched a green tracer fly about an inch above my head. My knees were starting to buckle when he said that. WHEW!
In the FDC bunker I’m looking around and notice–of all things–NO GUNS! Only the lieutenant, with his
.45 drawn, standing in back. I had found a Bowie knife on one of the fire bases we were on, and that was the only other weapon in the bunker. I grabbed it, and stood by the blast wall, waiting on a gook to come down the ramp. I stood there for a little while, when I said to Tex (Ray Arriolla), “C’mon, let’s get some guns and ammo out of the trailer.” So we ran out to the trailer, and grabbed a couple of M16s, and a couple bandoliers of ammo, and got back to the ramp and—SONOFABITCH! They’re only stripper clips of ammo. NO MAGAZINES! So we loaded up one shell and kept guard over the FDC!
The shit was really hitting the fan: Fucking sappers running around trying to blow you up. Goddamned machine gunners trying to fill you full of holes. Sons a bitch’en slopes firing their AKs on ya. Then the l’il dink bastards had their B-40s trying to disintegrate you !
One of the 105s was shooting illumination rounds, which made the shadows move, so it was really hard to make things out. Tex and I were on guard, and this guy runs up by the trailer tire and squats. Just then the illumination goes out ! No light ! I have my gun trained where this guy is—the illumination comes back on. Well, I can see the guy has left, and he is running toward the mess tent. By this time I realize it’s a gook! I draw down on him, and the berm was on the other side of him. I didn’t want to shoot, and take a chance of hitting one of ours!
Just then the assistant chief of smoke, the NCO in charge, he was a big, red-haired, barrel-chested lifer, came running up with his .45, and said, “Price, where did that gook go?” I said, “In the mess tent sarge,” and he took off.
When things quieted down a bit, sarge came to me and told me to help load Hamilton (Charles Hamilton) on the medevac. I hadn’t realized he’d gotten killed yet. Only when I got to the litter he was on, and it was covered!
After everything was over, there were dead gooks laying around, so I went over to look. A captain told about five or six of us to take the body’s down to a bomb crater, burn them with diesel fuel, and cover them with lime. So we got a truck. Well I come up with the bright idea of tying commo wire around their ankles, and just drag them down to the crater. After all, they just tried to kill us! We started to drag them, and got about twenty feet, when the same captain ran up to us hollering, “STOP!”
Boy o’ boy did we catch hell from him. He told us to load the bodies in the truck, then take them and burn them. I’ll never forget that smell as long as I live!
*Alpha Company and Delta Company patrols, mistaking each other for the enemy, opened up on each other. Delta sustained one light casualty.
Medic received this account from Martin Corcoran, B Battery 1/21st Field Artillery
In the late afternoon of May 10, 1970, while waiting on the Quan Loi landing strip to fly to Cambodia—there were 
few available choppers due to the invasion—one of my jobs was to strap the supplies, ammo, howitzers, even duece and halfs and bulldozers, into their particular cargo nets, to be hooked beneath a C-47. Finally, after six or seven hours, and exhausted, we flew by Chinook to what would become LZ Ranch. I was one of the last to arrive.
That first night, being unprepared, we were lucky the NVA chose not to attack. Over the next few days we got the battery positions built and in fighting shape, adjusting the cannons for range and accuracy, and offering fire support to our infantry brothers out in the bush.
Soon enough we got fire missions from the grunt units we were assigned to protect. On May 13th and 14th five or six 122mm rockets were fired at LZ Ranch. Thankfully they missed. Around that time we learned that Ranch was built in the middle of an NVA sapper school complete with bleachers and barracks.
On May 15th, and in the early morning of the May 16th, we continued our work of unloading ammo and completing fire missions. About 2:30 A.M. on the 16th we were awakened by a very close and LOUD blast. On the berm in front of us I heard and saw bright flashes. Our section chief ordered everyone on gun 3 to their positions. After warning the bunker in front of our cannon, we began firing directly into the tree line. All around us, I heard the crackle of small arms, saw tracers speed past; the mortar crews fired lume rounds every two minutes.
My job during the battle was to cut the charges for our cannon shells. Each 105mm round had seven charges [bags of powder] connected by a string. The number of charges determined the shell’s transit. I also fitted various shell fuses into place. Once the rounds were ready, we low-crawled them to the gun inside the parapet. Rapidly, shell after shell, firing charge 1, meaning for every round fired six bags of powder were not used, we fired dozens of high explosive, white phosphorus, and beehive [flechette] rounds directly into the tree line. About 3:15 A.M. Blue Max Cobra choppers worked out with rockets and 40mm grenades. It was incredible.
At 5:00-5:30A.M., when the shooting and explosions stopped, the cordite smell eased and the sun came up. It was then that we learned that gun 6 had been hit with a satchel charge and several of our battery mates were wounded. Sgt. Hamilton had been killed.
