Smaldone’s company linked up with a platoon of M-113 armored personnel carriers (APCs, or tracks) from the 17th Cavalry. The infantrymen loaded onto 2 1/2-ton (’deuce-and-a-half’) trucks and the cavalry onto APCs for the short drive. At 0800 hours they started their movement down Highway 4, straight from Binh Chanh to Saigon. Two APCs led the column, two were wedged into the middle and two brought up the rear. Immediately overhead, Major MacGill guided the column in an observation helicopter.

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Smaldone’s column rumbled uneventfully for about an hour until it reached the outskirts of Cholon, where the GIs could see evidence of fighting. ‘As we got into the outskirts, we started passing bodies along the road,’ a cavalry gunner remembered. ‘You’d see a smashed moped, and a Vietnamese would be laying there shot up. They might have been civilians or ARVN returning to their units-or running away.’

This sight was grim enough, but soon they saw the sprawled remains of Americans, blood still trickling from multiple gunshot wounds, flies buzzing around them. Hovering overhead, MacGill studied the grisly spectacle: ‘They were in khakis and had obviously been going into Tan Son Nhut or another duty station…in Cholon. They had just been slaughtered in their jeeps.’

The Cotton Balers and their cavalry comrades kept pushing deeper into Cholon. Buildings, most of them wooden two-story structures, flanked either side of the road. Small numbers of VC began shooting from the rooftops. The cavalrymen opened fire on them with a 106mm recoilless rifle mounted on one of the tracks. The rounds served to drive off the VC. The column continued for a few more blocks.

When they were within six blocks of the racetrack, an enemy soldier fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the convoy. Like an out-of-control Fourth of July rocket, the RPG round streaked ominously through the air and smashed into the lead APC. The front of the APC exploded, showering sparks and debris everywhere. The cavalry platoon leader and two other men were killed instantly. A split second later, a cacophony of enemy small-arms fire broke out. The enemy seemed to be everywhere. The shooting came from both sides of the street, straight down onto the Americans.

Immediately the GIs sprang into action. The cavalrymen returned fire with their 106mm and machine guns. Smaldone’s infantry scrambled off the trucks and raced into the buildings. Others took cover behind the APCs andreturned fire as best they could. They went through ammo magazines in a flash, firing on full automatic.

After the first few bewildering moments of the firefight, when enemy rounds ricocheted off the street and APC treads, the battle settled down into a routine. Smaldone took charge and began methodically working his men through the buildings. He knew the area well from an earlier tour of duty. His infantry worked closely with the APC troops. The tracks blasted away with the 106mm, while the infantry laid down a base of fire on the rooftops. Enemy soldiers went down or fled. Shards of wood, glass and tin sprayed all over the place. Empty casings from machine guns and rifles jangled on the street. MacGill designated targets for the helicopter gunships hovering in the area, which added their immense firepower to the hellish scene.

Inside the buildings, the Cotton Balers used C4 plastic explosive to blast holes in the interior walls so they could advance from building to building without endagering themselves in the open. At close range, the soldiers shot any VC they saw. The whole area smelled of cordite, urine, rotten fish and recent death. Several times the Americans held their fire as frightened, fleeing civilians ran past them on the street. Other civilians got killed in the cross-fire.

In more than two hours, the grunts and their cavalry support slowly advanced five blocks, and by 1300 they were only a block away from the racetrack. They could see their objective, but the Communist resistance was getting stiffer. The VC, lying prone behind and under the concrete benches of the track, sprayed the area with automatic-weapons fire. Several machine- gunners added their own deadly fire from a building that covered every approach to the racetrack. The Americans withdrew into buildings opposite the track.

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