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CHAPTER 1
TO VIETNAM
The transport plane carrying Brig. Gen. Ellis W. Williamson, commander of the 173d Airborne Brigade (Separate), touched down at Tan Son Nhut airport outside of Saigon early on the morning of 25 April 1965. Williamson's arrival in South Vietnam's capital was in response to a top-secret message he'd received the previous day at his headquarters on Okinawa. In concurring with General West-moreland's request for the deployment of the 173d to South Vietnam, the Department of the Army ordered Williamson's unit to prepare for the movement.
Accompanied by his S-3, S-4, and his aide, Williamson was escorted to Westmoreland's office at MACV headquarters in downtown Saigon. After a perfunctory greeting, Westmoreland demanded of Williamson, “What are you doing in uniform?”
“I wear one all the time,” Williamson answered, somewhat surprised.
“My message specifically said to wear civilian clothes,” Westmoreland pointed out.
“I do have slacks and a shirt with me,” Williamson offered.
“Put them on before you leave the building,” Westmoreland ordered. “I don't want the Viet Cong, or the press, to know you're here.”
General Williamson was perplexed at the exchange. Although he was aware of the war that the South Vietnamese government had been waging against the North Vietnamese-backed Viet Cong insurgents, Williamson's own demanding duties had kept him from being completely cognizant of all the factors affecting the United States' role in the Southeast Asian country. He was not sure what was wanted of him or his unit.
As Williamson listened intently, Westmoreland outlined the role he planned for the 173d. With the Rolling Thunder air raids expanding, Westmoreland explained, he was becoming increasingly concerned about the ability of the ARVN to provide adequate security to the U.S. Air Force bases supporting the raids. In addition, the introduction of
U.S. Army units to guard the bases would free those ARVN units currently performing that mission for offensive operations against the VC.
General Westmoreland revealed to General Williamson that several U.S. divisions were scheduled to arrive in South Vietnam within months. The 173d would also have the mission of clearing the incoming units' proposed base camp sites of the enemy. The brigade's deployment to South Vietnam, then, would be a temporary one, Westmoreland said, probably not lasting more than sixty days. After discussing a few more details of the brigade's deployment and its mission, the two general officers concluded their meeting.
The next three days were hectic ones for General Williamson and his entourage. They visited the air bases that the brigade would be guarding, met with a variety of American military advisers, as well as key ARVN commanders, and began formulating specific plans for the deployment of the airborne unit. There was a tremendous amount of work to be done to prepare the 173d for its mission in South Vietnam, but General Williamson was a master at overcoming difficult obstacles.
Ellis W. Williamson was born and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. As a teenager, he had but one goal: to play the trombone in a swing band. In order to gain some practical experience, Williamson joined the North Carolina National Guard in 1935 as a bandsman. Although he expected to stay in the National Guard for only one year, after which he'd be ready to audition with a major band, he ended up spending ten years with his parent regiment. In that decade he advanced from a private in the band to a lieutenant colonel commanding the regiment.
After his first hitch ended, Williamson realized that he had not only improved his trombone-playing skills but grown immensely fond of the people who made up his unit. The men who served with him were the finest he'd ever known. They provided friendship, comradeship, and an opportunity for personal growth that he had not experienced before. Williamson signed on for another hitch.
Before that enlistment was up, Williamson's unit was called to active duty as part of the massive U.S. military buildup in the days just before World War II. On 16 September 1940 the unit became part of the 120th Infantry Regiment, 30th Infantry Division.
To a rapidly expanding army in desperate need of qualified leaders, Williamson was a godsend. His natural talents and uncanny ability to motivate others quickly identified him as officer material. His superiors recommended him for a direct commission. In early 1941 Williamson proudly pinned the gold bars of a second lieutenant on his uniform.
The 30th Infantry Division spent the next three years in training before sailing to England in February 1944. Earmarked for service on the European continent, the division entered France via Omaha Beach in Normandy on 10 June 1944. The still-visible carnage of the D-day invasion just four days earlier was a rude awakening to the horrible realities of war for Lieutenant Williamson and the rest of the 120th Infantry. The novice combat infantrymen stoically gritted their teeth and pushed inland toward the fighting.
