The Great Ghost Chase Day 5: Tet 1968
Hue…on Day 5 of The Great Ghost Chase…brought to you in livid color by The Greatest Generations Foundation. The tally at the final whistle: Ghosts — 3, Vets — 0. And here’s how it went.
The Vets defense crumbled as the Specters dominated on offense, appearing everywhere, flitting in and out of doorways and rubble-strewn stretches of moss-green masonry. This time they weren’t firing AKs and B-40 rockets as they were a half-century ago, but they could still do damage. They were still capable of bulling through souls and psyches which is what they did all day on both sides of the Perfume River — especially to the three Vets who fought here during Tet 1968.
At kick-off, the Vet line formed at the An Cuu bridge over the Phu Cam Canal which surrounds the city that was once the seat of the ancient emperors of the Nguyen Dynasty. “They dropped this bridge like a bad habit to keep the Marines from reinforcing Hue,” said former Sergeant Mike Stokey, standing with fellow Hue veteran, former Sergeant Dale Dye, at the point where both staggered across the canal on a flimsy stretch of two-by-fours rapidly constructed by Marine Engineers. “And it was right over there,” Dye added, “that we got strafed by a U.S. Army helicopter.” After 50 years of contemplation, neither has ever come up with an answer for why that happened, but both agree it was an omen of seriously bad karma to come in the battle of Hue City. And we’ll be right back after this commercial break.
If you’re looking for a way to get rich — and who isn’t — you can’t do better than investing in two-wheel transportation in Hue, Vietnam. Everyone beyond infancy here buys, rents or rides a motor-scooter, motor-bike or some noisy variant thereof. Of course, all those suicidal riders need gas, so you might drop a few Dong on Petrolimex shares. There’s a crowded station right now, just on the other side of the Phu Cam Canal. That bustling business was a bullet-riddled Shell Station back in 1968. We know it as the first place U.S. Marines were able to find a city street map when they charged into the south side of Hue to do battle with invading North Vietnamese Army regulars. Shell had maps. Marines did not. Now back to our program.
The Vet line formed up in a phalanx of cyclos to begin the march into Hue’s bustling commercial gut on the south side of the river. It was an emotional drive for the Combat Correspondents who looked to the left sideline and saw the huge red flag with centered yellow star that flies over a wall of the Hue Citadel across the river. A similar flag flew there when the NVA held that bastion during the war and it stayed there as a constant irritant to South Vietnamese and American forces until the Marines finally blew it to shreds late in the bloody, brutal fighting in Hue, February-March in the Year of the Monkey.
There’s a government facility of some kind fronted by guards that frown sternly on picture-takers where the old Military Assistance Command — Vietnam compound once stood. “The initial idea when we arrived in Hue,” Dye explained, “was to reach MACV and take the pressure off the allied forces trapped inside.” That was much easier said than done as the Marines had to run a deadly gauntlet of enemy fire from fortified positions all along the streets leading to the compound. “About that time,” confirms retired Sergeant Steve Berntson who was half of the first two-man team of Marine Combat Correspondents into Hue, “we realized that all our training and experience as jungle fighters wasn’t going to be very helpful. This was becoming a very ugly, very close-quarter street fight. And there weren’t many — maybe just a few old timers who fought in Seoul during the Korean War — who knew anything about that.” More right after this…
Education is a wonderful thing, especially for people who might wind up in bodybags if they don’t learn the techniques for staying alive. So if you’re facing a tenacious, well-armed and highly motivated enemy in urban combat, you can’t do better than enrolling for FISH: Fighting In Someone’s House. See any veteran of Operation Hue City for details. And now back to coverage.
Quarterbacking the drive down Le Loi Street, Hue’s central artery today and scene of some of the most intense fighting on the south side of the city in 1968, was Sergeant Berntson. He pushed the Vets along as fast as his game leg, riddled with rocket shrapnel during fighting on the north side, would permit. And the gaping ghosts attacked immediately. “Probably one of our toughest fights was here,” he said staring at the Thua Thien Hospital complex. “The NVA had tossed all the local patients out to suffer or die in the streets. They wanted the beds and the medical attention for their own wounded.”
So the Marines had to bull their way into the rabbit warren of wards and operating theaters behind showers of grenades and blazing bullets. “We discovered a bunch of them dressed as medical orderlies or lying in hospital beds waiting to ambush us.” It was that kind of fight in the early days of Operation Hue City involving most of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Marines whose ranks were dwindling as they discovered another painful truth about fighting in built-up areas. The bloody effect of every bullet fired, every high-explosive round launched in their direction was multiplied with stinging rock or concrete shards.
