Fifty-five miles north of Saigon, at a critical road junction in Phuoc Long Province, 11 American Green Berets were settling into what should have been a routine advisory mission. Detachment A-342, 5th Special Forces Group, had arrived at Dong Xoai in late May 1965 to train local Montagnard tribesmen and South Vietnamese forces.
On June 9, Viet Cong mortar rounds and recoilless rifle fire tore through the camp's defenses. What followed was a 14-hour battle that would force American planners to recalculate their efforts in the country and push the U.S. into full-scale ground combat.
Two Viet Cong Regiments Attack Under the Cover of Darkness
America had not yet launched full military operations in the country. The U.S. provided vital air support for ARVN forces facing the communists, while Special Forces advisors, like the troops at Dong Xoai, trained and equipped them to American standards.
Only a few days after the Americans had arrived at the camp, two Viet Cong regiments — the 272nd and 273rd of the 9th Division — had crept to within 100 meters of the camp with 1,500 to 2,000 fighters. They wrapped their weapons in fabric to muffle sound as they positioned themselves in the darkness.
The 272nd would advance into Dong Xoai village and the Special Forces camp. The 273rd would block any reinforcements trying to reach the besieged troops. It was textbook ambush tactics, executed with a level of sophistication that U.S. leaders had underestimated.
At 11:30 p.m., 60mm mortars and 57mm recoilless rifles slammed into the camp. In the opening minutes, the VC destroyed the communications equipment and medical dispensary.
SF Capt. Bill Stokes, the camp commander, was running to the command bunker when shrapnel ripped into both legs. Command of the camp suddenly fell to 2nd Lt. Charles Q. Williams.
Williams had been an NCO in the 82nd Airborne Division before going to Officer Candidate School and joining the Green Berets.
He grabbed a PRC-10 radio and tried to reach Stokes in the other compound. Before he could reach Stokes, Williams made a quick decision to organize the defense, figure out where the main enemy attack was coming from, and get troops to the south and west walls.
When he tried to reach the district headquarters to establish communications, fierce enemy fire drove him back. Shrapnel tore into his right leg.
VC started to scale the camp walls. Some of the Montagnard guards panicked and started falling back. Williams ran through the gunfire, rallied the retreating fighters, and led them back to their positions. In those frantic minutes, he suffered two more wounds.
Nine Navy Seabees from Technical Assistance Team 1104 were fighting alongside the Green Berets. They had arrived only days before to improve the fortifications — construction work, not combat. Nevertheless, they picked up weapons and joined the fight.
Construction Mechanic 3rd Class Marvin Glenn Shields, a 25-year-old former lumberjack from Port Townsend, helped carry the wounded Capt. Stokes to the district headquarters as bullets flew overhead.
Two other Seabees became separated from the rest of the Americans. They spent the rest of the battle evading communist troops, but were wounded in the process.
ARVN Reinforcements Fly Into the Kill Zone
Only hours after the initial attack, two UH-1B Huey gunships from the 118th Aviation Company's 3rd Flight Platoon flew in from Bien Hoa. Despite the pitch darkness, the pilots opened fire on VC positions, dumping rockets on the machine gun positions surrounding the camp. Chief Warrant Officer Ralph Orlando would later write that the compound was in shambles and the enemy was attacking in human waves.
But the real disaster was unfolding with the ARVN reinforcements.
Just as the sun started to rise, helicopters were shuttling the 1st Battalion, 7th ARVN Regiment toward landing zones near Dong Xoai. The first drop point was an open field near the Thuan Loi rubber plantation, a couple of miles north of the camp.
When 14 helicopters approached, the pilots saw what looked like civilians in the landing zone. They held their fire. Turns out they were VC fighters who quickly dove into prepared bunkers and unleashed hell as the ARVN troops hit the ground. It was a slaughter.
The helicopters refueled and tried a different landing zone — the Thuan Loi airstrip. VC troops again massacred the ARVN reinforcements as they exited the aircraft. Blue Tail 1 from the 118th Aviation Company lifted off after dropping troops and caught a mortar round. The chopper rolled over and exploded, killing four crewmen and two U.S. Army advisers.
Orlando later noted that of the more than 500 ARVN troops inserted at the two landing zones, about 250 were unaccounted for.
The ARVN 52nd Ranger Battalion fought through the prepared ambush and managed to recapture parts of Dong Xoai by the afternoon. But the next day, June 11, when the ARVN 7th Airborne Battalion arrived to search for survivors near Thuan Loi, the VC ambushed them again. By the following morning, few survivors were found and only 100 or so paratroopers remained combat effective. The Rangers managed to find and rescue the two wounded Seabees.
The American-trained South Vietnamese forces were walking into repeated traps, getting systematically destroyed by an enemy that they had underestimated.
The Heroic Actions of Shields and Williams
Back at Dong Xoai, Williams was consolidating what was left. As the outer perimeter fell, he pulled American personnel from both compounds into the district headquarters building. The troops even sheltered several civilians in the compound to protect them from the VC.
