Arizona Republic from Phoenix, Arizona • Page 14

Kbh'UdLlU II AtHent Republic CITY 00 Phoeflbr, March 31, 1969 On the million-dollar knoll Charred shadows left hehind after grenade battle By HORST FAAS Associated Press Photographer TUK CHUP MOUNTAIN, ghosts remain on Superstition Mountain. The Vietcong who defended this 800-foot pile of granite have fled toward Cambodia or lie dead in its napalm- blackened crevices. After one of the longest and bloodiest campaigns in the Mekong Delta, mountain tribesmen led by U.S. Special Forces drove the enemy from his largest natural sanctuary along the Cambodian border. U.S.

officers estimated that the Vietcong could comfortably house and supply up to 500 men in the cavernous interior of Tuk Chup Mountain, known locally as Superstition Mountain. The knoll was a natural fortress commanding the flat paddyfields and the marshy Plain of Reeds. The cost of victory was almost top high. For every dead 1 Vietcong counted, at least two Vietnamese or Americans had been killed and seven wounded since mid-November. South Vietnamese Iroops believed that the soul of every man killed on the mountain would wander aimlessly forever, because Buddha's spirit had abandoned the ugly knoll.

Some older Americans called it the "million-dollar knoll" because of the cost in blood and explosives. "When we crawled over the big boulders, Vietcong sharpshooters picked us off one by one," recalled S. Sgt. Albert G. Belisle of Panama City, Fla.

"We tried to crawl forward under the rocks, but the Vietcong came on top of us, throwing and rolling grenades down. Belisle, who commanded one of the six strike force companies that made the final assault, said his outfit lost two men to snipers before it got to the foot of the knoll. "Then we fought straight uphill. Every 20 yards another man fell." The soldiers tried to sweep around it toward the main openings to the inner caverns. "When my men snaked up from the crevices and squeezed themselves over the hanHers, we caught the most accurate fire I have seen in six years here," a Green Beret veteran said.

"It was screaming hell. The wounds were terrible. Charlie wasted no bullet on easy wounds like arms and legs. The 'Yards' (Montagnard soldiers) got it between the eyes, the throat or the belly. Flopping their legs and arms in shock, the screaming wounded slid back into the crevices." "When a medic crawled after them, Charlie seemed to know where he had to expose himself.

With one bullet he would drop the medic right on top of the wounded man in the cave." "From then on we just swapped grenades with the Vietcong. The one who was more accurate lived," Belisle said. "We crouched between the rocks with a grenade in one hand and the other hand free, listening for the sound of a pin being pulled or the clink of a grenade pin. When a grenade came clinking in your direction there were only two it back with your free hand or hunch between the rocks and pray." "That morning I asked for three volunteers to crawl ahead right into the mountain IT'S TIME NOW! DON'T WAIT- CONVERT TO AIR CONDITIONING Phone 264-2681 274-8475 DUSTRAP Cooler Repacking Service Is Ready IN 2P33 f. Indian Sch.

Rd. Phone 264-2681 GMtH Air Conditioning Mainttncnct tervlce Coll 279-6251 and among those Vietcong," Belisle said. Belisle's three platoon leaders volunteered. Lts. Ha-Elyz, He-Non and Mang-Son took off their webgear, gave their M16s to the Americans and stuck knives in their belts.

They filled their pockets with grenades and slipped away between the rocks. Belisle, who questioned them after their mission, described it this way. few yards after they left us they found an AK47 rifle and they stole it because they thought it would be handy to have a Vietcong weapon when moving among the Vietcong. "On their bellies they crawled toward the sound of a machine gun. They reached the machine gunner's cavern while he was firing at us.

They killled him without making a sound. "Then they moved on past several abandoned sniper nests between the rocks. Looking up they saw two men chained to a rock firing a heavy machine gun through a narrow slit. One Vietcong cradled an ammunition belt. Held by the chain, the gunner could lean far to the side and poke his weapon through the slit while perfectly protected by rocks all around.

"The chains were tied around the waist and fastened to hooks in the rock. One of the infiltrators crawled forward with an activated grenade and threw it up the chimney like cavern, killing both machine gunners. Their bodies were still dangling from the chains next day." All this time the company was pinned down by an above ground essault. "I felt very bad about it," Belisle said. "But I had to call in artillery and napalm to beat the assault back, knowing all the time that my platoon leaders were somewhere under the bombarded rocks.

Later they told me the shells just shook them, but they had problems with the napalm dripping down. "They were so torn, blackened and burned that a Vietcong who met them crawling downward asked them, 'Are you hurt. Do you need The Vietcong, possibly an officer because he carried a pistol, was followed by sever- al women guerrillas. The three could not answer their highland Vietnamese is not polished enough so they dropped a grenade and killed him and some of the girls. "The three reached the waterpoint, killed the guard there, washed up and then started sizing up the cave system and grabbing documents.

"They got us all the poop we needed to get the company into the caves and that was the end of Charlie here," Belisle said. never thought I'd see the three alive again, but after 11 hours they were back, with 11 Charlies killed and still seven grenades left." From then on the Special Forces troopers were on the offensive. "We killed them one by one with grenades, direct hits of Willie Peter while phosphorus artillery shells or with napalm," said Maj. John Borgman of Aurora, commander of the Special Forces' 5th Mobile Strike Force. Americans marveled at the size of the natural caves.