Later that morning Dave Baron and Dan Clark, from gun 4, Rodney Schrader and me from gun 3, had to dispose of ALL the unused powder bags from ALL the cannons from that night. Outside the berm, we put all the powder bags [100-125 lbs] into a bomb crater, and set them off. BOOM! Everyone on the LZ and inbound choppers thought Ranch was under attack again.
A bit later, it seemed ALL the lifers from MACV in Saigon and First Cavalry headquarters in Bien Hoa, in their spit-shined boots and starched fatigues, flew in to see what had happened on Ranch. They left before dusk.
That afternoon a small Caterpillar bulldozer was choppered in by Chinook. The engineers dug a thirty- foot trench and twelve or fourteen dead NVA were thrown in and covered with lime and dirt. I will always remember that night. May Sgt Hamilton rest in peace.
Delta 1/7 Cav Medic Marc ‘Doc’ Levy wrote this account:
Cobras circled the first wave of choppers–twenty of them–as we flew from Quan Loi into Cambodia. So close you could see the pilots in the cockpit. I remember my fear and dread. I’m sure many grunts felt “this is it, we’re gonna die.”
As the Hueys approached the beautiful wide open field—million shippers, we called them—the Cobras peeled off, power-dived, firing rockets, miniguns, forty mike-mike grenades. At the same time, 175mm shells from Bu Dop exploded around the fields perimeter, sending up huge columns of dust and dirt. As the birds descended, the door gunners opened up, spraying the wood line. We grunts, expecting the worst, jumped out, ran, threw ourselves down. When nothing happened, we dug in. Alpha and Delta sent out patrols, mistook each other for the enemy, and began firing. No one was killed, but Leon “Gunner” Gunther was shot in the wrist. “Doc, I been shot,” he said, walking toward me. I patched him up.
From that day until the base was hit, all the tension and dread inside me evaporated. For days on end I experienced a dramatically heightened state of well-being. All food tasted wonderful. All voices and ambient sound filled me with awe. At dawn and at dusk, the play of sunlight on the surrounding jungle filled me with joy. Every moment was vivid and beautiful.
When Ranch was hit, Delta’s third platoon–unlike fourth platoon, arty and S2, who took the brunt of the attack—lucked out. I remember a bright red flare soaring into the dark sky. I remember hearing, “Fire in the hole!” shouted two or three times. I ducked behind a bunker. The 105s, barrels leveled, began shooting HE and fleshettes directly into the wood line. I remember the sound of the shells rattling through the jungle, knocking down trees, then BOOM. Again and again.
I remember standing in a foxhole with point man Larry Roy and RTO Larry Clopton; me and Clopton shaking with fear, the whip antennae of his PRC-25 a trembling blur. Larry Johnson, a Shake ’N Bake in the bunker over to our right, took a stray round to his arm. He yelled, I ran over, patched him up, ran back.
I remember staying awake all night. At dawn, taking a close look at a life-sized porcelain doll lying on the ground, clutching a Chicom grenade. I remember me and Mike Wilson helping to bury the dead. I remember throwing the lime.
At dawn, in 4/6 sector, a bunch of us, spread out at arm’s-length, walked into the wood line. As I moved forward into the jungle, one of our guys stepped out from behind a tree and I nearly shot him. At some point Captain Hyslop chose Larry Roy to accompany him down a trail. They found a grunt’s helmet, human meat.
Two reporters from Stars and Stripes flew in to interview survivors. I still have the newspaper clipping. They made it seem like the Alamo. In truth, it was an awful night. Just plain awful.
LZ Ranch was poorly planned. Fourth platoon’s sector was much too close to the wood line. Were the trips butterflied that night? Would it have mattered? The S2 reports state radar picked up heavy movement—at one hundred meters—at 2:45 AM. No alarm was raised. The sappers attacked minutes later. Battalion commander Lt. Colonel Everett M. Yon, Jr, partly responsible for the layout of Ranch, was relieved of his command.
And finally, Medic received this account of the attack from 1st/21st Field Artillery Chief of Section Billy Tutterow
So much of Nam has been erased from my mind but I do remember the ground attack in Cambodia on LZ Ranch. Like Mike Dunn, I was a crew chief on a 105. As was my friend Charles Hamilton. He and I pulled guard each night till 12:00 or 1:00 AM. That way half our guys got to sleep all night while the other half pulled guard. The night of the attack we were on guard duty, sitting beside each other, shooting the breeze. He was a southern boy. I think he was from Virginia. I was from Mississippi.
Around 1 AM I told Hamilton that Shepard was taking my place on guard. I left “Ham” and as I was heading into the bunker to wake Shepherd, the mortars started pouring in. One landed so close, for a few moments I went deaf. I wasn’t wounded. I yelled to the guys “Fire mission!” and they scrambled from the bunker. We began firing rounds immediately. Viet Cong were inside the perimeter, we saw them, but kept firing the 105. As I recall, three of the six guns in the battery had casualties. We had none.
Spooky dropped baskeball lume and the sky lit like daylight. We didn’t know all that was happening, we just fired like crazy. We kept firing till sun up, using almost all our ammo.