When someone got a battery-powered radio working, Williams raced to the communications bunker. Grenade fragments caught him in the stomach and right arm. His fourth and fifth wounds.
Using the radio, Williams directed airstrikes against VC positions that were closing in on the building.
By dawn on June 10, the Viet Cong had moved a .30-caliber machine gun into a schoolhouse south of the district headquarters. The gun hammered the American position. Williams needed it destroyed.
He grabbed the last heavy weapon available — a 3.5-inch rocket launcher. “I need a volunteer,” he said.
Shields stepped forward. He'd already been wounded three times and had never fired a 3.5-inch rocket launcher before. He continued anyway.
The two men moved carefully across open ground toward the schoolhouse. Williams shouldered the launcher. Shields loaded the rocket and stepped clear of the back-blast area. The sight was faulty, but Williams sent the rocket downrange. At 150 meters, he hit the machine gun nest.
They turned to head back, but a second machine gun opened up. Williams took rounds in the right arm and leg. Two bullets shattered Shields' right leg. Williams couldn't carry him. He dragged Shields to cover, then crawled back to get help. A few other Americans pulled Shields back to the building.
At noon, SF radio operator Staff Sgt. Harold Crowe sent a message that captured just how dire things had gotten: “I'm using my last battery for the radio, and there is no more ammunition. We are all wounded, some of the more serious are holding grenades with the safety pins already pulled. The VC are attacking in human waves. The last wave has been defeated, but we are expecting the next wave now.”
At the 118th Aviation headquarters in Bien Hoa, Maj. Harvey Stewart stood up and said, “I'm going in.”
Around 1 p.m., Stewart and five pilots flew three Hueys through heavy fire and landed. They loaded the Americans and several Vietnamese fighters and got out. Stewart would receive the Distinguished Service Cross for the rescue.
Shields was loaded onto one of the rescue helicopters. Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class James Keenan was with him. Shields was “joking and cutting up to the end,” Keenan later recalled. “When he finally went under, it was very quiet, nothing dramatic. He just went to sleep. The last thing he did was to thank everyone who helped him.”
Shields died en route to medical care.
173rd Airborne Brigade Deploys as America Enters the Ground War
Following the evacuation from the compound, the VC withdrew, having suffered horrendous casualties. As the Allied troops consolidated their positions, the VC still maintained several defensive positions in the area. Gen. William Westmoreland did not want these communist troops to remain in the area.
He ordered the ARVN forces in the region to rearm and move back out to crush them. He was unaware, or unwilling to accept, that the ARVN were decimated, depleted, and not capable of any further action.
Upon reassessing the situation and the casualties of U.S. and ARVN forces, Westmoreland finally made a decision that would define the country over the next decade. South Vietnamese forces couldn't hold without direct American combat support.
On June 13, fearing the VC would become entrenched in Phuoc Long Province, Westmoreland deployed 738 men from the 1st Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade to a staging area at Phuoc Vinh.
This was the first major commitment of U.S. ground combat troops in the conflict. The 173rd had been staged on Okinawa as a rapid reaction force — now they were being fed into a war that would consume them for the next six years.
By the time the paratroopers arrived, the Viet Cong had melted back into the jungle. American paratroopers began running into the same ambushes and suffering the same setbacks the ARVN had only days prior. American forces were no longer advising, they were fighting.
Three Special Forces soldiers and two Seabees were killed among the 20 Americans at the camp. Of the 15 survivors, 14 were wounded. Eight helicopter crewmen were dead, as were five U.S. Army advisers. About 43 Montagnards and South Vietnamese troops were killed at the camp. More than 400 additional ARVN soldiers were killed in the fighting nearby.
The Viet Cong left only 134 bodies in the camp area, though they likely carried off many more.
Two Medals of Honor from One Battle
Williams received the Medal of Honor from President Lyndon Johnson on June 28, 1966. In the East Room of the White House, Johnson told the assembled crowd: “Lieutenant Williams and a very small band of Americans and Vietnamese fought for 14 long hours against an enemy that outnumbered them more than five to one. During those long hours, Lieutenant Williams was wounded five times.”
Shields became the first and only Navy Seabee to receive the Medal of Honor. His widow, Joan, and daughter, Barbara, accepted it in August 1966 in the Oval Office.
Williams retired as a major and died in 1982 at age 49. He is buried at Arlington National Cemetery.
Dong Xoai had exposed a frightening lesson that American leaders would again face years later. The ARVN were incapable of facing the communists. They walked into ambushes repeatedly. Their leadership issues stemmed from a promotion system based on political connections rather than combat experience. While individual ARVN troops fought valiantly, they were led by less-than-stellar officers.
America's advisory strategy wasn't working. Now, U.S. troops would pay the price, only to be withdrawn in 1973 as the ARVN again failed to face the NVA and VC.
Within months, American combat strength in Vietnam would surge from 75,000 to nearly 200,000. That November, troopers from the 1st Cavalry Division would face the North Vietnamese Army for the first time at Ia Drang.
Despite the odds stacked against them and the failures of ARVN leaders, 11 Green Berets and nine Seabees had fought like hell and proven what individual Americans could do.
