A newly minted company commander had to deal with all those things and more in Operation Santa Fe.
In late September 1967 I was called to the battalion headquarters and received orders for an operation named “Santa Fe.” Earlier that month, I had assumed command of C Company, 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade, 9th Infantry Division, when Captain John Ionoff moved to the battalion level to become operations officer. Even though there were other captains available to fill the vacancy at Charlie Company, Lt. Col. Arthur Moreland had put me, a first lieutenant, in charge of the unit.
Ionoff conducted the briefing for Operation Santa Fe in the 2nd Battalion’s headquarters at Bearcat, near the village of Long Thanh in southeastern Vietnam. Also present were the other company commanders, Moreland and representatives from the 1st Brigade, artillery, engineers and Air Force.
Operation Santa Fe was designed to reopen the critically important Highway 1 just north of Saigon, from Xuan Loc to a location near Phan Thiet, and another road leading south from Gia Rai to Ham Tan on the South China Sea. Almost all of the bridges in that region had been destroyed, and the area between Xuan Loc and Phan Thiet had turned into a no man’s land.
Santa Fe called for 1st Brigade to convoy north from Bearcat on Highway 15 to Long Binh, then go northeast on Highway 316 to Highway 1 and head east past Xuan Loc, where we would begin clearing the road. First in the order of march was the 2nd Battalion in M113 armored personnel carriers, followed by engineers with tractor-trailers carting Rome plows—huge armored bulldozers capable of cutting down trees. Then came the artillery (155mm self-propelled howitzers and 105mm towed howitzers). The final units were infantry battalions riding in trucks. Troops from the Army of the Republic of Vietnam and the Royal Australian Regiment would join up later.
Santa Fe was a giant, grinding, slow-motion combined-arms operation lasting almost five months. Guarded by the 2nd Battalion’s APCs, engineers manning the Rome plows pushed the jungle back about 50 yards from the edge of the road so the Viet Cong could not use the brush to stage ambushes or hide mines. In several locations where the jungle was not as thick, C-123 transport planes sprayed Agent Orange to kill vegetation adjacent to the road. (Most of the soldiers in the brigade were repeatedly exposed to the poison.)
While the bulldozers were doing their work, foot patrols from the 2nd Battalion and the nonmechanized infantry battalions searched each side of the highway for the enemy.
The engineers rebuilt bridges as they came to them, repairing existing structures or throwing up prefabricated bridges, known as Bailey bridges, which could be transported easily by trucks and erected quickly.
Wildlife
An especially memorable thing about Operation Santa Fe was the wildlife. Troops said they saw monkeys, huge lizards and tigers. An elephant ran through B Company’s perimeter one night. B Company also captured an 18-foot python, which became its mascot (the soldiers named it “Houston”) and ended up in the Wichita, Kansas, zoo. There were 8-inch scorpions and big spiders. Flocks of parakeets flitted about like sparrows. Among the most unusual animals was the “f— you” lizard. It was about a foot long, red with purple spots, and it had big yellow eyes. Its call sounded amazingly like “f— you!” One such lizard crawled up near an ambush patrol and started yelling. Troops on the ambush started laughing, and the ambush had to move to a different location.
On another occasion, my 1st Platoon shot a wild boar. The men hauled its huge carcass to their camp so they could cook and eat it. They cut off a ham, lit a fire and argued about how to proceed. I told them, over the radio, that they were going to burn the outside of the meat, leaving the inside raw. After thinking a minute, they agreed. They loaded up the rest of the pig and hauled it to a South Vietnamese campsite. The Vietnamese soldiers were glad to get the pig and knew what to do with it: Boil the meat in small chunks to make it edible. The 1st Platoon dined on C rations that night.
Command Problems
I recognized soon after taking command that land navigation was going to be a problem. I was a graduate of the Army Ranger school, so land navigation was second nature to me, but some of my subordinate leaders had received only rudimentary training and were extremely lacking in this basic infantry skill. To verify their location while on patrol, some platoon leaders would call in what they believed to be the coordinates of the spot where they were standing and ask for a marking round—puffs of white phosphorus smoke that were shot from artillery and exploded in the air 100 meters above the requested coordinates. If the marking round did not explode directly overhead, the patrol leader knew he was lost and would use the marking round to get reoriented.
