Alright, that's 30 minutes. Buck up, let's move.

Feeling confident that the noise of their insertion into enemy territory hadn't attracted unwanted attention, the Special Forces recon team, wearing North Vietnamese uniforms and carrying stolen enemy weapons to complete their disguises, now headed south along the treeline. Moving in a dispersed column formation, they crept, as quietly as possible, through the dense Cambodian jungle, trying to put distance between themselves and the small jungle clearing.

Their objective: the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the enemy's main supply route, a well-maintained gravel road only a half mile ahead of them. Once they reached it, their next steps would be entirely improvised. Along with mapping enemy trails and encampments discovered along the route, their primary objective was to hijack a North Vietnamese supply truck right off the Ho Chi Minh Trail. How they would accomplish this seemingly miraculous feat was anyone's guess.

Now skirting west along a narrow foot trail, which would soon intersect the gravel road ahead, the two recon men at the front of the patrols suddenly stopped moving, holding up a clenched fist to signal quietly to the line of men behind them to do the same. Through the jungle ambience, they suddenly heard the sounds of several people cutting through the brush on the trail ahead of them. A working party of enemy soldiers.

easily identifiable by their uniforms and AK-47 rifles. The lead recon men, Mousseau and Bao, now crouching in the dense brush only a few feet off the trail, watched with increasing trepidation as the three North Vietnamese soldiers tacked through vines and branches, drawing closer to their concealed position. A dozen yards behind them, having moved further off the trail for concealment, their team leader, Sergeant Wright,

hoped that the noise of the machetes and breaking branches would soon recede to the east, indicating the work crew had passed by their 12-man team on the trail. This is part two of the story of Roy Benevitas: Six Hours in Hell. I'm Luke LaManna and this is Wartime Stories. Damn it, Frenchie. What happened? They chopped right up to us. We had no choice. We hit the bodies, but the gunfire may have compromised us.

In a damn mess. You good? Whose blood is that? Luckily not mine. Alright, well, we can't keep going this way. Move 'em back to that gully we just passed. We'll take cover there. Let's go. Wright, you wanna call this in? Get Tornado on the hook for me, yeah. We should at least let 'em know we've taken contact and stand by for a possible extract. So what now? We switch an alternate route or... Quiet. Connor, switch out.

More AVA. They must have heard the gunfire. Sounds like they're sweeping the LZ, heading south towards the trail. He said you hid the bodies? Yeah, we did. We're a good distance off the trail. If they skip past us and we move north, might start off a shot. Connor, see if you can get Collins or Tornow. He should still be flying over us right now. Bird Dog, this is RT Charlie. You think they heard the gunfire?

The teams move back to their original rally point, several meters from the treeline, on the northeast side of the same jungle clearing where they'd been inserted.

They listened intently to the sounds of the unknown group, trying to determine their direction of movement. Sounds like they're still moving away from us, heading towards the road. Bad news though, they ain't here to trim trees. Twan says the Sidge's heard him say "helicopter." Said he's pretty sure they're looking for a recontainer down slick. Connor, you get that radio up yet? Yeah, give me a minute. Just swapping out my antenna. What are you thinking, Ray? I want to call this in, but this might be our only shot to get that damn truck.

I see we sent up a sitrep. See if Command will still give us a green light. Then we'll try a different route. What do you guys think? Sounds good. Let's do it. I'll work on a new route. Get your map out. Bird Dog, Bird Dog, this is RT Charlie. Radio check, over. RT Charlie, this is... Roger that. I read you same. Stand by for sitrep, over. Leader Chief, she's all yours. Thanks. Bird Dog, this is RT-1, over. Start with line 5. Quiet. Get them and back.

Say again, RT-1. I do not copy your last. Over. We have attacking enemy contact and are back on our insert point. Break. Large enemy search party now crossing the OZ to war opposition. Break. We're about to have Charlie up our ass. Request immediate extract. Over. Roger that. I see more vehicles on the road. Looks like the damn Jersey Turnpike. Bravo One. Bravo One. This is Bird Dog. Come in. Over. Attended, Bird Dog. RT-1 has reported enemy contact. Requesting immediate extract. How copy? Over.