With sunlight we saw the devastation. There were dead bodies all around.
That’s when we noticed Hamilton was killed. One of my guys asked me what time I left Hamilton, and I said seconds prior to the rounds coming in. Another man walked the distance from where I was sitting with Hamilton to the bunker entrance. He said it was thirteen seconds. I would have been killed with my friend if I had waited a few more seconds. I am a blessed man.
*Alpha Company and Delta Company patrols, mistaking each other for the enemy, opened up on each other. Delta sustained one light casualty.
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Update: in February 2024 Medic received this email from a 1/7 Cav officer in S1: “I choppered out to LZ Ranch on 14 May 70 to obtain company commander signatures. I had the pilot circle the perimeter twice. When I met Major Yon, I told him that he could not defend LZ Ranch. He was EXTREMELY upset with my assessment, and suggested that I spend a night at a listening post. Two days later Ranch was overrun, just as I said. Yon was replaced in June because he could not clear, remove and backhaul the defensive materials he had delivered into Cambodia with the number of loads Division had allocated. On 20 Jun, I was in a LOACH going to 1-CAV HQ for replacements, when the officer sitting next to me lost his black vinyl briefcase. It struck the tail rotor, breaking the linkage. The pilot yelled “ MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” before we crashed into bamboo. We managed to crawl from the wreckage, and cut our way to a clearing. I was operated on at Long Binh hospital, then medevaced to Japan. I returned stateside 18 July 70. Major Yon visited me while I was at Long Binh. He said I was right about LZ Ranch.
Epilogue: The S-2 reports state the American casualties on LZ Ranch were five killed and twenty-four wounded.
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top photo: flown in by twenty choppers, grunts from Delta 1-7 First Cavalry occupy what will become the ill-fated LZ Ranch.
Overrun in Cambodia
On 11 May 1970 troops from Delta 1-7 First Cav combat assaulted into an abandoned NVA base camp in Cambodia. In a very short time, the vast area, shown above as the choppers touch down, would be transformed into the ill fated LZ Ranch.
Ranch was the first of a trio of US bases in Cambodia manned by 1/7 Cav and 1/21st Artillery. Colonel Everette ‘Moose’ Yon, the battalion commander, was likely responsible for it’s poor placement, the eastern berm too close to the wood line. “I want to give the gooks a chance,” he is alleged to have said.
On 16 May ’70, Delta
Company, in from patrols, had perimeter guard. Early that morning, sappers crawled past the trips and claymores on the eastern berm, defended by Delta’s fourth platoon; killed machine gunner Mike Dawson; then headed for the TOC, where they tossed satchel charges and grenades into bunkers and shot GIs at close range.
Fourth platoon rallied and killed the sappers inside the perimeter. Medic’s third platoon, guarding the sector facing north, was not near the attack, and took only minor casualties. However, third platoon RTO Mike Wilson and Captain Leland Hylop went over the berm–Mike with a shotgun, the Captain with an AR-15–and killed several NVA. After the surviving artillery crews yelled ‘fire in the hole!” and shot a red flare into the sky, HE and fleshette rounds were fired directly into the wood line. The shells crashed through trees and scrub before exploding with a loud fiery BANG. Snoopy dropped basket ball lumes, close air support (ARA) worked out.
A dawn patrol dragged in more enemy dead. Like the sappers killed on the base, they resembled wiry porcelain dolls. Mike Wilson and Medic tossed three corpses into bomb craters and covered them with lime.
Medic received this account from Delta 1/7 Cav pointman Ralph Crowe
Two days after our air assault into Cambodia, we only had the berm up and had just set out the concertina wire. There were no bunkers or fighting positions yet, so we were vulnerable to attack. On the second day we set out trip flares so that the slightest movement would set them off. With the trips butterflied, there was no way a sapper could get past the wire.
The evening of the third day, a CH-47 flew in. Later, when the chopper took off, the downdraft blew out an entire sector of our trips. It was getting dark; we were unable to replace them. We were dangerously open to attack.
I heard AK-47 fire coming from inside the berm, and woke up the guys in my squad. We formed a small perimeter around each position, facing inward and outward. Eight sappers had breached the berm, blew up stuff, killing and wounding GIs.
Six of the sappers were killed close to where they came in. Two tried to get through our position. The guy with the satchel charge was killed immediately. We saw a guy running along the berm who we thought was our platoon sergeant, but it was the other NVA sapper. There were three of us sitting there: me, Stanley, and Bill Shupe; Stanley and me sitting together. Stanley was breaking down M79 shells. He said to the sapper, “What’s happenin’ man?” The sapper fired point blank on full automatic, and missed. Shupe said, “He shot at us Ralph,” and I said, “No shit!”
The sapper jumped over the berm, running for the tree line, but we went to work on him. When I say work, I mean a couple of 16s, an M60, the M79 grenade launcher. Somehow the sapper made it back to the wire, setting off our trips, some of the only ones left. When he hit the concertina, he was taking so many rounds, shaking so hard, there was not much left of his body. To this day, I wonder how he missed us, firing so close up. We thought we were hit. It reminds me of the divine intervention scene from the movie Pulp Fiction.