“It was about this time in the sweep down Le Loi,” added Dye, “that someone decided it might be helpful to employ tear gas.” And it was — until the wind shifted. So it was on with gas masks which limited vision and made a stinking rotten situation that much worse. Cordite stench and tear gas fumes have been replaced along modern Le Loi Street with motorbike exhaust and the scent of jasmine that wafts from the pristine hospital still serving the sick and infirm in Hue. But stand around aiming cameras or dueling with old haunts for too long and those guys in peaked caps and dark green uniforms will hit you with paranoid glares. On the whole, Berntson and Dye opined as the crowd moved on down Le Loi, your standard paranoid glare beats an incoming AK round any day of any week.
About midfield on Hue’s south side is the site of one of the most rugged — and heavily reported — encounters during the Tet battle. Marines from Hotel Company, 2/5 were tasked with driving the enemy out of the Thua Thien Provincial Headquarters complex. Berntson was right there for the moment when Marines fought their way into the fortified building, cleared the enemy in and around the structures, cut down the North Vietnamese flag, and raised the American national colors. There exists some very dramatic and regularly televised footage of that dramatic moment, but Berntson gives the Vet team a little unreported information. “Everyone was delighted with what was happening — you know, a symbol that we were winning the fight — and there was our flag gamely flapping in the wet breeze, right across from the enemy flag flying on the other side of the river.” Naturally, the allied press that was beginning to chase the biggest story of the Vietnam War to date was all over it with still photo and TV coverage. But the real story for Combat Correspondent Berntson was what happened after the civilian reporters departed for Phu Bai to file their copy. “We were clearing enemy stay-behinds out of spider holes in the courtyard when a couple of U.S. Army officers arrived and told our Company Commander he’d have to take the flag down as regulations said only South Vietnamese flags could fly over government facilities. The Hotel Company Commander thought for a moment and then told them that if they wanted the American flag pulled down they could go ahead and pull it down themselves, but he wasn’t guaranteeing their safety from his Marines who fought and bled to put it up there.”
As if the combat situation in Hue needed any more complication, as if the Marines bleeding and dying in the streets and structures needed any further burdens in an unfamiliar fight, political issues surfaced like the festering head of a painful boil. Under pressure from the South Vietnamese government, forces fighting in Hue were restricted in using the fire support — artillery, Naval gunfire and tactical air strikes — that they relied on to gain the edge in standard combat encounters with the enemy. The South Vietnamese wanted the Marines to clear the enemy forces from Hue, but they wanted it done without damage to historic landmarks and structures, particularly the Citadel on the north side of the city which enclosed the ornate palace of the old dynastic rulers. It was nearly two weeks into the fight before the Marine command won the argument over use of heavy weapons — and that fight was won only after Marine commanders, watching their ranks being decimated, finally refused to advance further until life-saving fire support was approved for use in Hue. Yes — and you can have your ancient, historic city back but you’re gonna have to accept a little collateral damage. Your choice — and the grudging decision was made to allow the air and arty. No trustworthy reports exist as to how many politicians and senior commanders retired to Saigon fainting couches. And no matter to the Marines in Hue.
The press corps was beginning to flood into the city and often required escorts, either as protection or simply to point them in the right directions to cover the ongoing fight. Former Sergeant Mike Stokey was one of the Marines involved in this pursuit, arriving in Hue as the fighting on the south side was dwindling with most of the combat action focused on Hue’s massive Citadel. As an enterprising hustler, eager to take advantage of flush toilets and sleeping someplace besides under a wet poncho out in the bush, he set up a sort of “press house” in an abandoned residence. It became a thriving concern that even led to conscription of a couple of local beauties, which he eventually smuggled out of the city disguised as South Vietnamese reporters. It’s a legendary exploit among the Snuffy Combat Correspondents of the 1st Marine Division, but an ill-defined criminal statute of limitations precludes much elaboration.
Seeking to replicate as much as possible the paths taken in Hue by the returning Vets, Tim Davis of The Greatest Generations Foundation and guide Mr. Vinh rented a sampan so the Hue Veterans could cross the Perfume River by boat just as they did back in 1968. At that point, The Great Ghost Chase went into sudden death overtime. The rest of our report will be brought to you without further commercial interruption.
