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Authors: Christopher Robbins
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crashed into the mountain, brought down by either gunfire or pilot error. (A piece of the wreckage bearing the tail number of the plane, 665, was later recovered and hung in the Air America bar in Long Tieng as a war trophy.)
The downing of three Russian biplanes flown by North Vietnamese was too good to keep quiet and was released to the press, although the location was given as Luang Prabang - a story CIA director William Colby stayed with in his 1978 memoirs. [15]
Despite the failed aerial attack it became clear that the North Vietnamese intended to take the Rock regardless of the cost in men or effort. And despite a stream of reliable intelligence over three months reporting enemy plans to attack, the work at the installations was deemed so important, it was decided to leave U.S. personnel in place until the Rock was in immediate danger of being overrun.
With deliberate and deadly intent, the enemy began to build a road from the Communist Pathet Lao capital of Sam Neua toward the base of the mountain. Their actions were interpreted as a plan to knock out the airstrip on completion of the road, bring in artillery, and bombard the mountain in preparation for a massed attack. Raven FAC Art Cornelius first spotted the construction from the air and logged its inexorable progress. CIA ground teams reported thousands of coolies pushing the road toward Phou Pha Thi at the rate of a kilometer a night.
Bombing proved ineffective. The coolies worked at night and merely mended the road where it had been cratered, and day after day the road kept advancing. Marching down with it were three battalions of the 766th Regiment of the North Vietnamese regular army.
The attack began at 6:15 P.M on March 10, 1968. Sappers took the airstrip in the valley while artillery opened up on the southeast side of the Rock, where Thai mercenaries and Meo guerrillas prepared for a long night of bombardment. They were dug in well enough to withstand the heaviest artillery barrage and could easily hold out until daybreak, when T-28 fighters and Raven-directed U.S. aircraft could bomb and strafe the artillery positions. On the peak of the mountain the Air Force personnel crouched in a trench as rockets slammed into the ground around them.
But the enemy did not intend to wait until daybreak. They launched a frontal assault, fighting their way up the defended slopes in hand-to-hand combat. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese commandos attempted the impossible - to scale the sheer side of the mountain and swarm the peak. And somehow they pulled it off.
The Americans were taken by surprise from their undefended rear. Most of them managed to drop down the side of the mountain, lowering themselves on ropes and taking refuge in one of the many grottos which pockmarked the karst. Maj. Stanley Sliz, together with two of his men, slept fitfully in the mouth of one of the grottos. At about 4:15 A.M. they were awakened by gunfire and exploding grenades, and heard strange voices above them.
Sliz and the two airmen crept fifteen yards farther into the grotto, where two more Air Force personnel were already hiding. A sergeant, armed with an M-16 and grenades, kept watch at the entrance. Suddenly he saw six enemy soldiers above him.
‘Wait until they get close enough and shoot them,’ Sliz said. The sergeant opened fire, giving away their position. From then on the group was relentlessly bombarded with hand grenades. As technicians, the men had only the most rudimentary training in combat. With the death of the second airman and the sight of a North Vietnamese soldier atop a rock firing into the position, Sliz resigned himself to death.
‘The boy on my right died almost instantly,’ Sliz said. ‘The boy on my left had a broken leg from a bullet.’ He died in the major’s arms a short time later. ‘There were at least half a dozen grenades tossed in through a small cavernous hole... We had no way of defending against it except when the grenades came bouncing on in
The downing of three Russian biplanes flown by North Vietnamese was too good to keep quiet and was released to the press, although the location was given as Luang Prabang - a story CIA director William Colby stayed with in his 1978 memoirs. [15]
Despite the failed aerial attack it became clear that the North Vietnamese intended to take the Rock regardless of the cost in men or effort. And despite a stream of reliable intelligence over three months reporting enemy plans to attack, the work at the installations was deemed so important, it was decided to leave U.S. personnel in place until the Rock was in immediate danger of being overrun.
With deliberate and deadly intent, the enemy began to build a road from the Communist Pathet Lao capital of Sam Neua toward the base of the mountain. Their actions were interpreted as a plan to knock out the airstrip on completion of the road, bring in artillery, and bombard the mountain in preparation for a massed attack. Raven FAC Art Cornelius first spotted the construction from the air and logged its inexorable progress. CIA ground teams reported thousands of coolies pushing the road toward Phou Pha Thi at the rate of a kilometer a night.
Bombing proved ineffective. The coolies worked at night and merely mended the road where it had been cratered, and day after day the road kept advancing. Marching down with it were three battalions of the 766th Regiment of the North Vietnamese regular army.
The attack began at 6:15 P.M on March 10, 1968. Sappers took the airstrip in the valley while artillery opened up on the southeast side of the Rock, where Thai mercenaries and Meo guerrillas prepared for a long night of bombardment. They were dug in well enough to withstand the heaviest artillery barrage and could easily hold out until daybreak, when T-28 fighters and Raven-directed U.S. aircraft could bomb and strafe the artillery positions. On the peak of the mountain the Air Force personnel crouched in a trench as rockets slammed into the ground around them.
But the enemy did not intend to wait until daybreak. They launched a frontal assault, fighting their way up the defended slopes in hand-to-hand combat. Meanwhile, North Vietnamese commandos attempted the impossible - to scale the sheer side of the mountain and swarm the peak. And somehow they pulled it off.
The Americans were taken by surprise from their undefended rear. Most of them managed to drop down the side of the mountain, lowering themselves on ropes and taking refuge in one of the many grottos which pockmarked the karst. Maj. Stanley Sliz, together with two of his men, slept fitfully in the mouth of one of the grottos. At about 4:15 A.M. they were awakened by gunfire and exploding grenades, and heard strange voices above them.
Sliz and the two airmen crept fifteen yards farther into the grotto, where two more Air Force personnel were already hiding. A sergeant, armed with an M-16 and grenades, kept watch at the entrance. Suddenly he saw six enemy soldiers above him.
‘Wait until they get close enough and shoot them,’ Sliz said. The sergeant opened fire, giving away their position. From then on the group was relentlessly bombarded with hand grenades. As technicians, the men had only the most rudimentary training in combat. With the death of the second airman and the sight of a North Vietnamese soldier atop a rock firing into the position, Sliz resigned himself to death.
‘The boy on my right died almost instantly,’ Sliz said. ‘The boy on my left had a broken leg from a bullet.’ He died in the major’s arms a short time later. ‘There were at least half a dozen grenades tossed in through a small cavernous hole... We had no way of defending against it except when the grenades came bouncing on in
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