Ordered to Vietnam
by W. Michael McMunn (1996, 2003)
"They were young and did not leave much behind them and need
someone to remember them."
by Norman Maclean ["Young Men & Fire"]
In the 1960s the quiet rolling hills and fertile farmlands of
North Central Pennsylvania were worlds apart from the jutting
mountains and steaming forests and jungles of Central South
Vietnam. While Pennsylvania forests and farms teemed with
white-tailed deer, grouse and turkey, the jungles of Vietnam were
teeming with hordes of North Vietnamese soldiers. Fresh off the
supply route known as the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the North Vietnamese
were intent on overthrowing the government of South Vietnam. They
also wanted to inflict heavy casualties on the military forces
whom the United States were sending halfway around the globe to
prevent such an overthrow.
The details of how America got itself so deeply involved in the
deadly and controversial struggle in Southeast Asia will be left
to historians and to political and military analysts. We can
honestly say that no military action in American history, except
the Civil War, has caused as much domestic turmoil. None have
caused Americans to look at a war, not so much as a fight against
Communism in a small foreign country, but as a class struggle
here in the United States.
This is the true story of two men and of two valleys: one, a
valley of life and the other a valley of death. It was there, in
those two places, that life began and life ended for two young
men.
Benton, Pennsylvania is a small, quiet, rural community lying
north of Bloomsburg. The borough nestles in a beautiful valley
formed by Big Fishing Creek, a winding and popular trout stream.
One long, straight and narrow main street runs through the
village passing Horace Harrison's IGA Super Market, C.A. Edison
Sons Hardware and the Benton Hotel. Down at the intersection,
right near the town swimming hole, is the Benton Roller Mills.
Just to the east of the borough, in adjoining Luzerne County,
lies Huntington Township, an area marked by forest and field.
Continuing south on State Route 487 for about two miles, a
traveler comes to Stillwater, a yet smaller community with a most
picturesque name. The valley becomes flatter at Stillwater and,
as in other parts of Columbia County, the landscape is dominated
by farms, fields, rising forested hillsides and large,
architecturally significant barns. When one is driving through
the borough it flashes by so quickly that the traveler does not
realize exactly where the business district is, but upon
consideration it must be down there close to Kline's Garage. A
traveler would easily miss Stillwater completely if it were not
for the blue and yellow plaques noting its corporate limits.
Stillwater. The name fits the community. It is populated by
families who have made farming their lifelong careers. Many farms
have stayed in the same families for generations. Raising dairy
cows, horses and other farm stock is the only way of life many
have ever known. Plowing the fields, planting corn, alfalfa,
clover and timothy, mowing hay and reaping the harvest are
seasonal rites replayed on these same fields for a hundred years
or more. Too much rain, droughts that last far too long, foraging
insects and plant and animal diseases are everyday concerns that
breed into these families a resiliency not found in all men and
women.
As it does in other parts of the country a different rite occurs
every autumn in this part of Pennsylvania. After the celebration
of the Labor Day holiday the days become shorter and school
begins. Now the halls of the old, two-story Benton High School
come alive with the sound of returning students and teachers. The
Benton Tigers have already begun football practice and await the
first game of the season. Students again become accustomed to the
daily routine of rising early, waiting in the cool air for the
school bus, attending classes, playing in the large park across
the street from the school and later, returning to their homes
and the waiting chores. Life was much the same for the students
who attended Northwest Area High School and Bloomsburg High
School in the neighboring districts. Those districts, too, drew
most of their pupils from the rural environs of Columbia and
Luzerne Counties.
As autumn wanes the time honored and, in these regions it can be
said, hallowed tradition of hunting takes center stage. Most boys
learn the use of rifles at an early age and they soon become a
part of the tradition. It is here, in these hills and fields,
that hunters come from near and far to hunt black bear, pheasant,
grouse and small game such as rabbits and squirrels. In the weeks
following Thanksgiving Day they return to the woods to hunt the
elusive white-tailed deer. Deer thrive in these forests of
hemlock, oak and mountain laurel and often feed on the corn
planted for silage, thus becoming a quick enemy of the farmer.
Here hunting is such an institution that schools are routinely
closed on the first day of buck season and often for the first
day of doe season. Even union labor contracts recognize the day
as a "holiday." Gunfire echoes through the hills around Benton
and Stillwater when deer season opens and the hunters attempt to
bag a trophy buck. If the hunt is successful, the antlers of the
trophy are likely to be mounted on a wooden plaque and hung in
the den or nailed to the side of the barn or hunting cabin.
In more peaceful times the young men and women, who grew up in
small communities like Benton, Orangeville, Huntington Township
and Stillwater, could be expected to pursue their dreams
unaffected by the troubles in other parts of the globe. Many
would be content to stay on the farm and continue the family
business. Others would go on to college, perhaps enrolling at the
nearby Bloomsburg State College and living at home to hold down
expenses. Still others might travel to Williamsport to enter the
Williamsport Technical Institute to learn a trade as did many of
their fathers after returning from World War II and Korea.
Bloomsburg State was a teacher's college in the years before 1975
and some high school graduates pursued a teaching career. Others
would follow their fathers and find work at the Benton Foundry,
the Wise Potato Chip plant in Berwick or at the Magee Carpet
Company in Bloomsburg. The young women of these communities, who
did not pursue a college degree, were more than likely content to
marry and begin raising a family.
Nevertheless, in the 1960s things were different. After nearly
ten years of escalating economic, political and military
involvement in the southeast Asian country of South Vietnam the
United States now found itself in a shooting war. Increasing
numbers of young Americans were dying and the nation needed young
men to fill the ranks of the military. For many young men the
call to military service came somewhat naturally: these were the
sons of men who had served their country during World War II or
in Korea and, for many fathers and sons, entering the military
and going to war was an accepted rite of passage. Ralph Brown's
father, for example, had spent forty-four months in the South
Pacific during World War II. Donald Crane's older brother Ray had
just served out a three-year enlistment in the Army's Engineer
Corps. For some an enlistment in the military service was perhaps
their only opportunity to escape the prospect of an immediate
future tied to the farm, foundry or factory. For others the call
came involuntarily as in the form of that infamous "Greetings"
letter from the local draft board.
The men sent to Vietnam from the United States were roughly
one-third draftees, one-third draft-motivated volunteers and
one-third true volunteers. In the early phase of the war most of
the soldiers who went to Vietnam were enlistees or those who were
making a career of the military. Following World War II and the
Korean War Americans had largely grown up with, and accepted, the
idea of compulsory military service and the peacetime draft.
Congress had renewed the Universal Military Training and Service
Act, adopted in 1951, every four years. From 1954 to 1964 draft
calls averaged about 10,000 men per month. The Selective Service
System was drafting all men classified as available for immediate
induction (1A). In those years when called by the Selective
Service young men served. As the "baby boom" generation was
reaching maturity in 1964, the Department of Defense was
considering the elimination of the draft. Then came Vietnam.
Donald Ellis Crane was born September 29, 1941 at Hunlock Creek,
Pennsylvania. One of 15 children (seven brothers and seven
sisters) Donald Crane spent most of his life in the Hunlock Creek
and Huntington Township area. Donald grew up in poverty. His
father, Walter, was a hard-coal miner, a lumberman and a factory
worker during different times of his life. He made little money
and thus the family usually lived from hand to mouth. Of course,
with such a large family Donald's mother, Erma, stayed at home
and with the help of the older children tended to the younger
children.
