OT: Heroism

[Dan Caviness]

Hey Umbro...it's like Mr. Roadrunner is saying...if the media calls him a hero so be it...but as you say...that doesn't make it so.
Still, we weren't there and I am suspicious of the media and it's spin.

Your three points that it needed doing, was a good shot and a good ending are all revelant IMO and key to the issue.

As a wee young 19 year old sailor back in 1975 I was a crewmember on board the aircraft carrier USS Coral Sea, CV43. Cambodia, or the Khmer Rouge as they were known at that point, decided to kidnap a US Civilian Cargo Ship, the Mayaguez. They claimed it violated their territorial waters, as they claimed a lot of offshore islands that had not been a part of Cambodia previously.

Knowing nothing about what had happened at the time we we're all PO'd at having liberty cancelled and next thing you know we're pulling out of Sydney for parts unknown. At that point in history even though we had capable SEAL teams and snipers of course, we were sailing into a heavily reinforced island, Koh Tang. No clean shot opportunities, this was going to be a fight.

They had moved the Mayaguez to Koh Tang, closer inland to mainland Kampuchea, hoping it would dissuade us from attempting any rescue. Still, it was an island, so we (the USN) could respond and try to rescue the crew. After the "negotiating" debacle of the crew of the Pueblo in North Korea some years before, they decided to take a chance on casualties and attempt to rescue the crew ASAP. We took casualties, quite a few. Our Marines did.

No warrior, my job on board ship was to fix radar, so I was no where near any of the fighting. (I was one of those "glass eyed twidgets" Dinero makes fun of in that movie about Navy divers...:O)

My battle station, however, was secondary casualty control where I hauled wounded marines in stretchers down to sick bay during the operation. You never forget the smell of someone who has been badly burnt. Or the sounds they make. The rescue choppers landed on deck, and we pulled broken and burned men out of them. Some alive, some not.

As a lowly 2nd Class P.O., I wasn't privy to the real story, but the story we understood at the time bears little relation to what I see on Wikipedia and some other online resources.

We bombed the island, we intercepted and diverted ships going to and coming from mainland Cambodia, and we landed several companies of Marines on Koh Tang who quickly found themselves in a brutal firefight with a well entrenched enemy. RPG's and AA fire took out several choppers.

All told I believe 20 or so Marines died, and easily three times that wounded. Some by friendly fire. Several Air Force pilots died, and at least 3 Navy corpsmen and 2 rescue divers.

I think the civilian crew we rescued consisted of 13 men, one of whom died from heart failure during the rescue.

While the assault was ongoing, the destroyer USS Holt (a Tin Can) came storming into the harbor of Koh Tang, pulled alongside the Mayaguez, and actually threw grappling hooks to tie up. They stormed the freighter and retook her.
The crew wasn't onboard. They were in a Cambodian launch heading for the mainland, and they were intercepted and rescued by another ship, the guided missile frigate USS John B Wilson.
If they had reached the mainland I doubt any would have been seen again.

Cambodian casualties on Koh Tang and the waters between it and mainland Cambodia were severe.

Three Marines, a fire team, were accidentally left behind on the island.
None were ever heard from again. It is believed they were tortured and eventually killed.

This was a "fair fight" and included many heroes I'm sure most of which I'll never know.

What I do know is the Khmer Rouge never tried to kidnap or pirate another US ship.

Mission accomplished.

I think perhaps a clean shot from a single rifle may be preferable.
Even if that action requires little heroism, I salute his professionalism.

Dan