Battle of FSB Mole City information
for 25 AVN 25 INF
4/9 INF 25 INF
For date 681222
25 AVN 25 INF was a US Army unit
4/9 INF 25 INF was a US Army unit
Primary service involved, US Army
Operation TOAN THANG II
Tay Ninh Province, III Corps, South Vietnam
Location, FSB MOLE CITY
Description: This is my version of the Mole City Battle, 22 Dec 1968, posted earlier from a grunt, John Senka, who was a 4/9th Infantry Manchu. Let me say, this had to be the bloodiest wildest night in my life. The .51's were so thick I was afraid to breathe for fear of inhaling one. They said 109 dead NVA, they must have drug over twice that away. They were finding bodies for days after the battle. If any body wants one, I have an aerial picture of Mole City.
"Mole City-A Perspective" by Ron Leonard, a Huey CE with the 25th Aviation Battalion.
Since Thanksgiving 1968 our whole AO had started seeing enemy activity on a slowly escalating scale. The doldrums of TET were over. Charlie seems to have his wounds licked and healed from the butt kicking he endured during the TET offensive. From his Cambodian sanctuaries another round of attacks are about to begin.
For weeks the tenseness in the air had been building and could be cut with a knife. Charlie had refused to commit large numbers of troops to the fight, just an ambush here and there mostly of platoon-sized action. This was aggravating the higher ups at the 15th Infantry Division and in Washington D.C. The body counts were slipping and something had to be done. With this in mind they developed a new strategy "The Patrol Base".
The principal of the "Patrol Base" was to establish a very small Fire Support Base right under the VC and the NVA's nose. To this end, "Patrol Base Mole City" would be the first in a series of these bait and trap operations.
It was tiny, barely 100 yards across in any direction. Circular in nature and positioned but a couple of clicks from the Cambodian border it would prove to be the ultimate lure. It would have a defending force of 500 men made up of three companies of the 4/9th "Manchu's". It was equipped with two 105 howitzers, a prefabricated tower that was flown in by Chinook helicopter on the morning of 22 Dec 68 along with engineers, and bulldozers to construct the perimeter berm. The men of Manchu who would dig the bunkers spaced about 20 yards apart and deep connecting trenches to act as fighting positions. The bunkers consisted of deep holes covered with PCP steel and a layer or two of sandbags on top to shield any direct hits. Needless to say there was a sense of urgency. It must be completed before nightfall. If not, Charlie would have a field day with the unprotected troopers.
By nightfall the concertina wire had been strung, the claymore mines set, sensors were put in the tree line 200 yards from the perimeter, fields of fire established, listening posts had been dispatched to the northeast and southeast, and the artillery had set their coordinates on the tree lines. They were ready. They had no idea what they were about to get into.
The Manchu's themselves had had a hard month. Around Thanksgiving they had lost 2/3 of their experienced troopers in one all night firefight south of Trang Bang. The units were now made up of FNG's. Virgins to combat, it would prove to be for many their last night on this earth.
This sets the stage for the unraveling of events that will be forever etched on my brain. This battle would prove costly for the NVA/VC. It was also very costly for the heroic men of Manchu and many more. They would still be paying for this battle 35 years later.
In the "Diamondhead" [25th Aviation Battalion] scramble shack you could sense something big was up. No one was saying anything, but with the rumblings in the company area, the franticness of the maintenance crews in the hanger trying to get another fire team flyable, the flare ship put on three-minute standby at 6 p.m. - you knew. We had all seen it before. Inside the scramble shack we were doing our usual thing, watching the 11:30 TV program "Gunsmoke" and still trying to figure out if Matt Dillon flinches when he draws his gun in the opening scene of the program. Some of the crew was playing cards, and the gunners were asleep, all of us waiting for the phone to ring. The signal that the mission had started. It was a long restless night. At 0020 the phone rang. We all sprang into action and raced to the ships. The last pilot answered the phone and got the radio pushes and XT coordinates.
As I got to the ship I untied it's blade, gave the clear signal and the pilot hit the starter. You could hear the Whining of the turbine as it started spinning. You could hear the Tic! Tic! Tic! Of the igniters searching for fuel then the Whoosh of ignition of the fuel. As the RPM's increased you could hear the methodical singing of the blades as they gained momentum searching for 6600 RPM. The gunners and crewchiefs are mounting their guns, and getting into their protective chicken plates. The last pilot shows up and gets in. It is time to Rock and Roll.
"Ch Chi Tower, Cu Chi Tower this is Diamondhead Fire Team on The Beach scramble", the team leader Hayne Moore broadcasts. "We are enroute XT2430." "Be advised heavy arty in the area" breaks in the tower. "You are clear to the south. Contact Hoc Mon Arty" for approach to the area. Moments later we hover out of the revetment and head south down the runway. The heavily loaded gun ships, frantically clawing at the air for transitional lift. Soon we are on the way into the cool night. We gain altitude steadily up to 1500 feet and level off. It is but a short flight of 15 minutes to Mole City. In the distance you could already see the eerie glow of the parachute flares fired by Artillery howitzers from somewhere in the Vietnamese night, and the occasional ricochet of a .51 cal tracer high into the night sky. I thought to myself, "damn not them f#$@ing .51's again. I hate those things." If you got hit in the chicken plate it wouldn't even slow it down. It would make a thumb size hole going in and take out the whole back of your chicken plate exiting. If you got hit in the hand it could just rip off your whole arm.