After living in different areas of Luzerne County, Donald spent
most of his teenage years living near the village of Waterton.
The old wood-framed two-story house was situated on a small plot
of ground off a dirt road. It did not have the luxuries of
running water, central heat or indoor plumbing. The Cranes
obtained water for use in cooking, for the laundry and for
bathing from an outside pump.
Donald graduated in the class of 1960 from the Northwest Area
Joint High School. In the school yearbook, "The
Norwester", they remember him as "a quiet lad with a
pleasing personality." In several interviews the adjective
"quiet" was time and again used to describe this unassuming young
man. The yearbook also mentioned that his favorite class was
English, that part of his time was spent working on a farm and
"to be a bachelor is his aim." He was a member of the Future
Farmers of America in his sophomore and junior years. Donald
continued to work on a farm and worked at farming before he went
into the service. The Post family employed him on the farm across
the road from his home.
According to his brother Ray, Donald's favorite things centered
around a simple life: country music, fishing and a love of the
outdoors. Ray remembered the family growing up listening to the
"Grand Ol' Opry" and the "Country Music
Jubilee" on the radio. The many streams and the
Susquehanna River provided unlimited opportunities for Donald to
indulge in fishing. Working on nearby farms fulfilled Donald's
love of the outdoors.
The yearbook states that baseball was his ideal sport. We see a
handsome, smiling young man with an athletic physique in a
photograph of the "Rangers" intramural softball
team. He does not appear in any pictures of the baseball team.
Due to the distance he lived from the school and his other work
he was probably unable to play varsity baseball.
On January 16, 1964, he entered the United States Army as a
draftee. The Army sent him to basic combat training at Fort
Jackson a sprawling, eighty-two square-mile training center
outside Columbia, South Carolina. At Fort Jackson (and at other
basic combat training centers) an eight-week metamorphosis takes
place where a civilian becomes a soldier. Amid the sand and pine
trees of Fort Jackson and assigned to Company B, 1st
Battalion, 1st Brigade Donald and the other young
recruits learned their general orders, memorized the chain of
command and received indoctrination into the Uniform Code of
Military Justice. In the barracks area of Tank Hill they learned
discipline, pulled their first days of KP, spent nighttime hours
on "firewatch", conditioned their bodies with miles of running
and hours of the "Daily Dozen" physical training regimen, and
learned to spit shine footwear and polish belt buckles and brass.
During the cool Southern winter days they marched out to the many
firing ranges to learn to qualify with M-14 semi-automatic
rifles, throw hand grenades, receive instruction on the "spirit
of the bayonet" and learn infiltration while crawling under live
machine gun fire. For several days the trainees lived "in the
field" bivouacked under the tall pines of the military
reservation.
Returning to the barracks the tired troops would spend hours
cleaning tents, messkits, and rifles. In another old tradition
these young men, under the watchful eyes of their drill
sergeants, never passed inspection the first time around.
After successfully completing basic training Donald Crane
received his orders for advanced individual training or AIT. As a
draftee he was subject to being trained in any field or military
occupational speciality (MOS) which the Army had a need to fill.
Consequently, they sent Donald to Fort Gordon, Georgia for
advanced infantry training. While the Army designed basic combat
training to create a soldier, they designed the eight-week
advanced infantry training course to create an Infantryman. Here
he and others learned to become proficient in the tools of the
"Queen of Battle": rifles, machine guns, pistols, mines and
rocket and grenade launchers. They also learned to navigate the
land using map and compass and spent long days and nights
learning how to patrol, react to ambushes, set up defensive
positions and become familiar with the types of communications
equipment that were standard to an infantry platoon.
Ralph Wayne Brown was born in Chester, Pennsylvania on July 14,
1942. Ralph entered the old red-brick, two-story Bloomsburg High
School in 1956 having transferred from Spring City, a small
community northwest of Philadelphia. As a youth he attended
school in Bloomsburg while living on a farm that, in 1960, became
the site of the present Bloomsburg High School. The homestead was
on a beautiful expanse of fertile flat land next to placid
Fishing Creek. Ralph's uncle, Edward or E.J., was well known in
the community and served as a school director for several years.
The Brown family was fairly well known in the town having
operated a dairy story at the farm for a number of years.
Unmotivated to remain in school and with an intense interest in
horses Ralph dropped out of high school in April 1959 before he
completed the ninth grade. An interest in horses is apparent as
he appears in the Bloomsburg High School yearbook
"Memorabilia" in a photograph of the school
Horsemen's Club. Continuing his love of horses, he became
employed as racehorse caretaker and a blacksmith. Ralph Brown
spent much of his time at various racetracks in the eastern part
of the United States and had been working at the Bloomsburg
Fairgrounds, across the street from the Magee Carpet factory,
before his entry into the Army.
Ralph's parents later owned a farm in Jackson Township, in
northern Columbia County not far from the community that the
Crane's called home. Ralph had two brothers: Frank, Jr. and
Edward. While Donald Crane was completing his fourth week of
basic combat training Ralph Brown entered the United States Army.
On February 26, 1964, as a draftee, he, too, was sent to Fort
Jackson, South Carolina for his basic combat training and upon
completion sent to Fort Lewis, Washington for advanced individual
training. Fort Lewis was a large Army training center located
about 45 miles south of Seattle on beautiful Puget Sound. As a
draftee, like Donald Crane, he had no choice in his job
assignment and was subsequently trained as a mortar crewman.
In addition to the training center at Fort Lewis was also the
headquarters for the 4th Infantry Division, the "Ivy
Division." After basic training Ralph would spend nearly a year
at Fort Lewis, where he was assigned to Company B, 3rd
Battalion, 8th Infantry Regiment of the 4th
Division. The Army had activated the 3rd of the
8th in the fall of 1963 and needed manpower. In
September 1966, long after Ralph Brown's stint with the unit,
they would deploy the 4th Division to Vietnam. Tiring
of the routine of barracks life at Fort Lewis Ralph requested to
go to airborne school and in January 1965 he was sent to the
three-week jump school at Fort Benning, Georgia. Upon completion
he was detailed as a radio telephone operator with the
2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment,
2nd Infantry Division at Fort Benning.
On July 1, 1965, Ralph and other members of the 2nd of
the 9th Infantry retired the Indian head patch of the
2nd Infantry Division and received the patch of the
1st Cavalry Division. He became a member of
Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry Regiment. A little over two weeks later,
on July 17, he was assigned to Delta Company as a mortar crewman;
two days earlier Private First Class Donald Crane had been
assigned to the same company.
Ralph was married to the former Vicki Mae Boudman and had two
children, a daughter, Kelley and a son, John. He had married
Vicki shortly before he entered the Army.
Brown, at age twenty-one, and recently married when drafted and
Crane, at age twenty-two and single, were typical of the draftees
of 1964. They were typical of the draftees of 1964. They were
much like their colleagues of the era whom Selective Service
usually drafted at a later age than they did with the draftees
after 1965 who were inducted shortly after turning 19 years of
age. At the time married men did have a special low priority 1-A
classification, however.
Although very small numbers of American troops had been in
Vietnam since 1954, their strength in 1963 and early 1964 was
about 16,300. In the early 1960s Vietnam was an assignment for
the Army's Special Forces (the fabled Green Berets) and Army and
Marine military advisors. Added to these forces were several Air
Force cargo plane units and the Army helicopter companies that
provided logistical support to the fledgling South Vietnamese
Army. It is unlikely that the thought of being sent to Vietnam
was very much on the mind of either Brown or Crane when they
responded to their draft board's letters in the autumn of 1963.
