Free Vietnam by Nigel Cawthorne Page B

by the 1st Squadron of the 4th Cavalry Regiment to avoid enemy fire was the 'herringbone defence'. The ACAVs would move forward in a criss-cross pattern, ending with guns pointing in all directions and giving overlapping fields of fire. Then they would unleash a 'mad minute', sixty seconds of fire from the M113's 0.5-inch machine-gun and two M60 general purpose machine-guns or M163 20mm Gatling guns whose armourpiercing, ball and tracer was designed to flatten everything in sight.
    Despite, the 1st Air Cav's victory in the Ia Drang valley, fighting continued in the Central Highlands. Huge operations were mounted by US, ROK and ARVN troops, now under close US supervision, but no matter how many victories they won and no matter how high the body count – 2,389 enemy casualties claimed in Operation Masher/White Wing in Binh Dinh province alone – the moment the troops moved on the area was reoccupied by the Vietcong and the NVA who were turning up in the South in increasing numbers.
    US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara is briefed by General Westmoreland in Vietnam, 10 October 1966.

4
THE GROWING COMMITMENT
    IN THE HIGHLANDS , the Green Berets still worked with Khmer, Mnong, Montagnard and other tribesmen who were ethnically different from the Vietnamese and persecuted by both Communist and anti-Communist Vietnamese alike. They were organised into Civilian Irregular Defense Groups (CIDGs). The cidgees often brought their families into Special Forces camps for such protection as these afforded them. But these remote camps strung along the border with Cambodia and Laos came under increasing pressure from the Communist forces. Again the US forces adopted a sledgehammer approach to defending their forward bases in the shape of 'Puff the Magic Dragon'. These were AC-47s – armed C-47 Dakota transport planes – named for the song by the folk trio Peter, Paul, and Mary, to the singers' great annoyance. They carried three six-barrelled Gatling guns, each capable of delivering 6,000 rounds a minute, along the port side. The Magic Dragon would drop a flare to illuminate the target, then circle, sometimes in pairs, raining down bullets on the enemy and forcing even the toughest NVA formations to withdraw. 'Spooky', the 4th Air Commando Squadron who flew them, sometimes also worked with PSYWAR C-47s of the 5th Air Commando Squadron. These 'Bullshit Bombers' carried huge speakers that blasted the jungles with appeals from the South Vietnamese government urging the VC to defect. This was not ineffective: by 1967, 75,000 guerrillas had come over to the government side on the promise of money, better food and conditions, and a chance to see their family and friends.
    Even so, the US forces were amazed at how much punishment VC units could take without cracking, the more so as many were drafted at gunpoint. This did not necessarily make them any worse fighters than other conscript armies. After all, most of the Americans and Australians fighting in Vietnam were draftees. But the Vietcong had unique methods of dealing with the problems handling the hardships of their plight and homesickness among recruits, many of whom had not been outside their village before. Each recruit joined a three-man cell, which included at least one veteran. They would stick together through thick and thin as long as they survived, so they formed the strongest of ties. In turn, these three-man cells were attached to three-cell squads, which made up three-squad platoons. Few were Communists or had any knowledge of Marxism. Nothing was done to remedy this. Propaganda lectures concentrated on Vietnam's historic struggle to oust foreign invaders – first the Chinese, then the Japanese, then the French. The war against the South Vietnamese government and the US was portrayed as a continuation of the French anti-colonial war with the US in the role of a neocolonial power. Occasionally, when morale was low or a unit was doing particularly badly, a political officer