One was so big the Vietcong housed two battalions in it. There was a hospital with bamboo beds deep in the mountain. Several generators provided electricity. Rainwater was caught in natural rock basins and piped into the enemy quarters. Angry citizens Small town seeking of Hue bury war deaths holiday Cong victims Firemen return to work Associated Press 90th Strati Deficit increases by $144 million WASHINGTON (AP) The government spent $144 million more in February than it took in, the Treasury department reported.

That brought the cumulative deficit for the first eight months of the fiscal year to $10.3 billion. The February deficit followed monthly surpluses of $1.4 billion and $84 million in December and January. The eight-month deficit is less than half the size of the $25.1 billion red ink figure for the comparable period a year ago. In coming months the administration expects receipts to outweigh expenditures, resulting in a surplus at the end of the fiscal year of about $1.1 billion. Associated Press HUE, Vietnam "Our anger is higher than the mountains and deeper than the sea," intoned the mayor as the mourners of Hue wept.

"We cannot stop our tears, but we promise you, the dead, that we will fight on." As the mayor, Col. Le Van Than, spoke yesterday, the citizens of Hue buried 134 of their dead, many clubbed to death by the Vietcong during the Tet offensive 14 months ago. The victims, mostly civilians, were found last week in shallow, white sand graves in a waste area near this former imperial capital of Vietnam. "We are finding about 40 bodies a day," said Than, who is also province chief. "We believe we may eventually uncover 500." BETWEEN 5,000 and 6,000 persons, including relatives and friends of the dead, went to a schoolhouse just outside Hue where the bodies lay in makeshift plywood caskets.

Only about 20 of the decomposed bodies had been identified before the funeral. The rest were buried in graves marked with numbers painted on little metal squares. Data sheets with information which helped identify a few of the bodies were put on file in Than's office. "Body No. 37.

Man with a white shirt," read one sheet. "Package of Salem cigarettes in pocket. Striped underwear. Green, Japanese-made sandals." The bodies were discovered by military search parties after recent pacification of a region southeast of Hue. "WE KNEW there were about 2,000 persons missing after the siege of Hue," Than said.

"When we went into this area, we heard rumors among the people about mass graves, and we began searching. Wherever there was a vegetation growing on the sand, we dug and we found bodies." A soldier stumbled on a wire and found it had been used to tie the hands of one victim. Others found in three trenchlike graves had been tied with rope and fishing line. MODEL HOME RETURNS I ROOMS 1-BEPR9QM Ml HOUSEFUL! 2 Pe. Lvc.

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Miller, R-Ohio, says he will appeal directly to Secretary of Defense Melvin R. Laird now that his request to have the men taken out of combat has been refused by the Pentagon. A Pentagon general told him: "Danger is personal to the individual, not the community from which he comes. If one individual should be excused because of his geographic origin, the risk he is spared to be assumed by some other young man whose family and community would be equally solicitous of his welfare." The village honor roll: Jack Pittman, Duane Greenlee, Charles Snegg, Richard Rucker, Robert Lucas and Jimmy Davis. The funeral for Lucas was held about a week ago and nearly the whole community of 430 turned out.

Jimmy Davis was not a full-time resident of Beallsville but its people count him among their dead because of the summers he spent here with his grandparents. Mrs. Ben Gramlick, wife of the mayor, is among those encouraging Miller. But she says her concern is twofold the safety of their son, Randy, 20, who has been in combat three months and what he may think about the effort. "We really appreciate what he is doing," Mrs.

Gramlick said of Miller's efforts. "We are all just country people, but we are concerned, and wondering. may or may not want to leave the job he's doing the other boys may feel the same way. "I received a letter from Randy only yesterday, and he didn't mention anything about wanting to come home. It's pretty hard to say just what is right.

I wrote right back and asked his opinion." Relatives of the others still in Vietnam, Roger McClelland, John Decker, Wayne La Faber, and Harry R. Hartley expressed similar concern about the men and also about how they might react to the move to get them out of combat. Monroe County Treasurer R. Starkey, one of the area residents who appealed to Miller, said, "I admit I've been shaken about the matter, concerned that so many fine boys from this area have lost their lives. "At the same time I recognize that there are a lot of fine boys in service and as dear to their hometown people as ours are to us.

I get shaken when I think of these six boys and what they have cost the community. fear for the others there now and on their way." MADISON, Wis. (AP) Firemen returned to work early yesterday shortly after reaching agreement with the Madison Common Council on a new contract that ended a 52-hour strike. No serious fires broke out during the walkout, which began in the Wisconsin capital Thursday night over wage demands. The city has a population of 158,000, and the fire department's jurisdiction includes the 33,000 student University of Wisconsin campus.

The walkout caused closing of public schools Friday as a precaution. More than 260 members of Local 311, International Association of Firefighters, abandoned Madison's 10 fire stations after the council refused to reconsider its rejection of the local's money requests. Only seven officers remained to operate two trucks. The action had been called in the face of a Wisconsin law prohibiting walkouts by municipal employes, and fire fighters had ignored a restraining order issued Friday. The new one-year contract contains an amnesty for those who left their jobs.

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