What Really Happened During the 23 Day Siege of Firebase Ripcord

and all of his men would go down to the base and grab the ammunition and bring it up to the top of the mountain. And Bob, being as competitive as he was, he would grab the biggest one. It was like 96 lb. >> At 6:30 in the morning, more than 500 mortar rounds started falling on a tiny hilltop firebase in the mountains of South Vietnam.

 300 American soldiers were surrounded by an enemy force 10 times their size. They had one way out. helicopters flying directly into a wall of anti-aircraft fire. By noon, the base would be abandoned. By nightfall, B-52 bombers would erase it from the map. And for the next 15 years, almost no one in America would even know it happened.

This is the story of Firebase Ripcord. By early 1970, the war in Vietnam was already winding down. President Nixon had started withdrawing American troops and the policy of Vietnamization was supposed to hand the fighting over to South Vietnamese forces. But there was a problem.

 The AA Valley, a 25m corridor along the Laos border, had become a super highway for North Vietnamese supplies. The military needed to disrupt those supply lines. And the only full strength American division left in Vietnam was the 101st Airborne. The plan was called Operation Texas Star. The 101st would rebuild an abandoned fire base called Ripcord and use it as a launching point to search and destroy enemy bases in the valley.

 There was just one catch. The North Vietnamese army had watched them do this before at a place called Hamburger Hill just a few miles away. And this time they were ready. On March 12th, 1970, the third brigade of the 101st Airborne under the command of Colonel Benjamin Harrison began rebuilding Firebase Ripcord. The firebase sat on a tiny figure8 shaped hilltop barely big enough for six artillery pieces and a few hundred men.

Everything had to come in by helicopter. But the Americans weren’t the only ones watching. Pean Major General Chu Puang Doy, commander of the 324B division, had personally scouted the area around Ripcord. He positioned his forces on the hilltop surrounding the fire base and he waited.

 For three months, small attacks probed the American defenses. The soldiers on Ripcord had no idea they were looking at a force that outnumbered them nearly 10 to one. Then came July. On July 1st, 1970, the North Vietnamese opened fire with mortars on Firebase Ripcord. What started as 50 rounds a day would eventually become hundreds. The Americans sent infantry companies into the surrounding hills to locate and destroy the enemy positions.

 What they found was terrifying. On Hill 1000, Company D walked into a fortified bunker complex. The NVA had spent months building reinforced positions with interlocking fields of fire. >> The enemy can study you know where your positions were. >> About 4 3 4:00 in the morning, we were hit. >> Day after day, the companies pushed into the jungle.

 Day after day they took casualties and pulled back. On Hill 805, Delta Company of the 251 sent infantry spent six days trying to take a single hill. They called it the meat grinder. But the worst was yet to come. On July 18th, everything changed. July 18th, 1970, 1:40 in the afternoon, AC47 Chinuk from the 159th Assault Helicopter Battalion was hovering above Ripcord, about to deliver a slingload of 105 mm artillery ammunition.

 That’s when enemy 0 51 caliber machine gun fire tore into the helicopter. The rotors went out of sync. The pilot lost control. The helicopter burst into flames. Within minutes, 3,500 rounds of artillery ammunition started cooking off. One witness said the explosions continued for hours. The mushroom cloud of smoke and fire rose hundreds of feet into the air.

 Shrapnel was landing on Alpha Company’s position a kilometer and a half away. When it was over, Firebase Ripcord had lost most of its artillery. The one remaining Howitzer was damaged. The firebase was suddenly almost defenseless, and the North Vietnamese knew it. Among the men defending Ripcourt was first lieutenant Bob Kalu. Calsu had been an offensive lineman for the Buffalo Bills, voted the team’s rookie of the year in 1968.

 But unlike many professional athletes who avoided the draft, Kelsu honored his ROC commitment and went to Vietnam. >> You look at you look at a Robert Kelsu from the perspective of of a guy younger than him coming up in the community and that’s who you want to be like. Bob Kelsu was killed on July 21st, 1970, just 2 days before the evacuation.

 He was reading a letter from his wife telling him about the birth of his son. He remains the only active professional athlete killed in the Vietnam War. The night before the evacuation, things reached their breaking point. Alpha Company was positioned on a hill south of Ripcord when an estimated 400 NVA soldiers attacked.

 The fighting lasted through the night. By morning, 14 Americans were dead and 56 were wounded. Out of 76 men, only 10 walked back under their own power. On July 23rd, the order came. Evacuate Firebase Ripcord. But getting out would be just as dangerous as staying. At 6:30 in the morning, more than 500 mortar rounds began falling on the firebase.

 Enemy machine gunners opened fire on every helicopter that approached. Lieutenant Colonel Andre Lucas, the 39-year-old West Point graduate commanding the second battalion, had spent the entire siege flying his helicopter at treetop level above enemy positions, directing his men’s fire. On one occasion, he stayed in an exposed position for over 3 hours until his helicopter was so damaged it had to be replaced.

 He switched to another helicopter and went right back up. That morning, as the evacuation was underway, another helicopter was hit and crashed onto the firebase. Lieutenant Colonel Lucas ran toward the burning wreckage. He was trying to rescue a crewman trapped inside when he was killed by enemy mortar fire. Andre Lucas was one of three men awarded the Medal of Honor for actions at Ripcord.

 By 12:14 in the afternoon, the last Americans were off the firebase. That evening, B52 bombers carpet bombed the hilltop, erasing any evidence the base had ever existed. Here’s the part that haunts the survivors. For 15 years, almost no one knew firebased ripcord happened. The Nixon administration had ordered a news blackout.

 After the public relations disaster of Hamburger Hill, after the Cambodian incursion, after Kent State, the last thing Washington wanted was another bloody battle in the headlines. Reporters who tried to fly to Ripcord were turned away. The official press release listed 61 killed, a deliberate undercount. The men who survived came home to a country that didn’t even know they’d been in a fight.

 It wasn’t until 1985 when the Ripcourt Association was formed that the full story began to emerge. Historian Keith Nolan’s book Ripcord Screaming Eagles Under Siege finally gave the battle the documentation it deserved in 2000. Today, a meticulously detailed diarama of firebased rip cord sits in the South Carolina Confederate Relic Room and Military Museum.

 It’s the first thing visitors see when they walk in. Veteran Craig Van Hout, who was wounded at Ripcord, visits sometimes. He watches other visitors do what he calls a 60-second walk by. He wants to tell them, “Stop. Look closer. Understand what happened here.” Because for 23 days in July 1970, 300 men held a hilltop against an army.

 They took casualties every single day. And when it was over, they were ordered to pretend it never happened. The battle for Firebase Ripcord was the last major ground engagement between American forces and the North Vietnamese army. The men who fought there deserve to be remembered. If you want to learn about another forgotten battle of Vietnam, click the video on screen and subscribe for more stories like this one.