Solid copy. We're on our way now. Tell RT-1 to switch to channel 3. Over. Copy that. RT-1, RT-1, this is Bird Dog. Send it. Bravo 1 is inbound. Switch to channel 3. I'll copy. Copy. Switching now.

Back in the command and control slick, 1st Lt. Fred Jones, the launch officer in charge of the mission, told his pilots, Major Jesse James and 1st Lt. Alan Yerman, to turn the helicopter around and head back toward the jungle clearing to get back in range of the team's radio. Enemy contact, thought Jones. That was quick. Unfortunately, they couldn't quit yet. This mission had a significant level of importance to it. The team's primary goal was to capture a North Vietnamese truck.

The stolen truck would then be somehow transported back to Lhok Nin. The capture of an enemy truck inside of Cambodia would be used to indisputably prove to the stubbornly skeptical Cambodian leader that the communists were indeed breaking international laws by heavily operating inside of the neutral country.

U.S. military advisers believed that such ironclad evidence would serve to expose the communist treachery to the world and provoke the cooperation of Cambodia's Prince Sihanouk in allowing the U.S. to forcibly remove the unwelcome invaders, thus cutting off their essential supply routes. Now flying back towards the recon team's position in the command and control helicopter, Lieutenant Jones found himself wondering about the special forces major who was also riding along.

with his initial assumption being that the senior officer was sent along to only observe the mission jones would now realize he had been sent to ensure the mission was completed rt1 this is bravo 1 juliet what's your status over we are compromised contact with three tangos hit the bodies move back to our insert charlie is searching the lz stand by for extract no they have to stand

No, Major, that's not the way we do this. I'm the launch officer. We're going to go in and get them, come back, and refuel, regroup, and then we'll put them back on their alternate LZ. We have to get them. Jones instructed the co-pilot, Yerman, to get the other slicks on station back in the air and prepare to extract the recon teams. The Major again cut across him. They're not in contact. They're going to stay in. Sir, with all due respect, it's my job to keep those...

While the officers on board the CNC slick continued to argue about standard operating procedures and conflicting orders, flying high above the jungle clearing in his 01F Bird Dog Cessna, Air Force Captain Robin Tornau waited for further instructions with growing concern. Tornau knew this was one of the deepest missions into Cambodia yet. If things went south, he knew this would not be the first team to simply vanish.

Previous Special Operations Reconnaissance Teams were still MIA, their final radio transmissions being marked by gunfire and static before they went completely silent, never to be heard from again. Among other possible threats in the dense jungle, by late 1967, the NVA had converted an entire brigade, several thousand soldiers, into hunter-killer forces for the express purpose of hunting down American and South Vietnamese recon teams on the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

By the war's end, over 50 SOG operators would go missing without explanation, some teams seeming to simply be swallowed by the jungle without a single radio transmission. Tornau was likewise familiar with the Special Forces code. While on mission, these men wore no forms of identification, no dog tags, wedding rings, nothing. Under no circumstances would they allow themselves to be captured. They would fight to the death, protecting one another.

Burdock, this is Bravo One. Tell the team to evade and stay concealed until the threat passes. Then move on with their mission. What? Copy that. What the hell are they thinking? RT-1, RT-1, this is... Although surprised at this unusual break of standard protocol, Tornau passed this message on to Sergeant Wright. Just keep your heads low until the enemy passes and sees you. Burdock. Copy that, Burdock. RT-1L. You guys heard him. Rucko.

Except for Tornau maintaining his forward air controller position, circling 4,000 feet overhead, the remaining aircraft had landed back at the B-52 compound at Kwan Loy to refuel, monitor their radios, and await further instructions.

Meanwhile, the teams moved as quietly as possible through the increasingly dense jungle. Now on the north side of the clearing and heading west, scanning their surroundings for potential enemy snipers or the unnaturally straight lines of a hidden bunker. An increasing amount of sunlight breaking through the overhead canopy indicated they were reaching another treeline, this being on the upper section of the same kidney-shaped clearing.