Eight two-man sapper teams had breached the berm. It was estimated there were thirty six teams between the berm and the tree line. Two of the eight sappers were killed in front of our position, the one with the satchel charge taking a shotgun blast to the head. We got the other guy after he jumped the berm. Artillery lowered their guns to zero degrees, and fired flechette rounds directly into the tree line.
The incoming and out going fire was tremendous. After I ran out of ammo, I grabbed the 90mm recoiless rifle and fired flechette rounds into the tree line the rest of the night. LZ Ranch defenders had five KIA and twenty-three wounded. The next morning, we saw it could have been worse. An unexploded rocket lay right outside our position.
If Vietnam was bad, Cambodia was hell. I can’t begin to explain how I felt. The next morning I had to suck it up. “Move out. Crowe, you’re on point.” It seems as though I’m still walking point, probably to my grave.
A footnote: I learned only recently that radar had detected a huge enemy force headed our way. They should have told us. It could have prevented LZ Ranch from being overrun.
Medic received this account of the attack from Delta 1/7 Cav fourth platoon squad leader Carl Lee
“Mike Dawson and I were pretty close and we shared the same hooch at LZ Ranch during our stay there. Hooch being two ponchos snapped together to form a tent to house our air mattresses for sleeping. The night, or should I say the early morning of May 16, 1970, Mike and I were awakened at around 2 AM by gunfire and explosions everywhere. We both sat up and started to put our boots on. Mike just slipped his on and didn’t bother to lace them up. He said he had to get to the bunker to help Heaton, as he was the assistant gunner. I remember telling him to make sure his boots were on tight so he wouldn’t trip. That was the last time I would ever get to talk to Mike.
Mike no sooner made it to the bunker, than one or more grenades exploded on top of the bunker where Mike and Heaton were located. Mike was mortally wounded while Heaton was peppered with shrapnel. I too, was hit by a piece of shrapnel in my left knee. In all of this confusion I saw a North Vietnamese coming over the berm headed straight for my location. I had to lay motionless,since I had left my M16 on the bunker some thirty feet away.
The mortar pits were now firing off more illumination rounds, so visibility was almost like daylight. The gook, now standing only four feet away from me, was so close, I could see long whiskers hanging from his chin. He was heavily armed with several grenades and a AK-47 hanging from around his neck. I just knew I would be killed, but I guess he thought I was already dead, because he decided to go over to one of the 105 artillery pits behind us and started hurling grenades at it.
This is when I got Heaton’s attention to let him know we had a gook inside our perimeter. He saw the gook and killed him with his M60 machine gun. That’s when I ran to the bunker and got Heaton some more rounds for his machine gun and found Mike beside the bunker. I held Mike in my arms and tried to talk to him and I told him he would be all right. He didn’t say anything to me, but I could see from all of his wounds, one arm almost severed and his breathing very forced, that all I could do was just comfort him now. He died in my arms a short time after that.
Heaton and I kept up a volley of firepower the rest of the morning until day break. That’s when our captain and some others got to us for help. Everything was over, but it was nice to see some friendly faces. The Air force began bombing the woods out in front of us which gave us some time to check on things.
We carried Mike’s body off and readied it for transportation back to the rear area. They did a body check and I think they found a total of seven GIs and eighteen gooks killed. I checked on the dead gook that had stood near me, and I was allowed to have anything from him I wanted to keep. I got his NVA belt and star buckle, NVA knife, and hammock. I still have all of these items today.
That afternoon I was sent to Long Binh hospital to have my knee wound X-rayed and checked for internal shrapnel. It took hospital personnel three days to finally get to me due to so many other cases that were worse than mine. I still have a one-inch scar on my left knee as a reminder and too, my Dad’s birthday is May 16th.
I did contact Mike’s family a couple of years ago and sent them some pictures of him from over in Viet Nam. I told them that he had died in Cambodia which surprised them,because the Army had told them that he had died in Vietnam. Good ole Uncle Sam!
Do you remember the bunker complex and zapper training facility inside the wood line at LZ Ranch? They had taken vines and formed them to resemble rolls of bobbed wire. You could see where they had been practicing their crawling techniques in anticipation of the real thing. Of course we brought them the real thing and put it in their back yard. I remember too, we had only placed one strand of bobbed wire around our perimeter and everyone didn’t like that, especially since we had found that zapper school in the wood line. Also,there was high grass between the wood line and our berm to make matters even worse. You add the dense fog on that morning and we’re talking gooks in the wire!”
Delta 1/7 Cav fourth platoon squad leader Odell Newton sent Medic this account of the attack
“Delta Comp
any’s fourth platoon had three bunkers close to the wood line. I had shaped my bunker like a castle tower. I was in the bunker next to Dawson. A guy name Pack was also in Dawson’s bunker. We had the 90mm with Andy Grines as my gunner. Our platoon consisted of Lt. Occhialini, Sgt Mac and myself. We also had two RTOs, “Sweetcakes” (Spec 4 Johnson from Iowa) and “Sourpuss” (a Spec 4 from MO, I think). We also had a Latin guy named Marcelo Guerra, a Shake ‘N Bake like myself.
