The 3rd Platoon was clearing its ambush site when Ruane formed the reaction force. He placed Lieutenant Smith with the lead squad and directed the leader of the 1st Platoon to go through the hedgerows and stay off the trails. In the event of an ambush he was to leave the point element and keep moving. Just after 0400, a Sergeant Iafrate led them out of the base camp. In Van Tuong 1, the 2nd Platoon was learning that a battle in the dark is a rude, confusing affair, marked by rapidly unfolding events and frequent human error. After Williams had reported the attack, he decided to move up on line. He picked up his rifle but could not find his steel helmet or bandolier of ammunition. He grabbed the PRC-25, but it got tangled in rubble. Knowing that the platoon sergeant, Sgt. 1st Class William Jackson, had the platoon’s other set, Williams dropped the radio and dashed off to cover a blind spot between bunkers 3 and 4. As he neared the position, he saw a VC standing on an anthill to the right front of bunker 3 and fired a burst at him on the run. Just before diving into the trench,Williams saw the VC topple backward.

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Shortly afterward, Williams heard the platoon medic yell his name from the CP and saw him hit the ground to avoid an incoming grenade. The medic was near the radio, and Williams yelled for him to call in mortar concentration ‘214.’ The man complied, then dropped the handset and raced to him. The medic was a conscientious objector and carried no weapon or ammunition.

Williams heard his name called again but did not answer for fear of a VC grenade. His silence caused someone to holler, ‘The lieutenant has been hit.’ Williams yelled, ‘I’m OK,’ and as he had predicted, a VC grenade landed 10 feet away. Just then, Spc. 4 Richard A. Green, the platoon radio operator, hollered that gunships were on the way. Green had sought cover in Smith’s bunker when the CP had come under fire, but when he saw no one next to the PRC-25, he sprinted back to the CP, untangled the radio and hustled back to Smith’s bunker. Williams began crawling toward Green to direct the gunships.

The 2nd Platoon needed support. The enemy attack had struck hard, the men on the north end bearing the brunt. Private First Class Carl R. Stovall and Pfc Donald A. Skinner in bunker 8, as well as Pfc John T. Trivette and Pfc Charles Gilmer in bunker 1, were dead. The VC had set up a .30-caliber machine gun and an M-79 in bunker 1. Williams was halfway to Green’s position when the VC machine gun chattered to life. He turned and saw 30 to 40 VC silhouetted in the glow of burning huts and trip flares around the three bunkers north of the position. He saw a VC fire into Trivette and Gilmer’s bunker and then wave his arms and scream, apparently trying to get his men to continue the attack. Williams emptied his rifle at the VC, but doubted that he hit any of them.

The three bunkers on the north side were in VC hands, but two of the Americans there had survived the attack. In bunker 9, Pfc Donald Beck had relieved Rivera and was standing watch in the dark shadow of a tree when a grenade landed three feet to his front. More grenades followed.

Rivera, who was asleep in the ditch, woke when the attack started but was knocked unconscious by a grenade minutes later. As Beck headed for the bunker, he saw Rivera lying still and thought he was dead. There was no time to check. Bursting trip flares revealed a swarm of grenade-throwing VC. A passel of women and children was right behind them. Beck emptied two M-16 magazines at the VC and saw five or more of them go down. He had expended a third magazine when a grenade soared through an opening and knocked him out as he tried to scramble outside.

When he came to, the VC were across the trench and a gang of children was around him, rifling the bunker. Beck said later: ‘I could feel their bare feet step all over me. I thought one was going to mash my nose clean in. He was standing on my face….I knew if I [squirmed] I was a dead man.’

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