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The last stand of Detachment 5 is a remarkable story. A six man group originally, two others from the 1st Cav were attached a few days before the Tet offensive. There was also a civilian journalist with them. They were surrounded and had to try to fight their way out of the city of Hue.
Many people say they should make a movie out of certain stories. There may be hope that there will be a book or film about this story. As the article relates:
"For a half-century, the harrowing account of this band of broadcasters at No. 6 Tran Duc St. has received only limited exposure in the literary world and none on the big screen. Bagwell would like to correct that. He wants to get together with Ettmueller and work on a manuscript."
Many people say they should make a movie out of certain stories. There may be hope that there will be a book or film about this story. As the article relates:
"For a half-century, the harrowing account of this band of broadcasters at No. 6 Tran Duc St. has received only limited exposure in the literary world and none on the big screen. Bagwell would like to correct that. He wants to get together with Ettmueller and work on a manuscript."
The Last Stand of Detachment 5 | HistoryNet
Posted from historynet.com
Vietnam War
Combat
Journalism
POW/MIA
Military History
Posted 7 y ago
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Thanks SGT (Join to see) for sharing the last stand of Detachment 5 of American (Armed) Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN)
FYI American (Armed) Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN) was established on August 15, 1962 in the Rex Hotel in Saigon with a staff of only six permanent military personnel plus several Vietnamese employees and various volunteers.
Back to Detachment 5 from history.net
"On May 15, 1967, AFVN officially opened its newest upcountry affiliate, designated Detachment 5, in Hue, South Vietnam’s third largest city. The Viet Cong answered defiantly with a mortar attack. Six weeks later, the TV tower collapsed when a fuel truck backed into a guy wire, knocking Channel 11 off the air for five weeks. The inauspicious beginning of the Hue TV station foreshadowed the detachment’s tragic demise in a Communist assault, which would seal a poignant place for AFVN in broadcasting history.
By the time of the Tet holiday celebrating the Lunar New Year in January 1968, a staff of six men was operating the expanding broadcast facility. Two others had just arrived from the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to help begin the detachment’s new radio service. Spec. 5 Steven Stroub and Spec. 4 John Bagwell, who had been working at the 1st Air Cav’s own radio station at An Khe in the central part of the country, were reassigned to AFVN, assuring that American radio would be there for the troops when the division moved to Camp Evans, just northwest of Hue.
On the night of Jan. 30, 1968, Hue was placed on full alert by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, which oversaw military operations throughout South Vietnam. Broadcast engineer Army Spec. 5 Harry Ettmueller, one of only two survivors of the attack still living, remembers the ominous signs. “With all my contacts, they kept telling me you don’t want to be here for Tet,” he said. “You need to be on R&R. Don’t be here.”
That night Hue’s original AFVN television station signed off for the last time. The final two programs would have been ABC’s Combat and The Fugitive, according to a published TV schedule.
The station’s eight-man team of military broadcasters and a visiting civilian engineer, Courtney Niles, an Army veteran employed by NBC International, worked out of Hue’s “broadcast center.” The compound, at No. 3 Dong Da St., housed not only AFVN’s facilities but also the city’s Vietnamese television station. It was the former residence of the U.S. consul.
The Americans were sleeping in their billet, a villa one street over at No. 6 Tran Duc St., when “all hell broke loose” in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 31, recalls Bagwell, the other remaining survivor. “We had a pretty good view from our back door,” he said. “We could actually see the attack going on.”
In the hours, days and weeks that followed, Hue would become an iconic flashpoint of the countrywide Tet Offensive staged by the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerillas, who took control of large sections of the city.
Enemy gunners targeted the television station on the first night. A mortar shell penetrated the roof of AFVN’s maintenance shed at the Dong Da compound.
From the detachment’s billet, the officer in charge, Marine Lt. James DiBernardo, called the local MACV headquarters in Hue on the house telephone, Bagwell said. “They told us to stay put. Fighting, they thought, was all over the city. Sometime the next day the line was cut. We were on our own at that point.”
A protracted siege at the villa started with sniper fire. “We could see them out there every now and then probing,” said Ettmueller, who carried an M14 rifle. The others were armed with a hodgepodge of weapons that required different ammunition, which was available only in limited quantities.
In addition to Ettmueller’s M14, the defenders had a collection of old M1 carbines, a couple of M16 rifles, a .45-caliber pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun, a heavy M60 machine gun and six hand grenades. The detachment was never issued its M79 grenade launcher, Ettmueller recalls. “The supply officer in Saigon thought that we didn’t need it because we were in the city.”
The men took up positions inside the house to secure the entry points. They had C rations, drinking water and even a transoceanic radio that was their link to the outside world as they listened to AFVN radio broadcasting from Saigon. Bagwell was guarding the window in the bedroom where he slept. “We eluded them for a couple of days and actually thought that we would eventually be rescued,” he said.
After several days, an American helicopter flew over. “As far as they knew, the whole city had been taken,” Ettmueller said. “They came buzzing over, and the door gunner fired down on us.” The stunned men escaped the friendly fire."