In 1966 a survey of high school sophomores found that only seven
percent mentioned the draft or Vietnam as one of "the problems
young men your age worry about most." In all likelihood Crane saw
the draft as a means for securing a form of employment, perhaps
training in a skill, getting his military obligation out of the
way, getting away from his poverty-stricken surroundings and
having an adventure. Brown may have accepted the draft as a way
to provide for his growing family since work as a racehorse
caretaker and as a blacksmith did not produce much of a regular
income.
Since 1954 the United States had been supplying the South
Vietnamese with military and economic aid. In 1961, the United
States significantly increased weapons shipments and dispatched
additional Special Forces counterinsurgency teams and military
advisors. These measures took place after rises in guerrilla
activity in the South and South Vietnamese political unrest had
worsened. The conflict in South Vietnam, simmering beneath the
surface since the Viet Minh had defeated the French and the 1954
Geneva agreements divided the country at the 17th
Parallel, was evolving from guerrilla activities into a state of
protracted warfare. The North Vietnamese were encouraging
terrorist revolutionaries in the South to attack American targets
and South Vietnamese government installations. United States
involvement escalated dramatically in early August 1964. Two
controversial incidents occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin that
allegedly involved the American destroyers the USS
Maddox and the USS Turner Joy and North
Vietnamese gunboats. On the pretext that the North Vietnamese had
attacked the American ships, President Lyndon Baines Johnson
requested action and the United States Congress passed the Gulf
of Tonkin Resolution. The President, as commander in chief, now
had the authority "to take all necessary measures to repel any
armed attack against the forces of the United States and to
prevent any further aggression." He reacted immediately with
intense bombing of North Vietnam. Simultaneously he hoped to
bolster the morale of the Vietnamese armed forces by increasing
the level of American combat troops. Years later Johnson's
Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, in his book In
Retrospect, admitted that he had doubts that the second
attack on the destroyer Maddox had actually
occurred.
United States Marines from the 9th Marine
Expeditionary Brigade based on ships in the South China Sea
provided the first large combat units sent to Southeast Asia
followed by the United States Army's 173rd Airborne
Brigade (Separate) from Okinawa; and elements of the
101st Airborne Division from Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
Initially the Pentagon had deployed the Marine units and the
173rd to provide security for airfields, such as
DaNang and Bien Hoa. From bases such as these United States Air
Force fighters and bombers launched their attacks against North
Vietnam and both United States and South Vietnamese Air Force
planes provided South Vietnamese ground forces with close air
support. However, intelligence reports of large-scale
infiltration of regular North Vietnamese units into the South to
support the indigenous Viet Cong and increased enemy activity
during May prompted General William C. Westmoreland, Commander,
United States Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, to forward a
request to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, through Admiral U.S. Grant
Sharp, Pacific Commander, that they should increase American and
other Free World Military ground strengths in Vietnam to the
equivalent of forty-four battalions. On June 7, 1965, when
Westmoreland sent his request, there were in Vietnam seven Marine
Battalions, two Army maneuver battalions, an Australian battalion
and, temporarily assigned (for sixty days) two battalions of the
173rd Airborne Brigade (Separate), for a total of
twelve battalions. The request to increase troops to forty-four
battalions represented a dramatic escalation.
By mid-1965 the Marines, the 173rd and the
101st were joined by elements of the Army's
1st Infantry Division and more Marine units from
Hawaii and Okinawa. On June 16, 1965, Secretary of Defense Robert
S. McNamara announced that the Pentagon would organize the
1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) at Fort Benning,
Georgia and it would be "combat-ready" in eight weeks. For
several weeks President Johnson had been hearing from his
advisors how the tactical situation was worsening for the South
Vietnamese. In a midday nationwide address on June 28 President
Johnson told the world that "I have today ordered to Vietnam the
airmobile division..." He further announced that troop strength
in Vietnam would increase from 75,000 to 125,000 men almost
immediately.
The "First Team," as General Douglas MacArthur had dubbed it, was
to become the Army's first fully airmobile infantry division. The
Pentagon had been testing the airmobile idea since February 1963
with the 11th Air Assault Division (Test) stationed at
Fort Benning. Although the Army had not completed testing by the
time of President Johnson's announcement, the dedicated officers
and men under the command of Major General Harry W.O. Kinnard
were confident that the idea would work. The unit's mission was
to adapt large scale use of helicopters to increase the mobility
of infantry units and to strike hard and fast. Although equipped,
trained and tested for its impact in a low or high intensity
combat environment it appeared that the escalating conflict in
Vietnam was made to order for an airmobile division where the war
was being conducted without front lines; the road system was
poor; and the terrain consisted of rugged mountains in the
northern area and jungles, rice paddies and rivers almost
everywhere. Perhaps the success of the airmobile philosophy could
best be summed up in the words of Major General Kinnard: "... we
are freed from the tyranny of terrain." As the division was
originally organized the 1st Brigade, one of the three
brigades making up the division, would be parachute-qualified.
Due in some measure to a lack of a sufficient number of
parachute-qualified soldiers, and the rare opportunity in Vietnam
to insert large numbers of troops by parachute, army planners
eliminated the airborne element in 1967.
Following AIT at Fort Gordon Donald Crane was sent to Fort
Benning, Georgia, the home of the Infantry. On June 1, 1964 he
was assigned to his first permanent unit, Company D (Combat
Support), 1st Battalion, 188th Infantry
Regiment, 11th Air Assault Division, as an assistant
machine gunner. The 11th Air Assault was only a year
old at the time so Donald was present to experience training in
the new concepts of heliborne warfare as they were being
developed. The unit worked extremely hard during the following
months to prove to the Pentagon that airmobility worked. In
October of 1964 Company D was attached to the 408th
Supply and Service Battalion for a dramatic joint training
exercise with the Air force. With a hurricane brewing off the
coast of Georgia the Air Force had grounded most of its planes.
To prove his point that air cavalry operations would work General
Kinnard sent three aerial reconnaissance forces aloft, probing
for holes in the clouds. Despite fierce winds and rain he was
able to airlift a full battalion of troops only one hour behind
schedule.
After the exercise was completed Donald's MOS was changed from
assistant gunner to that of ammunition bearer for a mortar crew.
He kept that MOS for the remainder of his time in the service.
In actual strength the 11th Air Assault Division
(Test) was no larger than a brigade in size. In a ceremony in
early July 1965 at Fort Benning's Doughboy Stadium the
11th Air Assault Division (Test) was officially
designated the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) when
the colors of the 1st Cavalry Division were brought
from Korea. On July 15 Donald Crane officially became a member of
the First Team. When the orders came down to deploy to Vietnam,
the Army also depleted the units of the 2nd Infantry
Division, then stationed at Fort Benning, to help fill the
billets. The Army raised several battalions from scratch. In his
superb study, "Anatomy of a Division: The 1st
Air Cav in Vietnam," Shelby L. Stanton notes that the Army
authorized 15,890 men upon activation, but they assigned only
9,489. Because many of the troops were nearing the end of their
service obligations more than 50 percent of this original
compliment was ineligible for overseas deployment under peacetime
service criteria. From the start presidential decisions plagued
the division, and for that matter the entire United States war
effort. The President refused to declare a state of emergency,
refused to call up National Guard and Reserve forces, and refused
to extend the active-duty tours of draftees and reserve officers.
