TUE MORNING

7 FEB.

My Darling Girls,

I'm tired cranky and thoroughly browned off so I shouldn‘t be writing but it has been three or four days since I wrote. So let me start back at Friday. I'm sure I wrote last on Friday morning. There was an attack at HUONG TRA by a VC Coy at 1300 hrs Friday and we moved out at 1330 we had a running fairly indecisive scrap all afternoon and stayed out overnight in ambush positions at HUONG TRA. At 0600 hrs on SAT morning the VC hit QUANG DIEU district HQ and the surrounding village of SIA with 60mm mortars killing 6 and wounding 10. We moved across country from H. TRA and its only 3 miles and get there at 0700 just as the word came close that "many VC" had just entered the northern end of the town and were killing all the P.F. We did the old "advance to the sounds of the guns" at the double we hit the centre of town and met the VC coming down the road. I was up with the point and we saw them a fraction before they saw us. They were regulars in green uniforms, helmets the works, we opened up and dropped several in the raid and then it was straight out of the wild west TV we turned over 2 wagons across the road and threw up hasty barricades of bags of rice and wheat and of cement building blocks from a construction site and fought to hold them at the market place. I even achieved live TV classic of shooting one of the roof. They got a sniper up on the roof of the church and I clobbered him with the AK and he flipped twice before he hit the ground. We found we'd got a tiger by the tail. It was 810 battalion - all regulars and the whole battalion and we had about 150 all told So we yelled for reinforcements. They sent a bn from PK 17 and 15 M113 APCs. They came tracking in from the north west but wouldn't come into the village - too many VC! I'm proud of my kids they did damned well. They put in two bayonet charges and cleared the VC from the church and the monsoon drain behind it. Then we were ordered to pull back as they were going to out in an airstrike. I pleaded with the useless slobs not to, as it was an extremely friendly village and all that was necessary was for these useless b-s in the bn and the APCs to come in and help us dig them out, but we were overruled by the people at Division and forced to pull back and they saturated the village in napalm. It didn't get the VC, they had all dug bunkers but it got a hell of a lot of the villagers. Then I said will now you're done let's get in there and clean it out - but they refused still to go in and waited until last light then the APCs withdrew and left a gap in the cordon to let the VC out so they wouldn't have to fight them.

All the advisors were ropeable, we called the Regt Comd and the APC Comd cowards to their faces. So we lost 20 dead 40 wounded - 40 civilians dead or wounded - one advisor - Capt Rud the APC advisor dead - two advisors wounded - and got 11 VC bodies - we could have killed the whole battalion if only those useless swine had a little guts.

The Regional and Popular force soldiers fought hard and

see AA 1129/1/14 for part 2