With no enemies visible, one at a time, they began to cross this narrower section of clearing to its opposite side, again heading towards the Ho Chi Minh Trail. As point man for the patrol, one of the Sijis, Bao, was the first to cross, followed by O'Connor. Suddenly, when Bao was only a third of the way across, eight to twelve NVA soldiers emerged from the jungle on the far side of the clearing. Spotting each other, they all stopped abruptly.

With the team being disguised in North Vietnamese uniforms, Bao, being a South Vietnamese man, quickly composed himself, then continued to walk confidently toward the enemy soldiers, speaking loudly in Vietnamese. O'Connor meanwhile had casually walked a few steps back to stand next to Mousseau,

Pulling a piece of paper from his pocket, the two Caucasian men looked intently down at the paper, pretending to examine it in order to keep their facial features hidden. Their interpreter, Tuan, another South Vietnamese man, approached them from the trees. They think we're from the other unit. Tell them that we're looking for a chopper that was shot at, that we heard go down. Tuan nodded, but before he could move, Bao had turned around and began shouting back at their team with feigned authority.

The men immediately understood what he was doing. Acting as if he was their leader, Bao commanded them to go and search the thickest jungle area behind them. Without hesitation, Musou and O'Connor turned and walked back towards the treeline. I think they might have seen your face. When Bao is clear, you take the left and I'll take the right. But only if things look bad. Behind them, Bao continued to bark orders at them. It seemed to be working. The NVA leader waved to Bao, as if to say goodbye. Suddenly...

In an instant, Musso, O'Connor, and Vau left into action. As planned, Musso raised his AK-47, targeting the enemy soldiers on the right, O'Connor taking those to the left. Still positioned in the middle of the clearing, Vau followed their lead, firing on any left standing. Within seconds, most of the enemy were dead.

The remaining two dropped to a kneeling position and returned fire, one of them letting loose a rocket-propelled grenade. The RPG hit the trees over the team's heads and exploded, showering them with debris. While the three men in front continued to lay suppressing fire on the enemy, as they backstepped into the tree line, Wright was on the radio. "Be advised, this is R2-Bravo. We are taking fire. Request immediate extra. We are in heavy. What is your ETA?"

With all three men now clear of the line of fire, their Sigi teammates opened up on the remaining two NVA, killing them. Moving back 20 to 30 yards into the jungle, the team formed a new perimeter around their position, facing outwards. So, slicks are on their way. Ready for a howl. Here, destroy these. They're no good as hell. After watching them burn the classified documents with C4, Wright motioned for the teams to head back along their route toward their original insertion point.

they needed to get back before the Slicks arrived to pick them up, hoping they would be long gone before a larger enemy force arrived. Back at Loch Ninn, the men of the 243rd Action Force were sprinting out to their helicopters and spinning up their rotors. Having accidentally killed their Slicks' battery by monitoring the radio, the Greyhound 1 crew rushed to replace it. Greyhound 2, 3, and 4, along with their supporting helicopter gunships, Mad Dog 1 and 2, were off the ground within minutes, speeding toward the recon team's position.

We are ready for extract and standing by, over. Sir? That's correct. Same exact location as insert. Seems awful. Yeah, too quiet. Keep your heads on a swivel. That's our ride. Team 1, ruck up. You'll have about a 20 to 30 yard sprint as they land. We'll provide cover. I tossed some smoke, but it might give us away. Connor, switch to channel 3. On it. Team 1, get ready to smoke. Two miles out, radio 3. Stay on your current heading. Taking ground fire!

Although the area surrounding the team remained silent, it sounded as if the entire jungle had started firing at the incoming slicks. The lead aircraft, Mad Dog One, was peppered with enemy bullets. The door gunner, Swisher, was blown off his M60 and collapsed, his helmet cracked, blood now oozing from a small hole in his forehead.