For a division that would rely on helicopters to get troops and
supplies to and from the battlefield the worldwide call went out
for pilots and crewmen to fly the new Bell UH-1-series Iroquois
utility helicopters, affectionately nicknamed "Hueys." During a
presidential briefing on July 27 Secretary McNamara told the
President that about one-third of the Army's helicopters were
already in Vietnam. In August 1965 the division shipped out under
strength and without many soldiers who, having trained with the
11th Air Assault Division, were experienced in the
concept of helicopter warfare.
One maneuver element that made up the 1st Cavalry
Division was the 7th Cavalry Regiment. The
7th Cavalry was first formed at Fort Riley, Kansas in
1866. They initially filled it with Civil War veterans and
frontiersmen, many of whom were Irish immigrants. The Irish
influence on the regiment was noted in an old drinking song,
"Garry Owen," said to be a favorite of George Armstrong Custer,
which became the regimental song. The song, and the greeting of
"Garry Owen, Sir" exchanged by officers and men of the
7th Cavalry, survives to this day. With the American
West opening up to settlement protection of the railroad
surveyors and gold miners who crossed Sioux Indian territory
became the primary mission of the 7th Cavalry. Moving
to Dakota Territory in 1874, the unit was under the leadership of
Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Custer's subsequent
defeat at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne will be forever
remembered by all Americans.
Although the cavalry had traded in its horses for olive-drab
jeeps in February 1943 and the United States Army had eliminated
the regimental system in the 1950s, the Army deployed two units
designated as the 1st Battalion, 7th
Cavalry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, 7th
Cavalry Regiment, to Vietnam in the summer of 1965. The men newly
assigned to the First Cavalry now wore the large distinctive
black and gold shoulder patch bearing the profile of a horse's
head. Throughout the Army it was known as the "horse blanket"
because of its size. In the spirit of the old cavalry off-duty
helicopter pilots, who rode into battle aboard machines that were
inconceivable to the cavalrymen of old, often wore dark blue
frontier cavalry hats with gold braid and crossed-saber insignia,
not unlike their forebears.
In the summer of 1965 then-Private First Class Robert Towles
joined Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th
Cavalry as a rifleman. On July 30, 1965, two days after President
Johnson's televised announcement, the men of the 7th
Cavalry received Letter Order #342 assigning them from the Third
U.S. Army, Fort Benning, Georgia to Destination - SECRET; ETA -
CONFIDENTIAL, Theater of Assignment - PACOM (Pacific Area
Command). The destination and ETA (estimated time of arrival) at
the destination may have been officially classified but due to
the President's public announcement there were few people in the
United States who did not know where the First Cavalry was
heading.
A total of six troop carriers, four aircraft carriers and seven
cargo vessels were employed to move the division "across the
pond." The men and equipment of the 3rd Brigade,
including the 2/7, shipped out of Charleston, South Carolina on
the USNS Maurice Rose Monday, August 16, 1965. Two
soldiers who were among the troops embarking with Delta Company
were Privates First Class Donald E. Crane and Ralph W. Brown.
According to Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore (Retired) and
Joseph L. Galloway, in their excellent book "We Were Soldiers
Once ... and Young," it took the "Ramblin' Rose" the better
part of the month to reach the port of Qui Nhon, Republic of
Vietnam. Ironically, the last elements of the 66th
Regiment of the North Vietnamese Army left their base at Thanh
Hoa Province, North Vietnam (just north of the North-South
Demilitarized Zone) on the very same day that the Maurice
Rose left Charleston.
Then-PFC James H. Shadden, a mortar man from Tennessee, and a
member of the mortar platoon of Delta Company, remembered that he
first met Brown and Crane when the Army assigned them to the
1st Cavalry. On board the Maurice Rose
someone had managed to bring aboard a guitar and, with a shared
love of country music, the group spent many hours "picking an
(sic) singing, in transit." Shadden recalled both as "good ol'
country boys" just like he, and they found that they had
something more than the Army in common. The days at sea were
structured to help alleviate boredom and prepare the troops for
combat. The time aboard the ship was spent in refresher training,
map reading, readying equipment, physical training, playing cards
and becoming familiar with their newly issued M-16 automatic
rifles.
Leaving Charleston the Maurice Rose passed between the
islands of Cuba and Haiti as it proceeded on to the Panama Canal.
Its journey took it to Honolulu, Hawaii, there to disembark an
appendicitis patient, and then it sailed on to Okinawa where the
ship picked up a detachment of Marines.
Most of the 1st Cavalry Division reached the coastal
port of Qui Nhon, Vietnam by mid-September 1965. Although
prepared to fight their way ashore the landing was uneventful.
After debarking from the ships the troops boarded helicopters and
were flown inland to Pleiku Province. In the Central Highlands,
with the help of the 101st Airborne Division, they
carved out a large base camp north of the town of An Khe. During
the autumn of 1965 a series of events and ominous intelligence
reports would bring elements of the 1st Cav into a
historically unparalleled campaign.
Throughout the history of land warfare life has never been easy
for the infantryman. The Second Indochina War was by no means an
exception. The terrain in the Central Highlands was a mixture of
jungle-covered mountains and flat lands of bamboo and deep
elephant grass. South Vietnam has a monsoon climate with two main
seasons: hot and wet and hot and dry. The dry season generally
lasts from November to April. The wet season lasts from May to
October. In the Central Highlands the weather, although tropical,
is cooler at night than in other parts of the country and fog
often develops in the mountains. Besides the oppressive heat and
humidity the men had to contend with a variety of insects,
leeches, snakes and diseases such as dysentery and malaria.
During the months of October and November 1965 many men of the
1st Cavalry Division were unavailable for "foxhole
duty" due to illness.
In the field an infantryman carries with him everything needed to
hopefully survive his encounters with the elements and with the
enemy. The field load of a typical infantryman was a new
lightweight M-16 automatic rifle and a minimum load of ten
magazines of 5.56 mm ammunition. Most men usually carried at
least twice as much rifle ammunition with them. Each man normally
carried at least two or three canteens, an entrenching tool,
C-rations, rifle cleaning equipment, insect repellent, a poncho
and perhaps a jungle hammock. Carrying extra mortar rounds for
the mortar crew was also usual for a rifleman, as was carrying
extra machinegun ammunition for the machine gunner, at least four
hand grenades, smoke grenades, Claymore mines and, perhaps, a
light antitank weapon (LAW) or two. With clothing, a steel
helmet, first aid pack, bayonet, and sundries the load would
easily weigh at least 75 to 80 pounds.
Infantrymen have often said that combat consists of long periods
of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Compounding the
harsh climatic conditions was the unpredictable confrontation
with an enemy who controlled the conditions of battle and
provided the infantrymen with those moments of sheer terror.
Several studies of battle conducted from 1966 to 1972 concluded
that it was the Viet Cong and main force North Vietnamese Army
(NVA) units who determined the time and place of battle in 75 to
88 per cent of all combat engagements. Despite the significant
technological advantages of aircraft, artillery, radar and
communications equipment enjoyed by the Americans the most common
forms of battle during the Vietnam War were ambushes and wave
attacks initiated by the Revolutionary Forces. Unsophisticated
enemy mines and booby traps exacted even more American and allied
forces casualties.