We had three automatic ambushes go off in the late afternoon. When we went out to investigate, we found many blood trails and body parts. While investigating the last one, right after dark, we could hear the wounded gooks moaning and bodies being dragged away. After we came back to the LZ, a gook from the wood line fired a B40 at our tower that missed by about twenty meters, but landed inside the base.
At about midnight, I had guard duty. I had been awakened not by the previous guard, but by gunfire. I looked at the bunker next to mine and saw two or three gooks, dressed only in loincloths coming from the direction of Dawson’s bunker. I awoke Andy Grimes and the rest of the men in the bunker. I looked to the front and saw gooks in the wire. I tried to blow our Claymores, but the lines had been cut. Grimes fired one buckshot round from the 90mm. Sgt Mac took out the gooks between Dawson’s bunker and ours. I took out one that was running behind our bunker toward the TOC. I remember the 155 being fired with the muzzles almost level with the ground.
I recall heating up a C-ration right next to a dead gook the next morning and watching the bodies being shoved into a hole and covered with lime. I recall a colonel coming out and pinning Bronze Stars on our platoon, I think that my medic got two Silver Stars. I recall many lifers who were not in harm’s way getting many awards.
I can still recall the sounds of soldiers dying from both sides. I have relived Ranch many times over the past 38 years.”
Bravo/HHC 1/7 Cav grunt Mike Hudzinski sent this account:
“I was in a bunker in the middle of the LZ Ranch the night that the NVA hit us. They thought it was the
TOC as one of the dead gooks had a map on him that had us marked as the main target. Evidently we had been scouted from the tree line during the day. There were six of us in the hole that night. It was hot as hell. We did odd-man-out to see who got what little air was stirring at the bunker entrance. I was in the back due to losing the toss first with Spec 4 Jim Cummings, the CO’s orderly. Next to me was Donnie Toland, the battalion barber,then Jim. In the doorway was Spec 4 Emilio Supneta from Delta Company, a short timer waiting to go home. On the front right side, Sgt. Friday from S2/3, and my buddy Spec 4 Jim Ford.
When the shit hit the fan, I woke up and looked out towards the bunker entrance. All I could see and hear were bright yellow flashes, a loud blast/pop, then maybe 8-10 rounds of AK at point blank range. We we’re on the deck and digging in the dark for our M16s. My buddy Jim was killed instantly by a Chicom grenade, which landed on his cot and blew him almost in half. Emilio was shot in the head twice point blank and died instantly. Sgt Friday had a sucking chest wound and was medevaced back to the states later on.
Donnie, Jim, and I all three survived physically. Mentally I died right then. We had blood and guts splattered on us and all along the interior walls of the bunker. Blood was an inch deep in the mud, and I can to this day smell every drop the boys left behind. I was so traumatized that I don’t remember much after that. It was the worst day of my life and still is. I can still see those seven guys laying lined up in body bags out in the hot sun waiting for the choppers to take them home. And to make it even worse, they gave a Purple Heart to Major Cady. I was told that he hit his freakin head on a timber trying to get into the real TOC to save his butt. He had to get stitches. I was hacked to the max when I saw that.
The next day, I was still numb from all that had happened and had a hard time dealing with my buddies deaths. Me and Donnie slept in that same damn bunker the next night. We tried to bury the blood and guts in a hole we dug back in the corner,but no matter how much we covered it up, it smelled like death. I didn’t go back in there anymore and slept on the ground next to a couple of sand barrels from then on until we left Ranch and went to LZ Corral.
I have stayed quiet for all these years, and this is the first time in like forever that I have even said anything. I was always one step ahead of the grim reaper the whole time I was in Nam. There were several times I should have died. My coin flip with Jim Cummings is always with me. If I had lost the toss you’d be sending him emails instead of me. Know what I mean?
Medic received this recollection by Bravo 1/7 Cav grunt Arlen Ervasti
“I was on LZ Ranch during the incident. That night sappers made it in to the perimeter. They came in by the side close
st to the wood line.They shot and killed the guy on guard and started pouring over the berm. We got quite a few coming in but the dumbass platoon sergeant made us quit shooting when they ran past us as we might hit someone on the other side of the perimeter. I told the dumb ass that I don’t miss, but to no avail. Three sappers made it into the center of the base.
I was sleeping above ground with my poncho attached to another guys to make a tent when the shit hit the fan. There is a picture of our tent in the photos. I am sure they had satchel charges on them, as they had shoulder bags too. They went directly to the TOC and one trooper came out and hit a gook with an entrenching tool and killed him. I sure would like to know who it was…any idea? With the flares going off it was kind of surreal,like movement under strobe lights.