Once, when a patrol called for a marking round, I told the lieutenant he didn’t need one. I was standing atop my APC and asked him to look to his right. When he did, I waved at him. He was right outside our perimeter. After that, I curtailed the use of marking rounds, which forced the troops to improve their map reading and land navigation if they wanted to know where they were.
With more than 100 troops in the field, accidental weapons discharges were sure to occur. On one occasion, a soldier on a night patrol accidentally fired an M79 grenade into the ground right in front of him. The grenade did not explode since it had not gone far enough to arm itself. But the soldier was so spooked that he turned around and ran over the men behind him. Another time, I was sitting near the back ramp of my APC when I heard a loud “crack” and felt the shock wave of a supersonic bullet passing inches from my head. As I looked around, I saw a soldier sitting on a box, and in his lap was a smoking M16 pointed right at my head. The soldier looked to be in a state of shock.
Trying to act calm but hardly able to talk, I told him to remove his weapon’s magazine when inside the perimeter. (Later, during the enemy’s January 1968 Tet Offensive, an accidental burst from a .50-caliber gun almost hit me.)
Some troops engaged in other extremely dangerous actions that put lives at risk. Instead of going to their designated location to conduct ambushes, they would walk just a couple of hundred meters outside the perimeter and hunker down for the night. This caused two problems. First, they didn’t accomplish their mission. Second, they were in danger of being hit by fire from our mortars and artillery. Once, a soldier on the perimeter said he heard noise outside the perimeter and asked permission to fire his M79 grenade launcher. I gave him permission, and he fired. Immediately, the ambush patrol troops, which should have been 2 kilometers away, called to say they were being mortared. Another M79 round was fired, and they said a second mortar round had come in. I told them to return to the perimeter. A 2-kilometer walk through the jungle should have taken most of an hour, but they were back in 15 minutes, proving they had not walked out far enough to reach their assigned destination. We had some serious discussions about that.
Staying Clean
In the field, bathing and cleaning clothes were constant challenges. The Army quartermaster corps owned field shower units, but it must have reserved them for its own use. None ever made it to our battalion. Soldiers who tried to get by without bathing soon faced the excruciating reality of a dirty body in a tropical environment. Those who were not circumcised found that if they did not wash daily, horrible infections grew under their foreskins. Unwashed armpits and crotches burned with red rashes that made working, sitting or walking difficult. A dirty scalp became fertile ground for dandruff, scales, rashes and sores. During the rainy season, feet that were not kept clean and properly dried became afflicted with immersion foot, what World War I doughboys called “trench foot.” Wet skin wrinkled, and the wrinkles broke open and became infected. An infantryman who couldn’t walk was almost useless.
Soldiers learned to solve the hygiene problem in different ways. They were not allowed to take a shower under the spigot of the water trailer because too much water would be wasted, but some soldiers filled their helmets with water from the trailer and took sponge baths. During the rainy season, troops would stand naked in a storm, scrubbing vigorously.
My favorite solution was the Australian shower, a canvas bucket that held about 2 gallons of water. The bucket had a wire handle that could be hung from a tent pole or a tree limb or held by a buddy. A showerhead was attached at the bottom. Loosening the head would allow water to flow. Tightening it would stop the stream. The bather would wet down with one bucketful of water, then apply soap, scrub and fill the bucket again to rinse. The Aussie shower was not issued to U.S. troops, but it could be bought from enterprising Vietnamese and was sometimes shared or handed down from departing buddies. Being in a mechanized unit gave us one luxury other units didn’t have. We could heat a 5-gallon can of water on the exhaust grill of the APC while the engine idled and use it for a warm shower.
The most eagerly anticipated bathing option was a stream, where we could wash our fatigues as well as our bodies. A squad at a time was allowed to go to the creek, set up security and take turns until everyone bathed. Streams did have one disadvantage: We constantly had to pull off cigar-sized leeches while we bathed.
During the dry season, keeping clean became even more difficult. Aussie showers and sponge baths would often simply stir up a muddy mess. And streams dried up, which put even more pressure on water supplies.
Getting a new change of clothes was also a challenge. Every soldier owned at least three sets of fatigues with patches and name tapes sewed on them. But those uniforms only lasted about a week before the knees and seats of the pants were a patina of dirt, sweat, weapons oil, axle grease, insect repellent and C-ration gravy. The armpits of shirts were sweat-ringed and foul.