In October the fortified Special Forces camp at the Montagnard
village of Plei Me (about 25 miles southwest of the provincial
capital of Pleiku) was manned by a Special Operations Detachment,
some Vietnamese Rangers and more than 400 Civilian Irregular
Defense Group (CIDG) personnel. On the night of October 19, 1965
the North Vietnamese Army's 33rd Regiment attacked the
camp in force. Military intelligence suspected that the North
Vietnamese had a grand plan of luring the Americans and the Army
of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) into a trap; the Special Forces
camp was only the bait. Intelligence also picked up the presence
of a second NVA regiment, the 32nd. That unit was
deployed along the road from Pleiku to Plei Me. Relief columns
sent to rescue the defenders of Plei Me would run into an ambush.
The enemy's immediate plan was to ambush the relief column and
then use both regiments to attack Plei Me.
The North Vietnamese had ambitions beyond that campaign, however.
At this point in the struggle South Vietnamese government control
was eroding. Well-armed and well-supplied regular force units
were now supplementing the indigenous guerrilla force units,
known as the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong, and making
their presence felt in the Republic. North Vietnamese
infiltration into the South, which had been roughly 1,000 men per
month, was now reaching 2,500 men per month. As the rainy season
ended the Hanoi government of Ho Chi Minh was ready to exploit
those advantages. By 1965 the Hanoi regime sought to secure and
dominate northern and central South Vietnam, cutting the country
in half on a line from Pleiku to Qui Nhon and holding it with
three divisions. Ten years later, with United States forces out
of Vietnam and with the United States Congress refusing to
provide further military aid to the South Vietnamese, the North
Vietnamese used almost the same strategy and ultimately succeeded
in taking over the country.
On October 23 an ARVN column from the 3rd Cavalry
Squadron, the 1st Battalion of the 42nd
ARVN Regiment and the Special Forces-led 21st and
22nd ARVN Ranger Battalions, with the help of American
artillery, smashed the ambush and relieved Plei Me. The two NVA
regiments broke contact and moved to secret Viet Cong sanctuaries
on the Chu Pong Massif, a cluster of peaks and ridges covered
with double-canopied rain forest that run along the Cambodian
border. The massif was named after its highest peak, Chu Pong.
Once secluded in the jungle and tunnel sanctuaries the NVA sought
to recover from the losses that they had suffered at Plei Me.
Steep and rugged on the eastern side the hills slope gently on
the Cambodian side and allowed easy access for the movement of
supplies and men. Coming off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Ia Drang
Valley provided easy transport and a natural gateway to Vietnam's
central highlands. It was at this time that General Westmoreland
gave the 1st Cav the mission to pursue, seek out and
destroy the enemy and, in the process find, his main supply
depots before the NVA could evacuate them. The arena would be a
900 square-kilometer area that would become known as the Ia
(river) Drang Valley and a campaign known as Pleiku.
At the direction of MACV commander General William Westmoreland
the 1st Cavalry began the campaign on October 27,
1965. Following two weeks of chasing the North Vietnamese through
the rugged area of the Central Highlands Major General Kinnard
decided to send in fresh troops from the division's
3rd Brigade. Simultaneously the NVA's 66th
Regiment had reached the Ia Drang from its trek from North
Vietnam. The two forces were destined to clash.
The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the
command of then-Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. (Hal) Moore, was
given the mission to air assault into the Chu Pong Massif area
and conduct limited search and destroy missions. On November 14,
1965, at a small clearing designated as Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray,
the air assault was continuing smoothly when the battalion's
Bravo Company came under intense fire. Unbeknownst to Lieutenant
Colonel Moore he had landed his battalion in the middle of the
NVA's staging area for its next major assault against the allies.
The three North Vietnamese battalions in the Chu Pong numbered
over 2,000 men to Moore's 450. American Troops were facing
regular North Vietnamese Army troops in steel helmets and full
field kit instead of black pajama-clad indigenous forces.
The battle for LZ X-Ray raged unabated for three days as the
66th Regiment and remnants of the 33rd
Regiment employed human wave attacks repeatedly in attempts to
overrun the perimeter and to test the resolve of the green
American forces. Tactical air support, artillery, and B-52 bomber
strikes helped break the siege, but the exceptional bravery and
courage of the LZ's defenders and the calm, professional
leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Moore were the deciding factors.
Before the North Vietnamese broke contact the Americans suffered
79 killed in action and 121 wounded in action. These were the
heaviest casualties suffered by United States troops to that
date. A Pennsylvanian, Second Lieutenant Walter J. (Joe) Marm,
became the first member of the Division awarded the Congressional
Medal of Honor for his heroism during the battle. The Cav had
inflicted casualties of more than 1800 dead according to
Lieutenant Colonel Moore. This was the first clash of major
United States ground forces and main force North Vietnamese Army
units and is regarded as the campaign that ushered in helicopter
warfare.
Among the units coming to the relief of the LZ's beleaguered
defenders were elements of the 2nd Battalion,
5th Cavalry and the 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry. After airlifting the wounded and
survivors of LZ X-Ray back to Pleiku for rest, recovery and
reorganization the Skytroopers of the two replacement units
established a night defensive perimeter. The scene at X-Ray
looked like an alien landscape. Except for the largest trees
there was little vegetation remaining. The intense gunfire had
chopped down most of the trees and parachute flare canopies
dotted many of the trees which remained. The ground was uneven
and cratered from the impact of bombs, artillery, grenades and
rockets. The litter of spent ammunition cases, bloody bandages,
and discarded ration boxes was everywhere. The day was spent
digging in and included the grim task of evacuating the bodies of
the dead.
The soldiers who were bivouacking at X-Ray spent a fitful night
with the stench of rotting corpses, continued sniper fire and the
glow of the parachute flares that punctuated the darkness. For
all intents and purposes the battle of Landing Zone X-Ray was
over. The next morning the two battalions began preparing for
overland movements to two other landing zones: the 2/5 was to
return to previously established LZ Columbus to the northeast and
2/7 was to march to LZ Albany, a new landing zone two miles to
the north.
The 2nd of the 7th was under the command of
Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. McDade. Although McDade was a
veteran of World War II and Korea, he had commanded the battalion
for less than three weeks. While he had been with the division
for two years as the G-1 or administrative staff officer, he had
not been in command of troops for ten years. That aside,
according to Lieutenant General Moore the battalion itself "was
the same mix of draftees, good NCO's (non-commissioned officers),
green lieutenants, and good company commanders that were found in
its sister 1st Battalion, 7th Cav."
Unfortunately, many men assigned to the 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry had not worked together or received the
same airmobile training received by the 1st Battalion
when it was part of the 11th Air Assault Division
(Test).
As was true for many units that made up the 1st
Cavalry Division, when orders came down to fill the ranks quickly
and prepare the 2nd of the 7th for
deployment to Vietnam, soldiers and equipment came from all over
the world. Most of the assets of the 2/7 Cav had been transferred
from the 2nd Infantry Division's 2nd
Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment then stationed at
Fort Benning. Then-PFC Robert Towles, a member of Delta Company,
recalled that "a major problem with D 2/7 is that the company
hardly ever worked together as a unit, and the platoons seldom
had more than casual contact with each other." However, for the
most part the individual soldiers had been on active duty for
some time and were well trained in their respective combat
specialties. According to information gleaned from the company's
morning reports the unit was composed of roughly half draftees
and half enlistees. Brown and Crane had each been in the Army for
over a year and a half and shipped to Vietnam with less than six
months left on their two-year draft obligations.
