Lancer SOG MOH 1LT Loren Hagan Medal of Honor
Aug. 7, 1971.
https://youtu.be/O9k0eaF5Ido?si=ThPsVY-Gf1LNbbzF
On this date (7 August 1971) Terry Kaufman and Tony
Breyer (chalk 1) and Mike Eslick and Barry Beard (chalk 2) (and crews) B Co
158th Avn "LANCERS" rescued what was left of RT Kansas and the
remains of 1LT Loren D. Hagen (5th Special Forces Group) who posthumously was
awarded the Medal of Honor in Vietnam. The recording was made by our Cobra
Gunships.
THE
LAST STAND OF RECON TEAM KANSAS
Outnumbered worse than the Alamo defenders,
here's the story of a SOG team's desperate last stand. By Maj. John L. Plaster,
USAR (Ret.)
The
Last Stand
Small arms fire rattled closer on all sides and
grenades lobbed up from below the hillcrest where waves of NVA were scurrying
behind small rises and rolling from bomb crater to bomb crater. Andersen dashed
over the hill to look for Hagen but couldn't see him anywhere -- just 100
khaki-clad NVA almost at the top! He fired one M-60 belt at NVA advancing up
his own slope, then sped to the other approach and ran belt after belt on the
100-assaulting enemy. By then grenades started coming from behind him as NVA closed
in from his rear. Just a dozen yards away, beyond the curvature of the hill,
enemy heads popped up, cracked a few shots, then dropped back down.
Still a dozen minutes away, the approaching
Cobra gunships went to full throttle, leaving the slower Hueys behind.
Meanwhile RT Kansas had just run out of hand
grenades when a North Vietnamese grenade exploded beside Andersen's M-60,
rendering it useless; he spun his CAR-15 off his back and kept shooting, then
he tossed back another grenade, but it went off in front of him, nearly
blinding him, yet he kept shooting. More shrapnel tore into him, then an AK
round slammed through his web gear and lodged in his elbow, knocking him down.
He stumbled back to his knees and kept firing.
The perimeter was pinched almost in half when
Andersen grabbed his last two living Montagnard’s, circled below the nearest
NVA and somehow managed to reach the survivors on the opposite side. He found
Bingham, started to lift him, and saw he, too, was dead from a head wound. All
around him he heard, "zzzsss, zzssss, zzssss," as bullets flashed
past his ears.
He dragged Bingham back to where Bill Queen
lay, wounded. Only Rimondi wasn't yet hit and still fired furiously. Andersen
put them in a back-to-back circle just off the hilltop where they would make
their last stand. AK bullets had destroyed their team radio, another slug had
shot Andersen's little survival radio out of his hand, so Rimondi tossed him
another survival radio, their last.
Now the NVA were streaming, rolling over the
crest like a tidal wave, their rattling AKs blending together into one
never-ending burst. Andersen's men were firing not at NVA but at hands wielding
AKs over parapets and around bunkers. There was no place left to fall back.
Andersen was shooting NVA little further than the length of his CAR-15 muzzle
and the time it took to speed-change a magazine meant life or death.
From the air it looked like an ant mound, with
moving figures everywhere. Cobra lead rolled in and sparkled 20mm cannon shells
around the surviving SOG men, and at last fighters arrived, adding napalm and
Vulcan cannons to the melee. Then at last the assault ebbed, turned, and the
NVA fled for cover, just as the Hueys arrived.
Though wounded repeatedly, Andersen crawled out
to fire his CAR-15 to cover the landing Hueys. With Rimondi's help, Andersen
dragged as many teammates bodies as he could to the first Huey, then helped the
wounded Queen and others aboard the second.
A
Terrible Toll
In one hellacious half-hour, nine of Recon Team
Kansas fourteen men had been lost.
Lt. Hagen had died, along with Bingham, Berg
was presumed dead, six Montagnard’s had died, Rimondi and Queen both suffered
multiple frag wounds, Andersen had been struck by both small arms fire and
shrapnel, and their other two Montagnard’s, too, all had been wounded
"It’s amazing that any of us came through
it with the amount of incoming that we were getting," Tony Andersen says
today, 25 years later. He attributes their survival to his deceased team
leader, Lt. Loren Hagen. "He epitomized what a Special Forces officer
should be -- attentive to detail, a lot of rehearsals, followed through on
things," he explains. "We were ready. I think that was probably the
only thing that kept us from being totally overrun. Everybody was alert and
knew what was happening and was waiting."
