Just want to share something with the thread, for some
reason today I typed in "Fire Support Base Sarge". Sarge was in I Corp meaning the area was just south of the DMZ. I was in the Army Security Agency and trained as a Vietnamese Linguist. We listened (intercepted coms) to the commies over the airwaves, either on the ground or in the air. My last tour I spent on Hill 950 and Sarge, this was Jan 71 to Oct 71.
This is what happened on Sarge in March of 72.
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In March 1972, then-Major Boomer was serving as an adviser to a VNMC battalion in
Quang Tri province. As he relates: "the battalion was at a mountaintop outpost called Fire
Support Base Sarge. It was the farthest western outpost, overlooking Route 9 near the Cam
Lo River. We were seeing North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units moving into our area from
Laos. They were rolling in large truck convoys and becoming pretty blatant.
"Heavy monsoon rains prevented helicopters from flying supplies to us. We were desperately
low on food. So Major De, the South Vietnamese commander, split our battalion in two. I
stayed at Fire Base Sarge with two infantry companies, a mortar platoon and the battalion
commander's headquarters. Captain Ray Smith went with the other half of the battalion about
1,000 meters north on Nui Ba Ho mountain."
General Boomer continues: "On March 30, the Thursday before Easter, three North
Vietnamese divisions attacked across the DMZ into Quang Tri province. Sarge and Nui Ba
Ho were hit with a devastating artillery and rocket barrage. Infantry units of the NVA 308th
Division moved into assault positions. We were surrounded. Storm clouds prevented Air
Force gunships from providing us with fire support because the North Vietnamese were too
close to our own position. Around 75 percent of our north perimeter defenses were
pulverized by the relentless incoming explosions. They just killed us with artillery and rocket
fire, then followed it with waves of ground forces.
"After 24 hours, I received a radio message from Captain Smith that Nui Ba Ho was being
overrun. My troops bravely kept fighting, but my counterpart Major De and I knew that we
could not hold Sarge much longer. After midnight, with the NVA swarming through our
defenses, Major De made the decision for whoever was still alive to escape from Sarge.
"It became a desperate matter of pure survival. Close to half of our battalion was killed or
wounded. Using the cover of smoke and darkness, we had to escape and evade in the jungle
down the side of the mountain. It was not an organized 'fighting' retreat. We had a lot of
walking wounded with us. We struggled through the dense jungle undergrowth down the
jagged slope.
"Everywhere we turned there were North Vietnamese units hunting for us. They were above
us and below us. After two days of running, on Easter Sunday, at around 9 o'clock in the
morning, we were in 6-foot-high elephant grass--almost out of the jungle. The NVA
discovered us. We were surrounded and getting hit pretty hard. At that point, my troops
broke and ran. I tried to stop them from running and turned around. In fact, I was yelling and
shooting over their heads. The damn NVA heard me. I distinctly heard a North Vietnamese
exclaim, 'Co van! Co van!' [American adviser]. I said, 'Crap! It's time to get out of here.'
"We finally regrouped and fell back to the Cua Viet River and dug in for a last stand. The
Eastertide Offensive was a product of the North Vietnamese having changed to commanders
who were well schooled in Soviet conventional tactics. That included saturation artillery fire
and armor assaults. My unit faced sporadic tank attacks, from Soviet- or Chinese-built T-54
and T-55 models. We used a combination of weapons to stop one column of 15 to 20 tanks.
We used field artillery fire very effectively. Other units stopped tanks at short range with
LAWs [shoulder-fired, light anti-tank weapons]. We came away from that experience with
the knowledge that once you overcome your initial fear, you certainly can fight tanks
effectively.
"Our forces were dug in on the banks of the Cua Viet River, preparing for a classic set piece
battle. We were all that stood between the advancing NVA and Hue City. We stopped
them. And with the help of U.S. air support, we began to push the North Vietnamese back."
thehistorynet.com
The intercept guys were Army Security men and I dont believe that I knew them.
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Yet on March 31, 1972, two Army enlisted soldiers, Sp/4 Bruce A. Crosby and Sp/5 Gary P. Westcott were
inside a bunker at Fire Base Sarge in Quang Tri province, engaged in monitoring NVA communications. The
base came under artillery attack and their bunker sustained a direct hit. According to an American advisor on
the scene, "They were located in a bunker approximately 35 meters to the east of my position. About midday I
learned that their bunker had been hit. During a lull in the shelling, I crawled over to their bunker to find it
enveloped in flames, and no sign of life about. It was obvious that the two Americans in the bunker had been
killed instantly when they took a direct hit."
Eventually the base was overrun by the advancing NVA troops from the 304th Division. The Vietnamese history
of the 304th Division, published in 1990, states, the order to begin artillery fire on Dong Toan [Sarge] was
received by 68th Artillery Regiment at 1145 on 30 March 1972. The 66th Regiment [of the 304th Division] finally
took Dong Toan base at 0600 on 1 April 1972. "We killed 350 men of the 4th Battalion of the 147th Brigade and
captured 25 men alive [Vietnamese Marines], including two American advisors."
What happened to Crosby and Westcott? Did they die in the bunker, or were they captured alive as the
Vietnamese state? According to the November 1995 DPMO scrub of this case, no information on the two men
has been turned over unilaterally by the Vietnamese, a JTF-FA survey of the site in 1993 revealed no remains or
much material evidence, and that based on the testimony of Boomer and other hearsay reports indicating the
men died in the bunker, and the lack of any further information, DPMO recommended the case be placed in the
category of No Further Pursuit, which means that no one is actively looking for Crosby and Westcott. How then
can the Vietnamese be said to be cooperating when an officially sanctioned Party document states, indirectly at
least, that the two were captured alive? How is it that the Vietnamese have not alerted the U.S. government to
the information published in an official history of one of their most famous divisions? Further, if Quang was the
commander of MRTTH, of which the 304th Division was a part, and they claim the capture of two Americans in
the same location that two men go missing, how is it he doesn't know anything about it? Like most denials by
Quang, this one should also be met with deeper analysis.
aiipowmia.com
Below is a poem with a picture of a guy going to the mail box on Sarge. That guy is me. Totally shocked to see that.
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