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Company Roster - April 1967

Summary April 1967

 

1st Sergeant Phillip C. Miller What's in the bottle, Top?

Click on Photo to See Larger Version Courtesy Richard Bratton

The first day of April 1967 marked the last day of C Company's participation in Operation Pershing for a while. The company, with the rest of the 2/5 Cav, left the coastal region and returned to the 1^st Cav base camp at An Khe for a stand-down to be followed by security operations in the highlands around Camp Radcliffe. These plans were soon to be changed.

Due to increasing communist activity in Northern Quang Tri Province near the DMZ, the Marines had been forced to move resources out of coastal Quang Ngai Province just north of the Bong Son Plains. This created a situation in which many of the VC and NVA who had been forced out of eastern Binh Dinh Province by the 1^st Cav's Operation Pershing were able to move fairly safely into the area around the Marines' base at Duc Pho. In fact, it was estimated that 90% of the land area and population of Quang Ngai Province was communist controlled; the Marines held only the area immediately around Duc Pho.  Obviously help was needed and on April 6 MACV selected the 1^st Cavalry Division to send it.

Relieved of their assignment at An Khe,  C Company and the rest of the 2/5 Cav were airlifted into LZ English on April 7 and then made an air assault thirty-five kilometers north to Duc Pho to initiate Operation Lejeune.  C Company and the Battalion CP established a base at an old abandoned French dirt airstrip which was then named LZ Frenchy. The company spent the next twelve days helping to provide security for the LZ and for units of the 39^th Engineer Battalion and at the same time performing search and destroy operations around some of the hamlets of the coastal rice-growing area. The company suffered casualties from boobytraps during this period.

The Battalion's participation in Operation Lejeune ended on April 19 and on that day C Company returned south to LZ Uplift in eastern Binh Dinh Province. The balance of the month was spent with the four companies of the Second Battalion, again part of Operation Pershing, searching for the enemy but having little contact in the flatlands near Dam Tra O and south of LZ Uplift.

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April 2

While in An Khe, the company pauses to mourn those killed at Phu Ninh in March.  The bulletin of the Memorial Service shown at the right lists the names of the KIA.	Click on photo to see larger version Courtesy Tom Rutten
	The cover of the Memorial Service Bulletin

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April 12

From pp 21, "Operation LeJeune, 6-22 April 1967"

"Unfortunately not all of the enemy booby traps were discovered and unarmed. On the 12th of April C 2/5 lost two men killed and two wounded from a mine made of a 155mm artillery white phosphorus round. That same day two men and a scout dog of D, 2/5 were killed two and a half kilometers southeast of Duc Pho when a booby trapped 105mm or 155mm howitzer round was accidentally tripped. On the 14th the 2/5 Cav found and destroyed eleven booby traps. None of these traps or mines seemed in any way visibly marked, and a check with the US District Advisor revealed that probably no markings were ever used because the area was generally VC controlled before the brigade's arrival. There was no need to mark the traps as a a warning to the civilians, The VC reasoned that as long as they were in control, the sympathy of the peasants was immaterial."

At present, we are trying to determine who these two KIA may have been.  The four 1^st Cav casualties on that day were:  

• Colburn Brown
• Michael J Kotulla
• Nicholas Krimont and,
• Donald V Lawson Jr

Anyone having information, please contact the webmaster.

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April - Exact Date Unknown

Right - SP4 Hastings, machine gunner with 1st Platoon (Identification by Larry Evans)   Far Right - SP4 Robert Oliver, Forward Observer from the Mortar Platoon attached to 1st Squad, 1st Platoon

Click on Photo to See Larger Version Courtesy Richard Bratton

Click on Photo to See Larger Version Courtesy Larry Evans

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Updated June 16, 2007