As for Hagens bravery, dashing into a wall of
AK fire to try to save Bruce Berg, that didn’t surprise Andersen, either.
"Lt. Hagen was that kind of officer. He was a good man."
Against the loss of most of his teammates,
Andersen learned, the USAF counted 185 NVA dead on that hill little RT Kansas
had killed half a battalion and probably wounded twice that many NVA. But that
gives Andersen sparse satisfaction compared to the loss of most of his team.
Perhaps Andersen’s most difficult duty was
carrying the bodies of his six Montagnard teammates -- his "family"
he called them -- to their home village. "As soon as they saw us driving
up in the truck, they knew. Wailing and moaning started, and all the
grieving." The villagers gathered in a circle around the headman’s stilted
longhouse. "Through one of the interpreters I tried to explain how proud
we were of them, what good fighters they were, that they had died for a good
cause."
That would be borne out a few months later when
the intelligence generated by RT Kansas spirited defense helped U.S. analysts
read enemy intentions, enabling American airpower to counter the NVAs Easter
Offensive.
And though details of this incredible fight
would remain classified for decades, enough was disclosed that First Lieutenant
Loren Hagen's family was presented the U.S. Army's final Vietnam War Medal of
Honor; Tony Andersen, who held together what remained of RT Kansas through
those final mass assaults, received the Distinguished Service Cross, while
Queen, Rimondi, Berg and Bingham were awarded Silver Stars.
And now, today, with full disclosure, we can
appreciate the significance of their fight:
At the Alamo, 188 Americans had stood against 3000
Mexicans, a ratio of 16-to-1; at Custer's Last Stand, 211 cavalrymen succumbed
to 3,500 Sioux warriors, or 16.5-to-1; at the 1877 Battle of Rorke's Drift, the
most heralded action in British military history resulting in -- 11 Victoria
Crosses -- 140 British troops withstood assaults by 4000 Zulus, or 28-to-1. Lt.
Hagens 14 men had held on despite being outnumbered 107-to-one, four times as
disadvantageous as Rorke's Drift and seven times worse than the Alamo, one of
the most remarkable feats of arms in American history.
Comments
by Lancers involved
Barry Beards While
I have great respect for John Plaster, his account relating to the aviation
involvement is not correct based on my recollection and the other evidence.” He
indicated the helicopters were launched before daylight. Maybe some were but it
was not us. I remember it was clearly daylight, between the time we left the
Roundtable and circled the Rockpile we had to refuel. He made seem the
helicopters were going to get there and go straight in. When we got there the
A1s were giving close air support. They left as soon as the fast movers showed
up. Anyway, he didn’t seem to have interviewed anyone on the familiar with an
aviation role. I will say, time seemed to stand still that morning. It
seemed like a lifetime we were out; I was stunned when we got back and it was
only around 10am.
John McGarr 32
As to the confusion about RT Kansas and
helicopters, the attached article will shed some light on what was going
on before that fateful day. I first read this account on the SOG Facebook page
but couldn't get back to the source. (The article is down about two days on the
feed.)
Another article I did find was pretty much the
same as the SOG article, but gives the reader insight into what led up the time
we came on the scene. I will warn you that it is hard to read because some
smart ass went crazy with black letter on a deep red background.
In a nutshell, RT K was there for a prisoner
grab. They were inserted the late afternoon prior by someone else who finished
their day and went home (I guess) and left the extraction to whomever had CCN
the next day...that being us.
The idea was to start a fight with the NVA and
quickly get extracted.... but leaving half the team behind to ambush/capture
any
NVA who came up to check out the site. They
would then be extracted, and we'd all go home. But as we know, no plan
survives, etc. and this one sure didn't.
The article goes into more detail: https://vet2.tripod.com/kansas.html
I leave it to smarter guys than me to determine
the veracity of the piece, but it seems to match with what I remember of
how CCN worked and answers Barry's questions about the insertion phase.
Ben Conway
I remember our part well...A very sad day to
remember.
Barry Beard
Ben, which aircraft were you in? I would
love to get all the crews’ names. So far, all I have are 5 of the pilots.
Kaufman, Beyer, Eslick, me, McGarr (AC chalk 3). I am sure there were 4
aircraft.
Ben Conway
If I remember right, I was with Mr. Kaufman as
the right door gunner.
Barry Beard
Wow then you were in chalk 1, do you happen to
remember whom the CE was?