The Army’s answer to that problem was the bulk-issue uniform. About once a week, a helicopter brought in bundles of clean fatigues in various sizes. The troops shed their soiled uniforms, threw them into piles for a return to the laundry and changed into the clean ones. There were no patches or name tapes on the bulk-issue shirts. If soldiers did not keep their personalized shirts out of the bulk-issue pile headed to the laundry, they might never see them again. That would cause problems back in base camp, because they were not allowed to go to the post exchange unless they had patches and names on their shirts.
Soldiers found out that the only thing underdrawers, T-shirts and socks did was to keep perspiration or a muddy mixture of dust and sweat plastered against their skin. Most troops wore fatigues without any underwear at all. Some wore their jungle boots without socks. When the boots were broken in, they felt like well-worn sneakers.
Bloodsuckers and Bugs
Mosquitoes were a constant irritation. And a nest of red ants could empty an APC in two seconds. But soldiers hated the leeches most of all.
If a soldier sat down for a break in the jungle, he would instantly be aware of inch-long ground leeches rushing toward their intended victims in swarms. They preferred tight spots such as boot tops, armpits, crotches and waistbands. To ward off the intruders, soldiers saturated those places on their boots, trousers and shirts with insect repellent, but that often caused serious skin irritations. Troops also burned the intruders away with lit cigarettes or squirted GI bug juice directly on them.
Rucksacks and Bullets
While on patrol, the soldiers in our mechanized battalion carried less equipment than troops in some units packed. Because we would soon return to our vehicles, there was no need to carry many items, such as extra fatigues or boots. Most patrols did not stay away from the APCs long enough to even need rucksacks.
We did not have a standard method of arranging our web gear—equipment and ammunition attached to a nylon belt and shoulder harness. Most soldiers hooked their field medical dressing on the harness near their left shoulder. Leaders hooked compasses to the right side. They also carried a map, normally wrapped in a plastic radio-battery bag, and a radio codebook. Other items attached to the web belt included two canteens, two ammunition pouches and a big knife. Some soldiers carried rolled-up ponchos tied to the back of their belts, but most put them in rucksacks or left them behind.
When we did carry rucksacks, they were normally a jumble of each soldier’s private stuff, including transistor radios, cameras, letters, writing paper, cough syrup, aspirin and gum or candy. An air mattress was a must. C-ration cans were often stuffed in a sock and tied onto the harness.
Insect repellent was usually stashed behind the camouflage band on the helmet, as were cigarette packs, C-ration spoons or toothbrushes for cleaning weapons. Bandannas or army green cravat bandages were sometimes worn under the steel helmet to soak up sweat, and GI towels were draped around necks for the same purpose. Dog tags and steel helmets were required at all times. No funny hats were allowed, but troops wore them every chance they got.
Much of the weight each man hauled was platoon equipment. Spare radio batteries, extra machine gun ammunition, trip flares and claymore mines were distributed throughout the platoon. The bag the claymore mine came in made an excellent pouch for everything from grenades to ammunition magazines.
Just a few soldiers carried grenades attached to their web gear. Everyone had heard the story of a vine pulling the pin out of a grenade on a guy’s harness. Whether the story was true or not, grenades were handled gingerly. The pins were bent back to make them difficult to pull out. Only four magazines fit in the ammunition pouches, so most troops put things such as hot sauce and cigarettes in the pouches and carried 14 to 21 magazines in bandoliers draped across their shoulders.
Radio-telephone operators, machine gunners and gunners with grenade launchers had it the worst. The radio weighed about 25 pounds, and the extra batteries were heavy, too. The M60 machine gun weighed 23 pounds, not counting all its ammunition. The M79’s grenades were extremely heavy, and there was really no place to carry them except in extra claymore bags. Most troops stuffed in their rucksacks a 100-round box of machine gun ammunition, which they would toss down the line to the guns during a fight.
Christmas and Haircuts
In early December our troops had been in the field continuously nearly four months. While they had become proficient in bathing and getting clean clothes, their hair was starting to be a problem. Several white soldiers almost looked like they had joined the Beatles, and the black soldiers sported fairly big Afros. Colonel Moreland put out the word: Get haircuts.