After the battle, the platoon sergeant said he was short-handed so I had to wait for reinforcements before I could leave Ranch. When I finally went back to the bush we took incoming and a guy was wounded but we landed anyway. Later someone was killed by a falling tree probably blown over by C-4. I turned 20 on May 31st. I say this with certainty,I never felt like an FNG.
Medic received this recollection of the attack from 4th platoon Delta 1/7 grunt Greg Lewis
After landing in the wide open field that would become LZ Ranch we went on patrol. Almost as
soon as we did we found a large bunker complex. We were called back and told to pull guard. I had a bad feeling about this place. We were too exposed. We put out trips and Claymores. That night it was eerie but quiet. The next day we filled sand bags,dug in,and squared away the bunkers.
That night I had guard next to the bunker where Dawson, Heaton, and Carl were asleep. It was near 2 AM but I’m not sure. A trip wire went off and a flare blew and I set off the claymore mines. Things got jumbled like in a nightmare. It was dark and I seemed to be running low to the ground while shooting at sappers. They were inside the berm. I didn’t know what happened to Dawson, Carl, and Heaton. I heard explosions. There was chaos. I don’t know how long it went on. We got air and artillery support and the tree line seemed to burst into flames. The ground shook. I stayed near the berm and kept low,shooting at sappers. After a while things quieted down.
When the sun rose I stood up: there was smoke and everything was in disarray. I smelled death. I saw bodies being collected. An officer asked, “How are you?” I was so shocked out all I said was, “This is terrible.” He tried to be nice. He said we were brave. That afternoon the cooks set up hot meals.
A chaplain was flown in. At the service for the KIAs my squad asked me to speak. I remember saying what a great strong guy Mike Dawson was, that he’d never be forgotten.
Medic received this account of the attack from retired CSM Mike Dunn, a Chief of Section with 1st/21st Field Artillery
Medic received this recollection from Curtis Price, FDC, B Battery 1st/21st Field Artillery, 1st Air Cavalry ’70
As usual, they had retreated, and we went to work setting up communications with the battery. That night was one of the darkest nights I can remember. We were so tired from the move—one base to another—and having to build a new Fire Direction Control. We had to have at least one layer of sandbags on before we could rest. I remember filling sandbags—then I fell asleep. When I woke up it was daylight, and I was still holding the sandbag to be filled!
After a couple of days we built the FDC but hadn’t had time to build our sleeping quarters. “Hawk” (his name was Hawkins, I believe) and I were sleeping under the quarter ton trailer used to haul the FDC equipment and personal belongings. A couple of the guys were sleeping in a pup tent off to our left, and damned if I know where the rest of them were.
Anyways, that night—well early morning, Hawk and I were awakened by what we thought was a mad minute. When I lifted the poncho up that was on the trailer, I saw the two guys that were in the pup tent running, and trying to pull up their pants, green tracers whizzing by them. That’s when I knew it was no mad minute! I turned to Hawk and said, “Do you think we shou …” That was all I got out of my mouth, when there was an explosion behind Hawk. BOOM! White light. Me gone!
I low-crawled as fast as I could to the FDC entrance, which was just an earth ramp leading down to the bunker. I flopped over into the ramp, and ran inside, not even noticing that I ran right over the guys still trying to get their drawers on! They hollered at me to watch where the hell I was going. I hollered back, “Get the fuck outta my way!”
It seemed like forever for Hawk to get down to the bunker. When he did come down, I asked him what took so damn long to get down here. He said that when I low-crawled to the bunker, he watched a green tracer fly about an inch above my head. My knees were starting to buckle when he said that. WHEW!
In the FDC bunker I’m looking around and notice–of all things–NO GUNS! Only the lieutenant, with his
.45 drawn, standing in back. I had found a Bowie knife on one of the fire bases we were on, and that was the only other weapon in the bunker. I grabbed it, and stood by the blast wall, waiting on a gook to come down the ramp. I stood there for a little while, when I said to Tex (Ray Arriolla), “C’mon, let’s get some guns and ammo out of the trailer.” So we ran out to the trailer, and grabbed a couple of M16s, and a couple bandoliers of ammo, and got back to the ramp and—SONOFABITCH! They’re only stripper clips of ammo. NO MAGAZINES! So we loaded up one shell and kept guard over the FDC!
The shit was really hitting the fan: Fucking sappers running around trying to blow you up. Goddamned machine gunners trying to fill you full of holes. Sons a bitch’en slopes firing their AKs on ya. Then the l’il dink bastards had their B-40s trying to disintegrate you !
One of the 105s was shooting illumination rounds, which made the shadows move, so it was really hard to make things out. Tex and I were on guard, and this guy runs up by the trailer tire and squats. Just then the illumination goes out ! No light ! I have my gun trained where this guy is—the illumination comes back on. Well, I can see the guy has left, and he is running toward the mess tent. By this time I realize it’s a gook! I draw down on him, and the berm was on the other side of him. I didn’t want to shoot, and take a chance of hitting one of ours!