Luckily he wasn't dead, but the shrapnel had knocked him unconscious. Before he could react, Sergeant First Class Pete Jones suddenly heard the gunship's engine whine and saw black smoke, the smell of burning oil filling the air. The pilot banked hard to the west, away from the pickup zone. Only a moment later, Greyhound 3 flew head-on into the wall of gunfire, which likewise tore through the aircraft's thin metal and plastic exterior, the pilots feeling the bullets impacting the underside of their armored seats.

Attempting to return fire from their M60s into the jungle below, door gunner Michael Craig suddenly fell back on the cabin floor. A bullet having narrowly passed up under his ballistic armor had torn through his ribs and chest.

As the belly man shouted to the pilot, the second gunner was also knocked back into the cabin by a bullet to the shoulder. As Greyhound 3 veered off from its approach, following the now crippled Magdog 1 to the west, Greyhound 4 broke through the ground fire, skimming the treetops over the recon team's left shoulders, its nose flaring up as it dropped down into the clearing. The slick now hovered low off the ground, flattening the tall grass below its rotor wash. Before Sergeant Wright could use a smoke or mirror signal to alert the pilot of their position,

A half-dozen NVA emerged from the opposite treeline, waving as they approached Greyhound 4. The aircraft touched down on the grass, preparing to board these six men. A fatal error: they had assumed the group of NVA soldiers was one of the American-led teams in disguise. Realizing this, the Siji riflemen suddenly opened fire on the enemy soldiers from their concealed position on the far side of the waiting helicopter.

Inside Greyhound 4, the door gunner facing the team now began strafing the northern tree line with his M60. He had mistaken the recon team for the enemy. Unable to hear his desperate transmissions, the crew inside Greyhound 4 continued to wait, still unaware six enemies were approaching their aircraft.

Mousseau and O'Connor took aim and finally, the lead NBA soldier dropped dead to the ground. At this, the rest of the NBA raised their AK-47s and charged, opening fire on a helicopter. Now realizing their mistake, the door gunner opened up on the charging enemies, their bodies flying backward as the torrent of gunfire ripped through them.

O'Connor flipped through radio channels, holding his antenna overhead, cursing and praying as he desperately tried to establish radio contact with anyone. Wright tapped him on the shoulder, pointing across the clearing at what was now moving through the far treeline, a column of some 30 NVA soldiers rapidly nearing the helicopter.

With their only other gunship, Mad Dog 2, having followed standard protocol by veering off course to instead follow the mortally wounded Mad Dog 1 to its eventual crash site, Greyhound 4 had no air support. It was now a sitting duck, feverishly scanning the area for any sign of the recon team. A smoke grenade, a mirror flash, a bright orange panel. The crew members saw nothing.

100 yards from where the helicopter had landed, Sergeant Wright knew the distance was too far to run. His team would likely be cut down halfway across the clearing. Unable to reach anyone over the radio, Wright ordered Mousseau to fire on the approaching NBA column.

A rocket-like projectile, Mousseau's light anti-tank weapon, shot across the open field, while Wright and O'Connor pumped grenade after grenade from their handheld launchers, pummeling the distant treeline with explosions. At this, the NVA suddenly broke loose from the jungle and charged toward the front and right side of Greyhound 4. Another cluster of enemy soldiers then charged from their concealed positions on the left, flanking the helicopter's position.

Carrying only a .38 caliber revolver, the co-pilot, Warrant Officer James Fussell, could only watch as the enemy approached, spraying the aircraft with a hail of bullets. A sudden movement caught his eye. Looking down, he was surprised to see an enemy soldier underneath the cockpit, attempting to aim his AK-47 up at him, the long rifle fortunately being difficult to maneuver in the short space between the ground and the helicopter.

Taking aim with his pistol, Fussell fired three shots through the plexiglass nose bubble while yelling through the deafening sounds of gunfire into his mic.