“But, sir,” I argued, “we have no clippers or trained barbers!”
“You have scissors, don’t you?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then get the troops’ hair shaped up.”
Some troops about to rotate back to the States were looking forward to being civilians and letting their hair continue to grow. They let out loud moans when I told platoon leaders to find scissors and get to cutting.
“Damn, Sir! You’re ruining me!”
“Orders are orders. Get trimmed.”
I even helped cut hair. The troops no longer looked shaggy, but they sure did look butchered.
Following the mission to open the southward road to Ham Tan, C Company was recalled to Highway 1 and sent east toward Phan Thiet to work with an attached engineer company of Rome plows in establishing a base astride the highway. Nothing significant happened there except Christmas. Most of my soldiers had received gift boxes from home, and each donated some of his goodies to be served alongside the turkey and the trimmings the cooks had prepared for the holiday meal. It was a touching moment, each soldier giving something of himself to his brothers. Later, the Headquarters Company’s first sergeant, dressed in a Santa suit, and a “Donut Dolly,” a pretty Red Cross volunteer, flew in to wish us Merry Christmas. That night the troops celebrated by firing flares into the sky and singing “Silent Night.”
Part of the Army’s morale and welfare program was the Bob Hope show, which was scheduled to perform at the Long Binh base during the Christmas season. Each unit received a small number of tickets. As I remember, C Company got about six slots. The first sergeant and I agreed that the tickets should go to our best soldiers, the ones who always got the job done. As we tried to give the tickets away, we were surprised at how many soldiers turned down the chance to go to the rear for a couple of days, eat hot chow, shower, put on clean clothes and watch world-class entertainment.
They would say things like, “Well, you know what a klutz my buddy is. If I’m not here to take care of him, something bad might happen.” Or, “If my buddy can’t go, I’m not going either.” The bond and loyalty our soldiers had for each other was incredible. The soldiers who went to see Bob Hope were some of our newly assigned troops.
Operation Santa Fe Wrap-Up
There are several ways to assess Operation Santa Fe. First, we definitely accomplished our mission of opening Highway 1 from Xuan Loc to Phan Thiet. But at all times, under all conditions, our implied mission was to kill Viet Cong. In this, we were not very successful. As far as I know, only one enemy soldier was killed by our entire battalion during the 4½-month operation. Once when 1st Platoon was on a sweep, three VC suddenly appeared a short distance in front of them. Several of my soldiers were so surprised that they did not fire. The VC were more surprised than our troops and turned to run. Oscar Walton, an Alabama country boy and hunter, was quick on the trigger. He shot one VC trying to escape. We did not know it then, but subsequent information proved that the VC were scrupulously avoiding contact in preparation for the Tet attacks. Even though we had only one confirmed kill, there is no way of knowing how many others died in supporting artillery fires and airstrikes.
Second only to accomplishing our mission was the understanding that we were always to take care of and protect our troops. In this, we were highly successful. While it is true the VC were avoiding us, I believe that our care in preparing night defensive positions, our use of fire support and our competent patrolling techniques kept our troops alive. In all of Operation Santa Fe, the 47th Infantry’s 2nd Battalion lost a total of four soldiers killed in action, one by accident and the others by mines and booby traps. Except for a friendly fire incident, C Company lost none.
Compared with the KIAs in our battalion from September 1967 to January 1968, the number of troops lost in other units during that period is staggering. In the 1st Infantry Division, two companies plus a battalion headquarters element of the 2nd Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, were ambushed on October 17 by 1,400 enemy soldiers. Fifty-eight Americans were killed, two were missing and 75 were wounded. During the battle for Hill 875 near Dak To in November, the 173rd Airborne Brigade’s losses totaled 158 dead, 33 missing and 411 wounded in just four days. In the Mekong Delta during this four-month period, the Mobile Riverine Force of our own 9th Infantry Division suffered more than 150 killed and 1,500 wounded. We were indeed lucky to have served in the 2nd Battalion (Mechanized), 47th Infantry.
Retired Lt. Col. John E. Gross, who commanded C Company of the 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry, September 1967-February 1968, wrote about Operation Santa Fe in his memoir Our Time, published in 2014.
Originally published in the February 2015 issue of Vietnam. To subscribe, click here.