A time warp opened and sucked hard on Berntson and Dye who entered the north side Citadel in mid-February after a harrowing trip across the Perfume River in Navy landing craft. They took heavy fire from enemy gunners on the southern walls of the massive fortification and from parties of ambushers on several little islets dotting the waterway. Now moving with 1st Battalion, 5th Marines which had replaced the decimated second battalion for the north side capstone assault, they made their way under sporadic fire through the Dong Ba Gate, one of eight access points in the 40-foot thick walls. The initial objective of the north side assault was to break up an enemy siege of South Vietnamese forces who were trapped by a full regiment of North Vietnamese Army regulars. Marines got that done in fairly short order. “We wanted to break through to Tay Loc airfield,” recalled Dye. “That would relieve the ARVN forces and give us access to a place where we could land air support helicopters to evacuate casualties — and there were already a bunch of casualties. The NVA were dug in and defending from strongpoints along the. Citadel walls which let them fire on us practically anyplace we tried to move.”
So, the party was in full swing inside the Citadel by the third week in February, with Marines winkling a stubborn enemy out of positions that they had sited and strengthened while their comrades on the south side battled to buy them the necessary time. The American focus was on driving south through the residential blocks inside the Citadel with all eyes focused on pulling down that enemy flag flying from a tall structure in the center of the southernmost section of wall. Delta Company had been given the very tough job of advancing along the eastern walls heading for a right turn at the corner of east and south which would point them in the proper direction where they hoped for another flag-raising to rival the one on the south side.
It was a brutal trek along that stretch of the Citadel walls, with constant eyeball-to-eyeball contact between the Marines and stubborn enemy defenders who had been ordered to die in place rather than retreat or surrender. Sergeant Berntson, by now an exhausted veteran of fighting on both sides of the Perfume River, was helping to evacuate wounded Marines off the walls, He was struggling down some stone steps carrying a badly wounded Lance Corporal Dennis Michaels when an enemy rocket gunner opened fire. The round hit the concrete road near a truck they had hoped to use to get the wounded out of the line of withering fire. It also hit Berntson and some other Samaritans. “I caught a pretty bad burst,” Berntson told rapt listeners at the very spot where his Hue battle ended. “Shrapnel tore into my arm and leg and they had to carry me out in a hurry.”
Steve Berntson survived. Dennis Michaels did not. So on this day, nearly 50 years later, he stood with his friend Dale Dye and offered a toast to the one who didn’t make it that dark day. And he pulled out a little plastic pill bottle containing a half-century old piece of B-40 shrapnel that surgeons pulled out of his leg and laid it gently in the dirt of Hue’s Citadel walls. The music from a nearby café muted, the Vietnamese residents watched in silent wonder, even a rooster stopped cackling. And a long-dormant ghost faded with the mist over the walls. If there was a dry eye in bursting radius of a hand grenade, it was only because a bystander couldn’t hear Berntson’s eloquent little speech over the snort and snarl of two-wheel traffic.
And as a tangerine orange sun slowly sank into the Perfume River, yet another specter from the dark days of war in Hue city hissed into oblivion. Standing at an intersection near the eastern walls where Dale Dye covered a Charlie Company squad advancing under fire from an enemy machine gunner and had his rifle literally blown out of his hands by a sniper, a crowd gathered to watch him recreate the incident. It was akin to a scene from Groundhog Day for Dye who had wondered for most of his adult life what stroke of chance allowed him to survive that day. He produced a Vietnamese 10 Dong coin dated 1968 that had been in his pocket that day so long ago when he was wounded in Hue. And above his head, right there at the intersection where he traded fire with that enemy soldier, was a Buddhist family shrine. He looked around for some place to leave this little token of such a seminal experience in an adventuresome life that might well have ended right there if things had gone an inch or two differently. “Put in the shrine,” Mr. Vinh suggested. “Maybe good luck.”
Maybe so — and maybe a tenacious ghost is gone. That’s good luck and maybe one little part of a long and frustrating wartime experience is marked paid in full. It certainly seems that way as Dye, Berntson, and Stokey sit at Hue’s DMZ bar, contemplating lives so inextricably meshed with their war in Vietnam, and watching a new generation of Vietnamese go about the business of living free of fear.
“You know,” Berntson says. “We made a difference.”
Indeed. And it’s all us survivors can hope for in the end.
Marine officer Dale A. Dye rose through the ranks to retire as a captain after 21 years of service in war and peace. Following retirement from active duty in 1984, and upset with Hollywood’s treatment of the American military, he went to Hollywood and established Warriors, Inc., the preeminent military training and advisory service to the entertainment industry. Dye has worked on more than 50 movies and TV shows, including several Oscar- and Emmy-winning productions. He is a novelist, actor, director, and showbusiness innovator who wanders between Los Angeles and Lockhart, Texas. Look for Dye’s new Shake Davis novel, Havana File.