The pilot, Warrant Officer William Armstrong, pulled pitch, lifting the now mutilated helicopter off the ground. Fussell looked back into the cabin, seeing his gunner, Specialist Gary Land, firing his mounted M60 into what seemed like dozens of green-clad soldiers rushing the helicopter, bayonets fixed on their rifles. As he turned back to face the cockpit, the buzzing of the M60s suddenly stopped.

Straining against his harness to look back again over his left shoulder, he saw that land was now laying sprawled behind his gun. A stump of raw meat, replacing what used to be his foot. A severed artery gushing blood onto the cavern floor. Looking over his right, Fussell saw his other gun, Specialist Robert Wessel, pulling himself back onto his M60, his cheek and neck now ripped open, his jaw hanging loose and dripping blood.

In the center of the cabin, James Calvey, the special forces medic who was the aircraft's belly man, continued firing his carbine, dropping two NBA soldiers who were only a few feet from reaching the door. Pulling his mangled legs back into the cabin, Land again manned his door gun, giving Calvey time to apply a compression bandage and tourniquet to his leg and stop the bleeding. Calvey then moved to Wessel to tend his neck wound. Wessel pushed him away and kept firing.

As Calvi resorted to firing his M4, alternating between left and right doors, a bullet struck his elbow, traveling up the inside of his arm before exiting through his shoulder. Despite his wound, he kept firing on the relentless NVA assault. Back in the cockpit, Fussell had only a moment's notice before raising his pistol to again fire through the glass. An NVA was attempting to bayonet him through his side window.

Looking to his right at the aircraft commander, he saw him suddenly lurch forward, then quickly sit back upright, blood now pouring down from under his flight helmet. Fussell instinctively grabbed his copilot controls, but Armstrong, apparently unaware that he'd just been shot in the back of the head, shouted at him and pulled back on his controls. "I got it!" The aircraft felt heavy as it struggled to rise, the engine winding as the rotors picked up speed. 25 feet, 50 feet. Now 75 feet off the ground, the ground fire increased in intensity.

Unable to wait any longer to clear the highest treetops ahead of them, Armstrong pushed the stick forward. Branches disintegrated as the rotor blades cut a path through them, the pilots silently hoping they didn't make contact with a hardwood branch that would drop the aircraft out of the sky. Still skimming the treetops, Fussell received a shock as he suddenly made eye contact with an equally startled NVA soldier, frozen with fear, sitting a hundred feet off the ground in a sniper's nest, mounted with a heavy-caliber machine gun.

Finally, missing the enemy soldier, Greyhound 4 broke through the jungle canopy. As Armstrong lost focus with the increasing blood loss from his head wound, Fussell took the controls and directed the crippled aircraft east, back towards the B-52 compound at Lough Nin. Unfortunately, not realizing that their compass was now damaged, instead of flying east, they were now heading due west, deeper into Cambodia. I see an entire squad.

As the wounded Greyhound 4 was lifting off, drawing the enemy's attention in gunfire, the recon teams had retreated a few yards deeper into the jungle, finally making radio contact with Tornau, who was still circling overhead in his Cessna. Wright got even more bad news. The Sijis were right about the heavy vehicle movement they heard. The Big Shay is coming, but we still have time before they get here. Another extraction team is coming in with gunships.

Hoping to avoid the same confusion during the second extraction attempt, the men knew they had to put themselves out in the open where the incoming extraction team could easily identify them. However, they still needed some cover from the incoming enemy as well. In the middle of the clearing was a waist-high anthill, as well as a couple large thickets. The 20 yards of space between the thickets offered a reasonable pickup zone.

The team agreed that the central location would also allow the door gunners a good position to suppress the enemy fire, combined with the aerial fire and rockets from the gunships. The problem was getting to the middle of the clearing. All right, team one, go, go, go, go. Mousseau and five Siji, including Bowe, sprinted across first, closing the 30-yard distance without incident and immediately setting up a defensive perimeter. Wright and O'Connor, along with the remaining four Siji, were not as fortunate.

As they approached the center of the clearing, running hunched over in the waist-high grass, without warning, gunfire erupted once again from the distant treeline. One or more bullets slammed into Wright, stopping him mid-stride. He stumbled, spun around, and collided with O'Connor. O'Connor had taken a bullet to his left wrist. Both men toppled over.