As we got closer Hayne Moore is back on the radio contacting the ground commander. "Recast Uniform One Four, this is Diamondhead 10 Light fire Team, please advise situation", ETA 5 minutes. "Roger Diamondhead 10. We are getting the s#@% kicked out of us. We are surrounded and I don't know how many there are but they are everywhere, and we are in danger of being over run. We have them in the wire and on the north/south sides they are in the open. We are taking .51 fires along with RPG, recoilless rifle, and automatic weapons. Be advised we have two LP's out one to the southeast about 200 yards in the tree line, and one to the northwest about the same."
"Roger Recast Uniform One Four." "Diamondhead 10 this is Issue 15 (the Forward Air Controller). I have a flight of two F-104's inbound ETA 10 minutes. Suggest you make your runs east to west and stand off to the north while he drops these hot potatoes. Be advised the .51's to the south have been after me all night." "Roger Issue 15. Can you fire up a Willy Pete to get us started?" "That's affirmative."
As we neared station, we could make out the automatic weapons fire. It was ferocious, red tracers going out, white and green tracers going in towards the perimeter. The night was hazy with all the smoke and dust in the air from impacting ordinance of the friendly artillery and rockets and mortars from the NVA. The haze from the flares made it a surrealistic vision. As we orbited the battlefield Issue 15 punched off a set of Willy Petes to mark one .51 cal, as he was making his run the .51's came up to meet him.
"Diamondhead 10 this is Issue 15 you roger the smoke?" "That's affirmative. We are rolling in now." As we started our first run, I was in the lead ship with Larry King. As soon as we started down and punched off one set of rockets, here came the damn .51's. They just whizzed by inches from their mark. My gunner and I hosed the position the best we could with the M-60 machine guns in the doors. Hayne Moore flying just to our right and below us told us to break left, we did sharply and he proceeded to fly under us and right down the muzzle of the .51. We never heard from that .51 again. As we broke left we were over the open area to the south and there were so many NVA it looked like a bunch of ants attacking a picnic. I don't care where I shot the M-60 I couldn't miss. There were too many of them. As we circled around and made another pass we expended all thirty-six rockets and 2000 rounds of M-60 door gun ammo from each gun in the open area. Just as we pulled out the fast movers armed with Nape and Rape showed up and we bolted to Tay Ninh to rearm and refuel. We called ahead to Tay Ninh POL and had them make up all the fleshette warheads they had. We were going to need them tonight. We were cleared straight in to POL and refueled, topping off the tank and hovered over to the rearm point. There we loaded up 36 fleshettes and 4000 rounds of door gun ammo. Everyone, pilots, gunners, and crewchiefs, all humping rockets and the POL guys helping also. We were in and out in a flash. Returning to the location, the pilots decided to split the fire team. There were too many targets, and they needed suppression on the entire perimeter. As we arrived on station the Fast movers were gone, but another flight was inbound. Two Spookies had been scrambled from Tan Son Nhut and would be along in 15 minutes or so. This was to be the pattern for the night rotating with the Air Force F-104's and Spookies. We settled on the south side and Hayne took the north. Then we got down and dirty. We put the fleshettes in the wire and in places inside the wire. We constantly took small arms and .51 cal fire . The Manchu's were in a battle for their lives. The Manhcu's had lowered the 105's to chest high and were shooting beehive rounds point blank. This was the scenario until 4:15 in the morning. Rearm, refuel return to the perimeter of Mole City. At 4:15 we spotted 50 to 60 NVA southeast of the friendlies trying to escape back toward Cambodia. We rolled in with the rockets and door guns and did considerable damage. We orbited the area after expending our rockets and door gun ammo. The C & C ships door gunners took over while we returned once again to Tay Ninh to rearm and refuel. It was about a 20-minute turn around.
At daybreak contact was lost and we flew around the pattern and inventoried the damage it was a sobering sight. The fleshettes had nailed NVA to the posts in the wire, to trees and anything else including the ground. Bodies were strewn everywhere, what seemed to be hundreds of them scattered about with a multitude of weapons both personal and crew served. The napalm had fried many alive.
We remained on station until the wounded had been removed, and provided cover for the Dustoffs. When it was all done, we had been in continuous action for six hours. We played a decided role in the outcome of the battle for Patrol Base Mole City. It will be hard to ever forget. The battle claimed 106 NVA lives from the 272nd NVA regiment, 9th NVA Division. The Manchu's had been hit with the full force of a 1500 man NVA regiment. Out manned three to one they put up a hell of a fight.
The source for this information was Ron Leonard email to the VHPA
Additional information is available on CD-ROM.
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Last updated
11/27/2001
Date posted on this site:
05/13/2023