On Wednesday, November 17, with artillery fire preceding the lead
elements, the column, led by the 2nd Battalion,
5th Cavalry, left LZ X-Ray at 0900 hours to be well
out of the area of the Chu Pong Massif by midmorning when giant
B-52 strategic bombers from Guam would arrive overhead to conduct
an "Arc Light" strike on the North Vietnamese sanctuary. The
mission of the two infantry battalions was undefined other that
the 2/7 was to establish an LZ and interdict any NVA movement
along the Ia Drang River. Although intelligence reports of enemy
activity near LZ Albany were negative it remains a mystery why a
division that had trained and lived by a philosophy of moving
troops quickly by helicopter would require the battalion to march
overland in a region known to have been swarming with regimental
and battalion-sized units of enemy soldiers less than twenty-four
hours before.
At a predetermined location about three kilometers northeast of
X-Ray the men of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav
and Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cav
turned northwest and continued their march toward LZ Albany,
about another two and one-half kilometers. Alpha, 1/5 was
attached to the 2nd of the 7th to replace
the battalion's Bravo Company, which had fought at LZ X-Ray and
had been evacuated back to Pleiku with the 1st of the
7th. The 2nd Battalion, 5th
Cavalry continued marching northeast about one and one-half
kilometers toward LZ Columbus.
Accounts vary as to the exact order of march. According to
General Moore's account the 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry was led by Alpha Company, followed by
Delta Company (under the command of Captain Henry (Hank) Thorpe),
then Charlie Company, Headquarters Company, and finally Alpha
company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry.
Captain John Fesmire, the company commander of Charlie Company,
stated that it was Alpha, Headquarters, Delta, Charlie 2/7 and
Alpha 1/5. The battalion after-action report places Charlie ahead
of Delta. Delta Company was the battalion's combat support
company and consisted of the recoilless rifle or antitank
platoon, the mortar platoon and the machine gun platoon. One of
the great tactical errors committed by Lieutenant Colonel McDade
was that he had the unit moving in a simple column formation that
served to disperse the troop concentration over a greater area.
Although this may have saved some lives it had the additional
effect of dispersing firepower. Due to the ambiguous nature of
the march order issued by Lieutenant Colonel McDade some in the
column discarded caution and had not positioned flank security
for their march to Albany.
The mortar platoon was equipped with 81-mm mortars that, for
transport, broke down in the component parts of a tube (weight 28
pounds), a baseplate (weight 48 pounds) and sights or mount
(weight 31 pounds). Each member of the crew carried one of these
cumbersome, heavy components, plus three mortar rounds and the
same gear carried by the men in a rifle platoon. Although in
Vietnam dense jungle or canopied forest sometimes hindered its
use, an infantry battalion's mortars are usually the first type
of artillery fire it will use if there is a contact with the
enemy. Time and weather seldom prevent its use. Depending upon
the ammunition fired, an 81-mm mortar has a range of about 3600
meters. Captain Thorpe stated that normally the company would
only take one mortar tube and mortar crew on an operation.
Despite his protests to Lieutenant Colonel McDade that the extra
mortars would be cumbersome and of no use due to the dense jungle
canopy McDade insisted that all three mortar tubes accompany the
battalion. Two of the men in the mortar platoon were Private
First Class Donald E. Crane and Private First Class Ralph W.
Brown. Brown was an assistant gunner with the 3rd
Squad of the mortar platoon; Crane was an ammunition bearer also
assigned to the mortar platoon.
Before long heat, humidity, fatigue and jungle began taking a
toll on the cavalrymen. As afternoon approached, the weary
battalion was unknowingly entering an area crawling with NVA
soldiers from the 8th Battalion, 66th
Regiment, the 1st Battalion, 33rd Regiment,
and Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 33rd
Regiment. The 33rd Regiment had fought and taken
casualties in the battle at Plei Me. The Air Cavalry's
1st Brigade had inflicted further casualties on the
regiment while pursuing them following that battle. However, the
8th Battalion, 66th Regiment was in the
area having arrived off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and anxious to take
on the Americans.
Upon nearing the spot designated as Landing Zone Albany the
battalion's reconnaissance platoon surprised an NVA
reconnaissance team and took two prisoners. The long column of
Skytroopers came to a halt as Lieutenant Colonel McDade advised
that he was going forward to interrogate the prisoners. At this
point unit integrity began to disintegrate. McDade, along with
the battalion intelligence officer, an interpreter, radio
operators, Alpha commander Captain Joel Sugdinis, his executive
officer, and others, came forward to the location where they had
captured the NVA prisoners. Minutes later McDade called all of
the company commanders forward to his location. It is entirely
possible that the NVA prisoners were purposely used to halt the
column and bring the cavalrymen within the ambush zone.
As unit commanders and radio operators began gathering at the
prisoners' location, about 100 yards away from LZ Albany, the men
of the 1st Cavalry relaxed and took a break. They had
been marching through hilly, heavy jungle, around giant, gray
anthills and through chest deep, razor-sharp elephant grass for
more than four hours now and, after having spent a tension-filled
night at LZ X-Ray, had been awake for most of the past sixty
hours. Now-Lieutenant General Moore said, the battalion was
strung out along a line of march for a distance of at least 550
yards. Toward the center of the column the men of Delta Company
were lolling around. Charlie Company, 2/7 and Alpha, 1/5 had
flank security posted.
As platoon-sized units probed the immediate area for more North
Vietnamese and as the entire column began to get to its feet to
resume the march to LZ Albany the head of the column came under
small arms fire. The scattered shots were replaced by the "clump"
of incoming mortar fire and the crescendo of gunfire rose to full
earsplitting volume. In no time a full scale battle was raging
with intense automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenades and
mortar fire raining in on the Cavalry troops. The most savage
one-day battle of the Vietnam War had begun.
The clash, which had begun at the head of the column, now spread
quickly down the right flank of the American unit with Charlie
Company and Delta Company immediately taking heavy casualties
from grenades, automatic weapons and mortar fire. Screaming for
the battalions' medics, desperate men tried to be heard above the
din of battle. Since most of the radio operators had moved
forward with the commanders the elements, who now found
themselves in a fight for their lives, were without radio
communications and could not tell other units of their position,
coordinate an effective defense or call for help. Taking cover
behind the giant anthills the surprised soldiers responded by
using every weapon in their arsenal: M-16 automatic rifles, M-60
light machineguns, M-79 grenade launchers, light antitank (LAW)
rockets, hand grenades and .45 caliber semiautomatic pistols.
They responded as best they could but they were no match for the
firepower being laid down by the well-prepared NVA.
As the center of the column came under heavy attack mortar crew
members PFC Donald Ellis Crane, age twenty-four, and PFC Ralph
Wayne Brown, age twenty-three, reacted as they had been trained.
The exact positions of Crane and Brown within that part of the
column are unknown. It is known that they never had a chance to
set up their mortars and exchange counter-mortar fire. Their only
chance to defend themselves was with their individual weapons and
they both did it until they were mortally wounded. Captain Thorpe
believes that they died within the first two minutes of the
battle. Due to the intense enemy fire he was unable to return to
his company. His immediate action was to form a defensive
position at the head of the column. For his actions he was
awarded the Silver Star. His valor was acknowledged and the award
was presented in 1996 thirty-one years after the battle.
NVA snipers tied in the trees and armed with AK-47 automatic
rifles picked off the American leaders and radio operators. Chaos
reigned as the Americans tried to return fire that seemed to be
coming from all directions. Indeed, it was since the Americans
had walked into a battalion-sized U-shaped ambush and another NVA
unit struck at the center. The tall grass made it virtually
impossible for the soldiers to distinguish between friend and
enemy and in the horrible confusion of that November day friend
often killed friend. Charlie and Delta Companies took the brunt
of the attack as the North Vietnamese attempted and succeeded in
cutting the column in two and overrunning the stunned and
helpless defenders. Charlie Company suffered forty-one killed in
action; Delta Company lost twenty-six men on this fateful day.