Williamson's unit received its baptism of fire during the bitter struggle to capture the strategically important French crossroads town of St.-Lô. From there they participated in Operation Cobra, the massive Allied breakout from the Normandy beachhead. They next chased the fleeing Nazi army across France, entering Belgium in early September. If Williamson, by then a captain and commanding a rifle company, had thought his previous battles were difficult, they paled next to the bloody struggle to capture Aachen, the German town anchoring the formidable West Wall defensive barrier along the Belgian border. From mid-September through mid-October the war-weary men of the 30th Infantry Division battled the fanatical German troops defending Aachen.
Once Aachen finally fell on 16 October 1944, Williamson and the 120th Infantry pushed into Germany, remaining on that front until mid-December. When Hitler launched his desperate offensive into the Ardennes Forest of Belgium on 16 December 1944, the 30th Infantry Division was sent to plug the weak American line. From 17 December 1944 to 26 January 1945, they fought to clear the area around Malmédy-Stavelot of German invaders.
By the time the Battle of the Bulge ended in an Allied victory, Williamson sported the gold oak leaves of a major and was the executive officer of the 120th Infantry Regiment. He held that position as the 30th Infantry Division joined in the crossing of the Roer River in February 1945. The division then charged across north central Germany, eager participants in the race to reach Berlin. They captured the fabled city of Hameln on 7 April 1945 and, a week later, took up positions along the Elbe River, just forty miles from the German capital.
When political considerations snatched the prize of Berlin from the Americans and gave it to the Russians, Major Williamson and the rest of the massive American army remained on the west bank of the Elbe. They were still there when victory was declared on 8 May 1945.
Soon after the war ended, Williamson received a well-deserved promotion to lieutenant colonel and took command of the regiment he had joined ten years earlier as an eighteen-year-old private. He and his division had repeatedly proved themselves in some of the toughest combat experienced in the war. The 30th Infantry Division suffered nearly 17,000 casualties, of whom 3,516 made the ultimate sacrifice.
Out of that terrible experience Colonel Williamson recognized that he had found his calling in life. Always a keen believer in the human factor in any of life's equations, he felt he could make the most out of the rest of his career by staying in the army and working with the finest, most talented group of people he thought the world had ever known. Williamson applied for a regular army commission and received it.
Williamson saw further combat during the Korean War. He made the Inchon landing in September 1950 as the assistant G-3 of Gen. Douglas MacArthur's famed X Corps. Following the successful recapture of the South Korean capital of Seoul, the X Corps moved to the east coast of the Korean peninsula for the drive to the Yalu River and the anticipated end of the war.
The surprise appearance of Chinese Communist forces in the war in November 1950 quickly ended that optimistic attitude. Before the American and South Korean forces really knew what had hit them, they were in full retreat out of North Korea.
This was an entirely new venture for Williamson. His entire career had been built on attacking the enemy and moving forward. Now he had to plan the retrograde movement of a full corps, while under attack.
Williamson performed brilliantly. As a result of his superior planning, the X Corps extracted itself from a near-hopeless situation. With a minimum number of casualties and a minimal loss of equipment, the X Corps removed itself from North Korea intact and ready to resume the offensive.
Williamson's role in this massive effort did not escape the notice of his superiors. Based on his superior performance under difficult conditions, Williamson was selected for promotion to full colonel and was marked for general's stars.
A tour at the Pentagon followed Williamson's service in Korea. While there he became deeply involved in a special study that would drastically overhaul how the U.S. Army went to war and greatly affect Williamson's career.
As early as 1952 army visionaries recognized how rotary-winged aircraft could be used to give ground combat units a flexibility and mobility never before thought possible. Over the next few years these few men championed their new concept to the leaders of the army. Eventually, but reluctantly, senior army commanders decided to further evaluate this new concept of airmobility.
On 15 January 1960 the army chief of staff established a special board to review the army's aviation requirements. Among its recommendations to further explore the necessity of aviation assets in army units, the board proposed an in-depth study to determine whether the idea of air fighting units was practical. As a result of this board's overall recommendations, the army began a cautious enhancement of its aviation assets.
