Vietnam War/Tet Counteroffensive Campaign (1968)/Battle for Phu Loc
From Month/Year
January / 1968
To Month/Year
January / 1968
Description On the night of January 30 – January 31, the same time the North Vietnamese struck Huế, the Marines faced rocket and mortar fire at the Phú Bài airstrip and Communist infantry units hit Marine Combined Action Platoons and local PF and RF units in the region including the Truoi River and Phu Loc sectors. At the key Truoi River Bridge, about 0400 a North Vietnamese company attacked the South Vietnamese bridge security detachment and the nearby Combined Action Platoon (CAP) H-8. Colonel Hughes ordered Captain G. Ronald Christmas, the Company H commander to relieve the embattled CAP unit. The Marines caught the enemy force beginning to withdraw from the CAP enclave and took it under fire. Seeing an opportunity to trap the North Vietnamese, Cheatham reinforced Company H with his Command Group and Company F.
With his other companies in blocking positions, Cheatham hoped to catch the enemy against the Truoi River. While inflicting casualties, the events in Huế were to interfere with his plans. At 1030, January 31, Company G departed for Phu Bai as the Task Force reserve. Later that afternoon, the battalion lost operational control of Company F. Captain Downs years later remembered the company "disengaged . .. where we had them pinned up against a river, moved to the river and trucked into Phu Bai." With the departure of Company F about 1630, the NVA successfully disengaged and Companies H and E took up night defensive positions. According to the Marines, 2nd Battalion 5th Marines (2/5) killed 18 enemy troops, took 1 prisoner, and recovered sundry equipment and weapons including 6 AK-47s, at a cost of three Marines killed and 13 wounded.
My Participation in This Battle or Operation
From Month/Year
January / 1968
To Month/Year
January / 1968
Last Updated: Mar 16, 2020
Personal Memories
People You Remember Lance Corporal T.R. Ward; Corporal Fowler; Lance Corporal Stokes; Sargent Murphy; Sargent Dudon; Staff Sargent Wescott; Gunnery Sargent Palmer. Cpl. Joe Washington; Sgt. Moyer
Memories Finding this in the "Old Breed News, January-February 2006, edition." ... " We were attacked continually at Phu Loc 6 all the time we were there. We took thirteen direct hits from enemy mortar fire on the FDC bunker during that time. Then one day a helicopter dropped off a counter-mortar radar unit. We had never seen one of these things before, but it was very welcome. We were constantly under fire and we needed all the help we could get, so we set it up right away and the accompanying radar Marines fired it up. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of setting the radar unit up near the FDC. We got a call at about 1000 this one morning from the radar operators letting us know that there were about 45 incoming enemy mortar rounds in the air. We immediately started firing counter fire, and had sixty 81mm mortar rounds in the air flying towards the enemy mortars within a few minutes. Unfortunately, we ended up taking 23 direct hits on the FDC and the radar unit was hit so many times it looked like a sieve! The enemy knew exactly what the radar unit was, and tried to take it out as fast as possible. We got hit really hard, but it was one of the few times when our counter mortar fire accounted for a bunch of secondary explosions."
