Enemy Sappers Overran Fire Support Base Mary Ann in Vietnam
by Robert Fallon
Fire Support Base Mary Ann sat on a scraped-bare hill in Quảng Tín Province, its bunkers sunk into the dirt and ringed with wire. By March 1971, it was home to the 1st Battalion of the Americal Division’s 46th Infantry Regiment. Inside the perimeter were infantrymen, artillery crews, radio operators, and a command post buried under sandbags and timber.
On the night of March 28, everything was quiet.
“I had seen nothing and expected nothing,” SP/4 Dennis Schulte later told Time magazine. “I went over to the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) and talked with some friends until about 2:30 a.m.”
Soon afterward, the attack began.
There was no preparatory barrage. No warning shots.
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North Vietnamese sappers slipped through the outer wire in darkness and low cloud, moving on foot with AK-47s, knives, and satchel charges. Some crawled beneath concertina coils. Others cut through gaps in the perimeter. Wearing only shorts, blackened skin, and grenades slung at their sides, roughly 50 attackers moved along trench lines and bunker entrances before anyone knew what was happening.
Satchel charges detonated against bunker walls, blowing open entrances and collapsing roofs. One blast tore through the tactical operations center, shredding radios and killing men inside.
One soldier grabbed a mic inside the TOC.
“Be advised, we are taking incoming at this time!” Spc 4 Stephen Gutosky barked. “Stand by and I’ll see if I can get a direction on it!”
When he couldn’t get outside to see where the attack was coming from, Gutsy shouted: “Just fire all the countermortars and counterrockets you got ASAP!”
Communications soon evaporated. Survivors staggered into the open as secondary explosions rolled across nearby positions.
Sappers moved from bunker to bunker, firing short bursts and throwing grenades into openings. Some Americans woke up to boots overhead and explosions at their doors. Others ran into the trenches and fired into shadows moving through smoke and flare light. Claymores detonated late or not at all. Radios crackled briefly, then went silent.
Ammunition stacks ignited. Medics crawled between bunkers under fire, dragging wounded men into whatever cover remained.
Some defenders fought from collapsed positions through torn sandbags. Others fought hand to hand. Men trying to reach the command post found it was destroyed.
Typical Fire Support Base, FSB Pamela, in Vietnam.
By 0430, gunships and medevac helicopters began arriving overhead. One pilot later told Time magazine the entire base was burning.
“You couldn’t see because of the smoke,” said Lt. Mat Noonan. “We had to circle three times just to see where the pad was.”
The crew landed anyway.
“There were rows and rows of bodies,” Noonan said. “Some burned to charcoal, others completely disemboweled. There were nine body bags full of bits and pieces of flesh.”
The command bunker lay torn open. Radios were twisted under dirt and splintered timber. Craters marked where satchel charges had detonated.
Thirty American soldiers were dead. More than 80 were wounded.
All of the officers had been killed or wounded. Command passed down through the ranks until a buck sergeant was in charge, according to Time.
By the time illumination rounds burned overhead, the attackers were gone, withdrawing into the jungle the way they had come. They left behind shattered bunkers, burning equipment, and bodies scattered across the trench lines.
Then came the investigations. Commanders were reassigned and some were disciplined. The head of Americal Division, Maj. Gen. James L. Baldwin, was relieved of command. The merits of those actions were challenged and debated.
The aftermath continued for years. The fight itself lasted less than an hour.
Robert Fallon studies Vietnam-era combat operations in a professional capacity.