Read Online The Magnificent Bastards by Keith Nolan - Free Book Online
Authors: Keith Nolan
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have to put the credit right at the top. I witnessed this extraordinary evolution of a battalion that was on its ass in proficiency, morale, esprit, and discipline—the four indicators of leadership—as Weise turned it into probably the finest fighting outfit in Vietnam.”
Weise’s tactical right-hand man was his S3, Major Warren, a positive and personable Marine who was “gung-ho in a clean-cut sort of way.” Prematurely graying at thirty-five, Fritz Warren was one of fourteen children from a low-income Catholic family in Jacksonville, Florida. He had come to the Marine Corps via Parris Island at seventeen, after dropping out of high school and forging his parents’ names to the enlistment papers in a patriotic flush at the beginning of the Korean War. He never made it to Korea, but he did make sergeant and earn an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Warren graduated in the Class of 1957; one of his early assignments was as Wild Bill’s exec during the gung-ho F/2/1 days. They impressed each other enough that when they next crossed paths in December 1967, when Warren was assistant S3 of SLF Alpha and assisting 2/4’s conversion to BLT status, Weise instantly asked him to come aboard when his six months of shipboard staff duty were up. The S3 Weise had inherited from Operation Kingfisher was too inexperienced. Warren was the only officer Weise asked for by name and was able to get. “Warren was an unusually talented operations officer,” Weise wrote. “He could keep a dozen balls in the air and react swiftly to the changing tides of combat. A man of very high morals, he was also very brave.”
Because he did not join BLT 2/4 until 19 February 1968, Major Warren missed the battalion’s first two landings. Operations Ballistic Armor and Fortress Attack (22-31 January 1968) were fallow affairs, however, with only five friendly injuries and a dozen confirmed or probable kills. During the Tet Offensive in February, BLT 2/4 was opcon to the 4th Marines on Operation Lancaster II north of Camp Carroll. There it started running into NVA platoons, and during the month lost ten dead and ninety-eight wounded against thirty-five confirmed kills.
The tempo picked up again when BLT 2/4 was placed under the operational control of Colonel Hull’s 3d Marines during Operation Napoleon/Saline. The battalion replaced BLT 3/1 in Mai Xa Chanh West on 5 March. The NVA response wasimmediate. That night, a mortar and rocket barrage preceded a ground attack that was repulsed with only two Marines seriously wounded. The enemy left behind thirteen bodies. The battalion followed up with a series of successful assaults to clear and reclear the evacuated hamlets above the Cua Viet River on berth sides of Jones Creek.
The number of enemy they killed was impressive, at least until BLT 2/4 hit Lam Xuan East on 12 March. Weise described the engagement as “a fiasco from the start,” and wrote that “Foxtrot was sucked into a preplanned meatgrinder when the point squad chased a few NVA, who had deliberately exposed themselves, into a carefully-prepared fortified ambush.” The NVA held their fire until the Marines were so close that they could not employ supporting arms. “The forward platoon was chewed up trying to extract the point squad, and soon the entire company was involved,” wrote Weise. Eighteen Marines were killed. Golf Company was sent to relieve the pressure, as were elements of Echo and two tanks. The BLT’s attached recon platoon recovered the wounded, while Weise made the decision to break contact and regroup. The dead were left in the ville. “I hated to leave those bodies, even temporarily. It went against everything that Marines stood for, but I couldn’t see killing more of my Marines to pull back Marines who were already dead.”
Following prep fires, Hotel Company provided a feint and then a base of fire from the south, while Echo boarded amtracs to attack from the west across Jones Creek on
Weise’s tactical right-hand man was his S3, Major Warren, a positive and personable Marine who was “gung-ho in a clean-cut sort of way.” Prematurely graying at thirty-five, Fritz Warren was one of fourteen children from a low-income Catholic family in Jacksonville, Florida. He had come to the Marine Corps via Parris Island at seventeen, after dropping out of high school and forging his parents’ names to the enlistment papers in a patriotic flush at the beginning of the Korean War. He never made it to Korea, but he did make sergeant and earn an appointment to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland.
Warren graduated in the Class of 1957; one of his early assignments was as Wild Bill’s exec during the gung-ho F/2/1 days. They impressed each other enough that when they next crossed paths in December 1967, when Warren was assistant S3 of SLF Alpha and assisting 2/4’s conversion to BLT status, Weise instantly asked him to come aboard when his six months of shipboard staff duty were up. The S3 Weise had inherited from Operation Kingfisher was too inexperienced. Warren was the only officer Weise asked for by name and was able to get. “Warren was an unusually talented operations officer,” Weise wrote. “He could keep a dozen balls in the air and react swiftly to the changing tides of combat. A man of very high morals, he was also very brave.”
Because he did not join BLT 2/4 until 19 February 1968, Major Warren missed the battalion’s first two landings. Operations Ballistic Armor and Fortress Attack (22-31 January 1968) were fallow affairs, however, with only five friendly injuries and a dozen confirmed or probable kills. During the Tet Offensive in February, BLT 2/4 was opcon to the 4th Marines on Operation Lancaster II north of Camp Carroll. There it started running into NVA platoons, and during the month lost ten dead and ninety-eight wounded against thirty-five confirmed kills.
The tempo picked up again when BLT 2/4 was placed under the operational control of Colonel Hull’s 3d Marines during Operation Napoleon/Saline. The battalion replaced BLT 3/1 in Mai Xa Chanh West on 5 March. The NVA response wasimmediate. That night, a mortar and rocket barrage preceded a ground attack that was repulsed with only two Marines seriously wounded. The enemy left behind thirteen bodies. The battalion followed up with a series of successful assaults to clear and reclear the evacuated hamlets above the Cua Viet River on berth sides of Jones Creek.
The number of enemy they killed was impressive, at least until BLT 2/4 hit Lam Xuan East on 12 March. Weise described the engagement as “a fiasco from the start,” and wrote that “Foxtrot was sucked into a preplanned meatgrinder when the point squad chased a few NVA, who had deliberately exposed themselves, into a carefully-prepared fortified ambush.” The NVA held their fire until the Marines were so close that they could not employ supporting arms. “The forward platoon was chewed up trying to extract the point squad, and soon the entire company was involved,” wrote Weise. Eighteen Marines were killed. Golf Company was sent to relieve the pressure, as were elements of Echo and two tanks. The BLT’s attached recon platoon recovered the wounded, while Weise made the decision to break contact and regroup. The dead were left in the ville. “I hated to leave those bodies, even temporarily. It went against everything that Marines stood for, but I couldn’t see killing more of my Marines to pull back Marines who were already dead.”
Following prep fires, Hotel Company provided a feint and then a base of fire from the south, while Echo boarded amtracs to attack from the west across Jones Creek on
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