Many, many others were severely wounded.
To this day James Shadden says that he has "... wondered
thousands of times about these guys (Brown and Crane), never have
talked to anyone who could enlighten me on their death ..." Not
surprisingly, he goes on to sadly relate that one of the reasons
for this lack of knowledge is that "... there were not many of us
left so info is hard to get."
As the intense battle progressed, Colonel Tim Brown, commander of
the 1st Cavalry's 3rd Brigade, was flying
in a command and control helicopter over the scene anxious to
send in ground reinforcements, artillery, air support, aerial
rocket artillery and medical evacuation helicopters to help the
confused, struggling and dying men of the 2nd
Battalion, 7th Cavalry and Alpha Company,
1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry. The combination
of heavy fire, smoke, dust and mix of two forces engaged in
hand-to-hand combat made any support unthinkable. Eventually, the
surviving Americans began to cluster into defensive perimeters
and it became possible to call in close air support from
helicopter gun ships. However, because of the confused situation
on the ground and the proximity of the combatants some observers
on the ground were horrified as close-range napalm bombing
sometimes turned into "friendly fire" and killed United States
soldiers along with the enemy.
As day turned into night Company B, 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry was flown into the area and Company B,
1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry marched from
Landing Zone Columbus toward Albany. Heavy artillery and aircraft
flare illumination around the perimeter of LZ Albany discouraged
further massed NVA attacks during the night. Nevertheless, it did
not prevent the ruthless North Vietnamese from combing the area,
seeking out lost or wounded Americans and shooting or bayoneting
them on the spot. More than one soldier lived through the night
by feigning death or lying beneath the bodies of others who had
been killed.
In the morning light the full horror of the tragedy became
apparent. Bodies of friend and enemy lay near one another. The
close-in napalm and bombs horribly burned both American and North
Vietnamese. The bodies of the execution victims were found shot
in the head at close range. By the time the battle was declared
over, some sixteen hours after it began on the afternoon of
November 17, the 1st Cavalry Division would be
counting another 151 Americans dead, four missing and another 124
wounded in this phase of the Pleiku campaign. They estimated the
enemy dead at LZ Albany at 503.
While the fight at LZ X-Ray could be described as a United States
victory, the battle at LZ Albany was a debacle. If measured in
terms of casualties inflicted on the enemy then the Ia Drang
campaign was surely a victory for the Americans. General
Westmoreland quickly flew to Pleiku, received a briefing and
described the battles in the Ia Drang to the American people in
those terms. The North Vietnamese acknowledged later that they
had suffered over three thousand soldiers killed during the
campaign. Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade would continue to lead
the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry until March
1966.
The battles of Landing Zones X-Ray and Albany were but preludes
to the type of war that the United States military would continue
to wage in Vietnam. Over and over the military used the infantry
as bait to lure the enemy into a fight where they could then
employ the overwhelming strength of American artillery and air
support to become the deciding factor between victory and defeat
and inflict heavy casualties on the enemy. General Westmoreland
continued to believe that his strategy of killing more VC and NVA
than the Revolutionary Forces could replenish would eventually
result in an Allied victory. The United States would use this
strategy repeatedly throughout the duration of the Second
Indochina War against a determined enemy whose convictions would
not allow defeat in a war of attrition. The North Vietnamese also
learned some valuable lessons during their fight with the
Americans in the Ia Drang. One of those lessons was that
overwhelming American air and artillery superiority could be
effectively countered by engaging the Americans at close range
and controlling when contact would be broken.
As for the 1st Cavalry Division, it would go on to be
the only division to operate in all four tactical zones of
Vietnam, plus Cambodia, and to have elements assigned in-country
for an unprecedented 2,056 days, longer than any other American
division. Among its other campaigns would be Masher/White Wing,
Paul Revere II, Irving Thayer II, Pershing and Pershing II and
Jeb Stuart.
Back home in North Central Pennsylvania most families were busy
making preparations for the coming Thanksgiving holiday and the
upcoming hunting season. The beautiful, bright colors of autumn
were gone, replaced by the monochrome of leafless trees on the
hillsides. Now the farmers began to relax, check for signs of
deer, choose a good site for their tree stands and, overall, get
ready to go into those same woods for white-tailed deer. They had
already harvested and put most of the corn crops into corn cribs;
silage had been put into the tall silos next to the barns.
However, because of the battle of the Ia Drang Valley, hundreds
of families throughout the nation were beginning to receive news
of the horrible events that had taken place in Vietnam and would
soon overtake their lives. Holidays, work and hunting would
become the least of their interests in the coming weeks and
years. Americans would now turn their attention to burying their
sons, brothers, husbands and fathers of their children. Hundreds
of shiny aluminum coffins were beginning to arrive and be
unloaded at Travis Air Force Base in northern California.
Hundreds of telegrams were being sent to the families of the dead
notifying them that "The Secretary of the Army regrets ..." Vicki
Mae Brown, who lived with her mother in nearby Orangeville,
received her telegram after midnight. According to the Berwick
Enterprise the telegram had arrived in Bloomsburg before
midnight and there had been some difficulty in finding her home.
The paper also reported that she was near collapse when informed
of her husband's death.
For the first time since the Korean War Americans were seeing the
crumpled bodies of young men on the front pages of their
newspapers and on their television screens at supper time. The
hometown newspapers of the day (locally The Bloomsburg
Morning Press and the Berwick Enterprise)
carried news of the deaths of Ralph Brown and Donald Crane on
their front pages. This was early in the war when combat deaths
were regularly reported in newspapers of all size but in small
towns, such as these, news of local young men dying in Vietnam
remained front page news throughout the duration of the war. In
November 1965 Brown was only the second Columbia County soldier
to die in action, the first having perished only one month
before. Interestingly, although both men were from a small
geographical area neither newspaper linked the fact that they had
served together in the same unit and had died together on the
same small plot of ground in the Ia Drang Valley. The story of
Ralph Brown's death appeared in the November 19 edition of the
Berwick Enterprise and the November 20 issue of the
Morning Press featured a large front page photograph of
him. The Berwick newspaper did not report Donald Crane's death
until November 22. Sadly, Crane's name was misspelled "Craine" in
the caption beneath his picture when it appeared on the front
page of the Bloomsburg Morning Press and the article was
inaccurate in the date of his entry onto active duty. Small
articles appeared (again days apart) in the Williamsport
Sun-Gazette and the Grit, a weekly newspaper
published in Williamsport. Articles reporting their funerals
appeared a column apart in the Berwick Enterprise, yet
no connection was made of their being in the same military unit
when they were killed.
In yet another rite, one that was being carried out with
increasing frequency throughout the United States, the bodies of
both men were returned to Pennsylvania by airplane and train
accompanied by a uniformed escort of the United States Army. On
the cold and windy afternoon of Sunday, December 5, 1965 Ralph W.