Two Siji behind them took multiple hits, instantly crumpling into the grass, their lifeless bodies continuing to twitch, but they were hit with repeated fire from an elevated enemy position in trees beyond the anthill. "We gotta move. Let's go get to the hill." Their wounds not yet fatal, Wright and O'Connor scrambled to their feet to reach the anthill, which would conceal them from the incoming fire. After only a few short steps, Wright's body jerked violently as he was hit again. "Wright!"

Where you hit? I don't... I don't know. I can't move my legs. I can't feel them. As he watched shock setting in on Wright, and felt the burning pain in his now useless left arm, McConner knew their only chance of surviving was to get to the anthill. Leeroy, are your arms working? Can you still hold your AK? Yeah. Roll me over. Help me up. You gotta stay down. Hold on. We'll get you going.

Tuan, get over here. Take Tuan's AK. We're gonna pick you up and move. But you gotta hold our weapons. Can you do that? Yeah. Yeah, it's good. Go, go, go. Through a hail of relentless enemy fire which zipped through the grass and slapped the ground around them, Tuan and O'Connor half carried, half dragged right the remaining distance to the anthill.

Taking defensive positions, the men began returning fire, watching as squads of NVA rushed from the jungle into the clearing, dropping low and disappearing into the grass, creeping toward their positions as the team then fired blindly into it. Now waiting for help to arrive, Wright continued to make failed attempts to reach Faktorn out with a C&C Slick. I can't get through. It's all garbage. I don't take a signature. They're jamming us. Can the NVA do that? Jam it. No.

The mic is hot. Everyone's trying to talk at the same time. Just keep listening and see if you can jump in when there's a break in the transmission. The enemy fire suddenly increased. The team pressed themselves close to the ground. As Musou shouted, a group of at least eight NVA broke free from the treeline towards his position. O'Connor, Wright, and Twan shifted their AK fire and logged M79 grenades towards them when suddenly their air support had arrived.

Wright finally made contact with a gunship, passing up a sitrep and directing their fire toward the enemy positions in the treeline. Mad Dog 3 and 4 now roared over their heads, their fast, low-level passes and superior firepower dropping many of the NVA who were exposed in the open clearing. However, from FAC Tornau's viewpoint overhead, he could see increasing waves of NVA troops converging on the clearing, with more enemy vehicles continuing to arrive on the Ho Chi Minh Trail, only a short distance to the west.

This was no small-sized patrol, Tornau realized. This was an entire enemy base camp. He quickly assessed the situation below him. Several helicopters out of commission, two men dead on the ground, three severely wounded, leaving only seven men against hundreds of enemies inside of Cambodia, where artillery and fixed-wing aircraft support were by no means authorized. In fact, none of this was authorized. To save these men's lives, he had to do something drastic.

In what he would later call an impulsive reaction, Captain Tornell proceeded to jeopardize his career by blatantly breaking the rules of engagement. Mayday, mayday, mayday. Any fighters in the area? I need anything I can get. Vector, 10 miles southwest of Loch Nint. Need to put you in immediately. Troops in heavy contact. This is a Daniel Boone tactic again.

Wartime Stories is created and hosted by me, Luke LaManna. Executive produced by Mr. Ballin, Nick Witters, and Zach Levitt. Written by Jake Howard and myself. Audio editing and sound design by me, Cole Lacascio, and Whit Lacascio. Additional editing by Davin Intag and Jordan Stidham. Research by me, Jake Howard, Evan Beamer, and Camille Callahan.

Mixed and mastered by Brendan Cain. Production supervision by Jeremy Bone. Production coordination by Avery Siegel. Additional production support by Brooklyn Gooden. Artwork by Jessica Clarkson-Kiner, Robin Vane, and Picotta. If you'd like to get in touch or share your own story, you can email me at info at wartimestories.com. Thank you so much for listening to Wartime Stories.