Just then the assistant chief of smoke, the NCO in charge, he was a big, red-haired, barrel-chested lifer, came running up with his .45, and said, “Price, where did that gook go?” I said, “In the mess tent sarge,” and he took off.
When things quieted down a bit, sarge came to me and told me to help load Hamilton (Charles Hamilton) on the medevac. I hadn’t realized he’d gotten killed yet. Only when I got to the litter he was on, and it was covered!
After everything was over, there were dead gooks laying around, so I went over to look. A captain told about five or six of us to take the body’s down to a bomb crater, burn them with diesel fuel, and cover them with lime. So we got a truck. Well I come up with the bright idea of tying commo wire around their ankles, and just drag them down to the crater. After all, they just tried to kill us! We started to drag them, and got about twenty feet, when the same captain ran up to us hollering, “STOP!”
Boy o’ boy did we catch hell from him. He told us to load the bodies in the truck, then take them and burn them. I’ll never forget that smell as long as I live!
*Alpha Company and Delta Company patrols, mistaking each other for the enemy, opened up on each other. Delta sustained one light casualty.
Medic received this account from Martin Corcoran, B Battery 1/21st Field Artillery
In the late afternoon of May 10, 1970, while waiting on the Quan Loi landing strip to fly to Cambodia—there were
few available choppers due to the invasion—one of my jobs was to strap the supplies, ammo, howitzers, even duece and halfs and bulldozers, into their particular cargo nets, to be hooked beneath a C-47. Finally, after six or seven hours, and exhausted, we flew by Chinook to what would become LZ Ranch. I was one of the last to arrive.
That first night, being unprepared, we were lucky the NVA chose not to attack. Over the next few days we got the battery positions built and in fighting shape, adjusting the cannons for range and accuracy, and offering fire support to our infantry brothers out in the bush.
Soon enough we got fire missions from the grunt units we were assigned to protect. On May 13th and 14th five or six 122mm rockets were fired at LZ Ranch. Thankfully they missed. Around that time we learned that Ranch was built in the middle of an NVA sapper school complete with bleachers and barracks.
On May 15th, and in the early morning of the May 16th, we continued our work of unloading ammo and completing fire missions. About 2:30 A.M. on the 16th we were awakened by a very close and LOUD blast. On the berm in front of us I heard and saw bright flashes. Our section chief ordered everyone on gun 3 to their positions. After warning the bunker in front of our cannon, we began firing directly into the tree line. All around us, I heard the crackle of small arms, saw tracers speed past; the mortar crews fired lume rounds every two minutes.
My job during the battle was to cut the charges for our cannon shells. Each 105mm round had seven charges [bags of powder] connected by a string. The number of charges determined the shell’s transit. I also fitted various shell fuses into place. Once the rounds were ready, we low-crawled them to the gun inside the parapet. Rapidly, shell after shell, firing charge 1, meaning for every round fired six bags of powder were not used, we fired dozens of high explosive, white phosphorus, and beehive [flechette] rounds directly into the tree line. About 3:15 A.M. Blue Max Cobra choppers worked out with rockets and 40mm grenades. It was incredible.
At 5:00-5:30A.M., when the shooting and explosions stopped, the cordite smell eased and the sun came up. It was then that we learned that gun 6 had been hit with a satchel charge and several of our battery mates were wounded. Sgt. Hamilton had been killed.
Later that morning Dave Baron and Dan Clark, from gun 4, Rodney Schrader and me from gun 3, had to dispose of ALL the unused powder bags from ALL the cannons from that night. Outside the berm, we put all the powder bags [100-125 lbs] into a bomb crater, and set them off. BOOM! Everyone on the LZ and inbound choppers thought Ranch was under attack again.
A bit later, it seemed ALL the lifers from MACV in Saigon and First Cavalry headquarters in Bien Hoa, in their spit-shined boots and starched fatigues, flew in to see what had happened on Ranch. They left before dusk.
That afternoon a small Caterpillar bulldozer was choppered in by Chinook. The engineers dug a thirty- foot trench and twelve or fourteen dead NVA were thrown in and covered with lime and dirt. I will always remember that night. May Sgt Hamilton rest in peace.
Cobras circled the first wave of choppers–twenty of them–as we flew from Quan Loi into Cambodia. So close you could see the pilots in the cockpit. I remember my fear and dread. I’m sure many grunts felt “this is it, we’re gonna die.”
As the Hueys approached the beautiful wide open field—million shippers, we called them—the Cobras peeled off, power-dived, firing rockets, miniguns, forty mike-mike grenades. At the same time, 175mm shells from Bu Dop exploded around the fields perimeter, sending up huge columns of dust and dirt. As the birds descended, the door gunners opened up, spraying the wood line. We grunts, expecting the worst, jumped out, ran, threw ourselves down. When nothing happened, we dug in. Alpha and Delta sent out patrols, mistook each other for the enemy, and began firing. No one was killed, but Leon “Gunner” Gunther was shot in the wrist. “Doc, I been shot,” he said, walking toward me. I patched him up.