Brown was buried with full military honors following a service at
the Salem E.U.B. Church in Unityville, Pennsylvania. The
Bloomsburg Morning Press estimated that about 200
persons attended the funeral and that many automobiles passing by
on the adjoining road stopped to observe the ceremony. Members of
the Millville American Legion Post carried Brown's casket. An
honor guard from the Army's Indiantown Gap Military Reservation
rendered an eighteen-gun salute and "Taps." He was buried in the
hilltop cemetery about 100 yards from the simple white country
church. A large tombstone marks his grave noting the fact that he
had been killed in action in Vietnam. Having sold their farm in
Columbia County, Ralph's family had moved to Essington,
Pennsylvania shortly before he entered the service. His wife,
Vicki, would later remarry but in 1980 she would die of a heart
attack at the young age of thirty-five. She was buried next to
Ralph.
Ralph Brown was awarded the National Defense Service Medal, The
Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Purple
Heart, the Bronze Star with "V" device, the Combat Infantryman
Badge, the Vietnamese Military Merit Medal and the Vietnamese
Cross of Gallantry with Palm.
Donald E. Crane's wake was held on the same evening as Ralph
Brown's burial. Donald's burial took place on the afternoon of
Monday, December 6. They held services at the Zofcin Funeral Home
in Shickshinny, Pennsylvania about 20 miles from the location of
Ralph Brown's grave. The American Legion and Veterans of Foreign
War Posts from Shickshinny provided the color guard. A firing
squad and a bugler from the tiny, nearby Red Rock Air Force Base
participated in rendering full military honors. He was laid to
rest in the small Sorber Cemetery at Reyburn, outside
Shickshinny. During his time in the United States Army he had
been awarded the following medals and decorations: the Bronze
Star with "V" device, the Purple Heart, the Good Conduct Medal,
the Combat Infantryman Badge, the National Defense Service Medal,
the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the
Vietnamese Military Merit Medal, the Vietnamese Cross of
Gallantry with Palm and a number of weapons qualifications
awards. His father was presented with the flag which draped his
coffin.
For the Crane family 1965 had been a particularly tragic year.
Earlier in the year Donald's mother died at the age of
forty-four. Donald had been unable to attend his mother's funeral
due to the buildup of forces for Vietnam. Now he joined her in
death: Donald was buried next to the grave of his mother. His
grave is marked by a simple, flat, white government marker noting
that he died in Vietnam, had been a member of "CO D, 7 CAV, 1 CAV
DIV" and that he had received the Purple Heart.
Before serious research began on this story the author believed
that (given the fact that the men were about a year apart in age
and their addresses were close to one another) they might have
been boyhood friends who had joined the Army together on the
"buddy" system. In the end the facts were that, although they had
lived near to each other before going to war, it is unlikely that
Brown and Crane knew each other before they became members of the
mortar platoon of Delta Company, 2nd Battalion,
7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry
Division. Ironically, they left Pennsylvania for military service
within weeks of one another and, tragically, they had returned
home to the peaceful valley within days of one another.
The casualties at LZ's X-Ray and Albany would not be the first
nor the last of the Vietnam War. Tragically, they would only
foretell the deaths of over 56,000 more American men and women in
southeast Asia.
The names of the men who died in the Ia Drang Valley in November
1965 can be found etched on the black granite of the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. on Panel 3-East. Casualties
whose names appear on "The Wall" are listed alphabetically by
their date of death. Ralph Wayne Brown's name is on Line 71;
Donald Ellis Crane's name is on Line 73. We remember them, along
with the other men of the 1st Cavalry Division, for
their courage, their dedication and their devotion to their
families and country.
Epilogue
In the spring of 2002 a major motion picture "We Were
Soldiers", based upon the Moore-Galloway book was released
in theaters. The story depicted in the film centered on the
battle at LZ X-Ray. It ended right where the tragic story of D
Company, 2nd of the 7th Cavalry begins:
when they relieved the troops who had fought at X-Ray the day
before their fateful march to LZ Albany.
Seeking to have Ralph Brown and Donald Crane remembered in their
own community, efforts were made to contact the Bloomsburg
Press Enterprise newspaper. On March 31, 2002, Easter
Sunday, a front page story appeared recounting their stories. The
article was well received in the community.
In the background James Bowen, a boyhood friend of Ralph Brown,
was laboring on an effort of his own. Jim had served a
pre-deployment tour with the 1st Cav. He had already
been discharged from the Army when he received word of the death
of his friend. He had never forgotten Ralph or the other
Cavalrymen over the intervening years and contacted local school
officials about an appropriate memorial. Along with the Military
Order of the Purple Heart a beautiful plaque was fashioned to pay
honor to both Ralph Brown and Donald Crane. Bowen credited Chic
Thackara, a wounded World War II combat veteran from Bloomsburg
with initiating the project.
On Saturday, July 6, 2002, under a warm sun, with the plaque
standing on a flag-draped table, a short memorial ceremony was
held at the Bloomsburg Fair Grounds. The ceremony was attended by
members of the public and several surviving members of the Brown
family, including his children Kelley Brown Hamilton and John
Brown. Michael Slease of the Augusta Regiment of Pennsylvania's
Provincial 3rd Battalion, a French and Indian War
re-enactor group, spoke movingly of the lives and deaths of Ralph
Brown and Donald Crane. At the conclusion the Augusta Regiment
was joined by members of Cooper's Battery B, 1st
Pennsylvania Light Artillery, a Civil War re-enactor group, in
firing a 21-gun salute.
The plaque was placed in a display case at Bloomsburg High School
to remind future generations of youth of the sacrifices of men
from a earlier era.
"Garry Owen"
Acknowledgments
The story of Donald E. Crane and Ralph W. Brown would not be
complete without acknowledging those individuals who contributed
to this effort to remember them. I first became interested in the
men while researching data for a visit of the "Moving Wall." The
sponsoring organization sought out biographies of local men who
had been killed in action or who remain missing in action from
the Vietnam War. While doing research on the names, I discovered
that two men from the same rural area had died on the same date.
At the time no biographies were found or submitted. Not knowing
the true story of the men I remained intrigued by this
coincidence and kept the names in the back of my head.
Six months later my wife, Diane, presented me with a copy of
"We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young", Hal Moore's and
Joseph L. Galloway's history of the battles at LZ X-Ray and LZ
Albany. For the first time I realized that, not only had Brown
and Crane died on the same day, they had died at Ia Drang and had
been assigned to the same mortar platoon. A note to Hal Moore's
e-mail address provided me with a gracious response and the names
and addresses of two excellent sources, former Cavalrymen Robert
Towles and James Shadden. Robert Towles had served in the
recoilless rifle platoon of D 2/7 and James Shadden was in the
same mortar platoon as Brown and Crane. Both Towles and Shadden
had been severely wounded in the battle at LZ Albany. The value
of the information they provided and their willingness to share
their memories cannot be overestimated. Also providing valuable
information were: Henry Thorpe, Peter C. Cole, a First Cav
veteran, who is compiling a history of Company D, 2nd
Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st
Cavalry Division (Airmobile), Dick Ackerman of Reconnaissance
Platoon, 2/7, and the staffs of Bloomsburg Area High School and
Northwest Area High School. Thanks also for the encouragement
provided by Joseph L. Galloway.
For Further Reading
Coleman, MAJ J.D., editor The First Air Cavalry Division,
Vietnam: Volume I, 1965-1969 The 1st Cavalry
Division (Airmobile) San Francisco (1970).
___ Pleiku St. Martin's Paperbacks New York (1989).
Moore, Lt. Gen. Harold G. & Galloway, Joseph L. We Were
Soldiers Once ... and Young Random House New York (1992).
Scott, Leonard B. The Expendables Ballantine Books New
York (1991).
Stanton, Shelby L. Anatomy of a Division: 1st Cav
in Vietnam Presidio Press Novato, CA (1987).
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