Southern Cross information
for 11 BDE 23 INF
1/20 INF 23 INF

For date 700703


11 BDE 23 INF was a US Army unit
1/20 INF 23 INF was a US Army unit
Primary service involved, US Army
Quang Ngai Province, I Corps, South Vietnam
Location, FSB BRONCO
Description: The following is an edited version of an article titled "It's a junk Army" by SP4 Toby Prodgers 11th INF BDE IO. FSB Bronco - A platoon of soldiers was recently involved in a night combat assault operation and sustained one casualty - a mild case of seasickness. For weeks the 1st Battalion, 20th Infantry of the 11th Infantry Brigade had successfully attempted to clear a highly mobile VC force which was working on the coastline north of Duc Pho. The VC force had been hiding along the Strip and posed a harassing threat to the "Sykes' Regulars" of the 20th Infantry Battalion's pacification operations in the area. Ground sweeps and patrols as well as helicopter airlifts into the beach area, failed to produce any significant results. So the battalion tried a new tactic. Working in conjunction with MACV in Quang Ngai City, two Vietnamese junks were acquired and during the hours of darkness, the reconnaissance platoon boarded the two small, creaking vessels and set sail for the Gaza Strip twenty miles to the south. For three hours, Sykes' Regulars navigated the choppy waters of the south China Sea in the tiny craft. It was during their silent passage on the high seas that SGT Peter Smith, from Orange, Conn., became sick and proved to be more of a soldier than a seaman. In the eight day operation that followed the beach landing, the platoon killed six of the scattered VC force.

The source for this information was 7007_324_scr supplied by Les Hines 12/23/2000


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Last updated 12/23/2000

Date posted on this site: 05/13/2023