From that day until the base was hit, all the tension and dread inside me evaporated. For days on end I experienced a dramatically heightened state of well-being. All food tasted wonderful. All voices and ambient sound filled me with awe. At dawn and at dusk, the play of sunlight on the surrounding jungle filled me with joy. Every moment was vivid and beautiful.
When Ranch was hit, Delta’s third platoon–unlike fourth platoon, arty and S2, who took the brunt of the attack—lucked out. I remember a bright red flare soaring into the dark sky. I remember hearing, “Fire in the hole!” shouted two or three times. I ducked behind a bunker. The 105s, barrels leveled, began shooting HE and fleshettes directly into the wood line. I remember the sound of the shells rattling through the jungle, knocking down trees, then BOOM. Again and again.
I remember standing in a foxhole with point man Larry Roy and RTO Larry Clopton; me and Clopton shaking with fear, the whip antennae of his PRC-25 a trembling blur. Larry Johnson, a Shake ’N Bake in the bunker over to our right, took a stray round to his arm. He yelled, I ran over, patched him up, ran back.
I remember staying awake all night. At dawn, taking a close look at a life-sized porcelain doll lying on the ground, clutching a Chicom grenade. I remember me and Mike Wilson helping to bury the dead. I remember throwing the lime.
At dawn, in 4/6 sector, a bunch of us, spread out at arm’s-length, walked into the wood line. As I moved forward into the jungle, one of our guys stepped out from behind a tree and I nearly shot him. At some point Captain Hyslop chose Larry Roy to accompany him down a trail. They found a grunt’s helmet, human meat.
Two reporters from Stars and Stripes flew in to interview survivors. I still have the newspaper clipping. They made it seem like the Alamo. In truth, it was an awful night. Just plain awful.
LZ Ranch was poorly planned. Fourth platoon’s sector was much too close to the wood line. Were the trips butterflied that night? Would it have mattered? The S2 reports state radar picked up heavy movement—at one hundred meters—at 2:45 AM. No alarm was raised. The sappers attacked minutes later. Battalion commander Lt. Colonel Everett M. Yon, Jr, partly responsible for the layout of Ranch, was relieved of his command.
And finally, Medic received this account of the attack from 1st/21st Field Artillery Chief of Section Billy Tutterow
So much of Nam has been erased from my mind but I do remember the ground attack in Cambodia on LZ Ranch. Like Mike Dunn, I was a crew chief on a 105. As was my friend Charles Hamilton. He and I pulled guard each night till 12:00 or 1:00 AM. That way half our guys got to sleep all night while the other half pulled guard. The night of the attack we were on guard duty, sitting beside each other, shooting the breeze. He was a southern boy. I think he was from Virginia. I was from Mississippi.
Around 1 AM I told Hamilton that Shepard was taking my place on guard. I left “Ham” and as I was heading into the bunker to wake Shepherd, the mortars started pouring in. One landed so close, for a few moments I went deaf. I wasn’t wounded. I yelled to the guys “Fire mission!” and they scrambled from the bunker. We began firing rounds immediately. Viet Cong were inside the perimeter, we saw them, but kept firing the 105. As I recall, three of the six guns in the battery had casualties. We had none.
With sunlight we saw the devastation. There were dead bodies all around.
That’s when we noticed Hamilton was killed. One of my guys asked me what time I left Hamilton, and I said seconds prior to the rounds coming in. Another man walked the distance from where I was sitting with Hamilton to the bunker entrance. He said it was thirteen seconds. I would have been killed with my friend if I had waited a few more seconds. I am a blessed man.
*Alpha Company and Delta Company patrols, mistaking each other for the enemy, opened up on each other. Delta sustained one light casualty.
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Update: in February 2024 Medic received this email from a 1/7 Cav officer in S1: “I choppered out to LZ Ranch on 14 May 70 to obtain company commander signatures. I had the pilot circle the perimeter twice. When I met Major Yon, I told him that he could not defend LZ Ranch. He was EXTREMELY upset with my assessment, and suggested that I spend a night at a listening post. Two days later Ranch was overrun, just as I said. Yon was replaced in June because he could not clear, remove and backhaul the defensive materials he had delivered into Cambodia with the number of loads Division had allocated. On 20 Jun, I was in a LOACH going to 1-CAV HQ for replacements, when the officer sitting next to me lost his black vinyl briefcase. It struck the tail rotor, breaking the linkage. The pilot yelled “ MAYDAY! MAYDAY! MAYDAY!” before we crashed into bamboo. We managed to crawl from the wreckage, and cut our way to a clearing. I was operated on at Long Binh hospital, then medevaced to Japan. I returned stateside 18 July 70. Major Yon visited me while I was at Long Binh. He said I was right about LZ Ranch.
Epilogue: The S-2 reports state the American casualties on LZ Ranch were five killed and twenty-four wounded.
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top photo: flown in by twenty choppers, grunts from Delta 1-7 First Cavalry occupy what will become the ill-fated LZ Ranch.