FYI LTC Bill Koski CW5 (Join to see) MSG Brad Sand SGM Steve Wettstein SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright PO1 John Miller SP5 Robert Ruck SPC (Join to see) PO3 Steven Sherrill SN Greg Wright Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey TSgt Joe C. Cpl Joshua Caldwell SGT Michael Thorin SP5 Dave (Shotgun) Shockley SPC Margaret Higgins
FYI American (Armed) Forces Vietnam Network (AFVN) was established on August 15, 1962 in the Rex Hotel in Saigon with a staff of only six permanent military personnel plus several Vietnamese employees and various volunteers.
Back to Detachment 5 from history.net
"On May 15, 1967, AFVN officially opened its newest upcountry affiliate, designated Detachment 5, in Hue, South Vietnam’s third largest city. The Viet Cong answered defiantly with a mortar attack. Six weeks later, the TV tower collapsed when a fuel truck backed into a guy wire, knocking Channel 11 off the air for five weeks. The inauspicious beginning of the Hue TV station foreshadowed the detachment’s tragic demise in a Communist assault, which would seal a poignant place for AFVN in broadcasting history.
By the time of the Tet holiday celebrating the Lunar New Year in January 1968, a staff of six men was operating the expanding broadcast facility. Two others had just arrived from the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) to help begin the detachment’s new radio service. Spec. 5 Steven Stroub and Spec. 4 John Bagwell, who had been working at the 1st Air Cav’s own radio station at An Khe in the central part of the country, were reassigned to AFVN, assuring that American radio would be there for the troops when the division moved to Camp Evans, just northwest of Hue.
On the night of Jan. 30, 1968, Hue was placed on full alert by Military Assistance Command, Vietnam, which oversaw military operations throughout South Vietnam. Broadcast engineer Army Spec. 5 Harry Ettmueller, one of only two survivors of the attack still living, remembers the ominous signs. “With all my contacts, they kept telling me you don’t want to be here for Tet,” he said. “You need to be on R&R. Don’t be here.”
That night Hue’s original AFVN television station signed off for the last time. The final two programs would have been ABC’s Combat and The Fugitive, according to a published TV schedule.
The station’s eight-man team of military broadcasters and a visiting civilian engineer, Courtney Niles, an Army veteran employed by NBC International, worked out of Hue’s “broadcast center.” The compound, at No. 3 Dong Da St., housed not only AFVN’s facilities but also the city’s Vietnamese television station. It was the former residence of the U.S. consul.
The Americans were sleeping in their billet, a villa one street over at No. 6 Tran Duc St., when “all hell broke loose” in the pre-dawn hours of Jan. 31, recalls Bagwell, the other remaining survivor. “We had a pretty good view from our back door,” he said. “We could actually see the attack going on.”
In the hours, days and weeks that followed, Hue would become an iconic flashpoint of the countrywide Tet Offensive staged by the North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong guerillas, who took control of large sections of the city.
Enemy gunners targeted the television station on the first night. A mortar shell penetrated the roof of AFVN’s maintenance shed at the Dong Da compound.
From the detachment’s billet, the officer in charge, Marine Lt. James DiBernardo, called the local MACV headquarters in Hue on the house telephone, Bagwell said. “They told us to stay put. Fighting, they thought, was all over the city. Sometime the next day the line was cut. We were on our own at that point.”
A protracted siege at the villa started with sniper fire. “We could see them out there every now and then probing,” said Ettmueller, who carried an M14 rifle. The others were armed with a hodgepodge of weapons that required different ammunition, which was available only in limited quantities.
In addition to Ettmueller’s M14, the defenders had a collection of old M1 carbines, a couple of M16 rifles, a .45-caliber pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun, a heavy M60 machine gun and six hand grenades. The detachment was never issued its M79 grenade launcher, Ettmueller recalls. “The supply officer in Saigon thought that we didn’t need it because we were in the city.”
The men took up positions inside the house to secure the entry points. They had C rations, drinking water and even a transoceanic radio that was their link to the outside world as they listened to AFVN radio broadcasting from Saigon. Bagwell was guarding the window in the bedroom where he slept. “We eluded them for a couple of days and actually thought that we would eventually be rescued,” he said.
After several days, an American helicopter flew over. “As far as they knew, the whole city had been taken,” Ettmueller said. “They came buzzing over, and the door gunner fired down on us.” The stunned men escaped the friendly fire."
FYI LTC Bill Koski CW5 (Join to see) MSG Brad Sand SGM Steve Wettstein SSG James J. Palmer IV aka "JP4" SP5 Mark Kuzinski SrA Christopher Wright PO1 John Miller SP5 Robert Ruck SPC (Join to see) PO3 Steven Sherrill SN Greg Wright Maj Marty Hogan SCPO Morris Ramsey TSgt Joe C. Cpl Joshua Caldwell SGT Michael Thorin SP5 Dave (Shotgun) Shockley SPC Margaret Higgins
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SSgt Donald Libby
As I recall Mark Bowden referenced these guys and their situation in his book "Hue - 1968". Thanks for sharing.
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