Precursor to the Mỹ Lai Massacre: 1968 Phong Nhị, Phong Nhất_#2
Chapter 2: No ordinary gunshots
It was around 11:00 am when the lull of the villages was disrupted by the loud burst of a gunshot. Even before the reverberation could subside, another shot was fired.
Troops who were passing the area in lines of march fell prostrate at once. An elderly farmer in the rice paddy repositioned the satgat(non) on his head, nervous to behold what lay beyond the shade provided by his conical bamboo hat. Blood drained from a mother’s face as she stood by the well in the yard of her thatched-roof house, trying to soothe the newborn on her back. Children who were playing near the village entrance froze in their tracks, suddenly round-eyed with curiosity. Dogs began barking vigilantly as hens fluttered their wings, scurrying to protect their broods of chicks.
In stark contrast with the commotion, the sky was a cloudless blue. The average temperature ranged between 15-30℃, making it the best time of year in Vietnam, weather wise. Agriculture wise, it was an off-season. With still a ways to go before heat and humidity would pay their annual visit, the villagers had had only but the first full moon of the lunar new year to anticipate amid the humdrum of everyday life.
There shouldn’t have been anything particularly remarkable about the gunshots fired that morning either. By now, the villagers of Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất were used to the flares that lit up their night skies. The gunshot and artillery sounds that they encountered day and night were practically white noise to them. Nevertheless, the frequency of these occurrences was increasing from about ten days or so ago, coinciding with the rumor that the Viet Cong initiated total war and that South Vietnamese President, Nguyễn Văn Thiệu, declared martial law. Being that it was their fifth year into the war, the villagers would have gone on with their days as per usual, had these been just one or two of the many gunshots they heard on a regular basis. But it was February 12, 1968. And these were no ordinary gunshots.
Pastoral scenes from the traditional rural villages of Vietnam, Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất. The pictures were taken in May of 2000. As it will be explained later, the banyan tree (pictured to the right in both photographs) is a symbolic location for the massacre of February 12, 1968. Photo by humank
Among the armed soldiers who lay prostrate was the 26 year-old lieutenant, Choi Young-Un. He was a marine officer who had come to Vietnam on a troopship from Korea three months ago, the 1st Platoon Commander of the 2nd Marine Division (Blue Dragon), 1st Battalion, 1st Company. Choi was overseeing a strategy that entailed conducting reconnaissance patrol while migrating toward the west coordinates through the open terrain, south of the villages. His platoon was at the forefront. The first and second lines, along with the weapon squad, were at the very front, and Choi followed behind with his signal corpsman and messenger. Behind them was the third line, and finally the second and third platoons, along with the company headquarters and its commander. Each row had a space of 2-3 meters between them. The troops were passing through a cemetery whose grass had grown as tall as they were when they were jolted by the sudden burst of the gunshot.
Choi shares his recollection of that day, describing the abrupt yet thundering sound of gunfire that implicated a looming threat to his survival. While onomatopoeic classification of firearms is altogether impossible, being on the battlefield had honed his sense of hearing to the point where he could distinguish that it was likely a Soviet AK47. Choi was certain that it was guerrilla sniper attack from the jungles. There was no room for doubt. He suddenly heard a shrill cry.
It was his subordinate from the 1st platoon, screaming in agony. From his observations on the battlefield thus far, Choi understood that those who were on the verge of death were either completely silent or barely able to make noise. In effect, the volume of their cries was inversely proportional to the actual severity of their condition. He evacuated his wounded subordinate and ordered the signal corpsman to relay the message of the attack to the commander of the headquarters. Estimating that the initial gunshot was fired at them from the western direcion, the troops began to blaze away their M16 rifles as they inched closer toward the source of the sounds.
Nguyễn Thanh Cơ, a boy of eleven years, had been playing with his younger twin sisters in their yard that morning when they heard a sudden explosion. It sounded like a landmine. Their house was located near Route 1, the national highway that ran between Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon), the capital of South Vietnam and Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam. He went into the room with the window facing eastward and peered out. He spotted a U.S. Army tank on the Route 1 highway. He instinctively went searching for his father, Nguyễn Xu (39), who reassured his children saying, “Everything will be alright.”
No sooner had Xu uttered those words than they heard a round of consecutive gunshots that left them with an ominous feeling. Xu ordered his family not to leave the house and stay inside. Thanh Cơ was frightened. His five year-old twin sisters, Thị Liên and Thị Nga, trembled in the arms of their mother, Võ Thị Trí (41). Xu felt troubled inside. Even within such a small village, the power dynamics between the north and the south teeter-tottered tangibly on a daily basis. When the sun came up, the U.S., South Vietnam, and ROK armies resumed authority, but when the sun went down, the Viet Cong dominated. The family stayed inside, holding their breaths. Thirty minutes to an hour must have gone by without their hearing another gunshot.
Lieutenant Choi Young-un heard the rumbling sound of gunshots once again. In the hour that had passed since they heard the first gunshot, the troops entered the villages and ransacked private homes. They were unable to track down the sniper, however, as he had apparently hidden himself quite well. The only ones left in the villages were women, children, and the elderly. There wasn’t a single male in sight. The civilians were sent to the rear where the 2nd and 3rd platoons were positioned. Just as the troops were about to wrap up their search, Choi stopped in front of a small puddle where he came upon a dead coiled snake. Before he could shake off the eerie foreboding conjured by the sight, he heard yet another gunshot. It didn’t stop at a single shot, however; in fact, it was an M16 rifle on burst mode.
U.S. Marine commander, Lieutenant Sylvia, who happened to be nearby, heard the same sounds. He also saw the villages burning in flames. Trying to get a better grasp of the situation, he sent a telegraph to the ROK Marine Corps 2nd division and attempted, without succeeding, to connect with a U.N. officer.
South Vietnamese militant, Nguyễn Xá (30) also heard the sound of the automatic rifles on the Route 1 highway. He was close enough to actually witness the scene of the shooting, but wanting to get a closer look, he took out his binoculars.
Pastoral scenes from the traditional rural villages of Vietnam, Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất. The pictures were taken in February of 2014. Photo by humank
Nguyễn Thị Thanh, a girl of eight, hid in the dark basement of her home, wrought with fear. The abrupt burst of gunshot, magnified by the confines of her thatched-roof house, was near deafening. She saw a large, dark-faced soldier gesturing for her to come out of hiding. The soldier was not Vietnamese. As much, she knew, for he spoke in Korean. Chills ran down her spine as she slowly made her way out into the open. As soon as she passed the kitchen, a bullet pierced the right side of her waist, and blood gushed out.
Trần Diệp(15) was also shot, but in front of his stable where he collapsed. He shouldn’t have come out. He should’ve stayed in the dark basement of his home and reassured his younger sister, Trần Thử(5). Smelling something burning, however, he had stepped out to make sure the water buffalos fastened to the stable were safe from harm. That’s when a gunshot was fired at him. His right leg immediately gave out. Soldiers began running toward him from afar. Trần Diệp sprang up quickly and limped back home with all the strength that was left in him.
Meanwhile, two sisters, Nguyễn Nghệ(68) and Nguyễn Gừng(66) breathed their last in the fields. Their lifeless bodies remained adrift in an irrigation pond for days before their swollen bodies were discovered. Needless to say, the villagers, the few that remained of them, were far too aghast to notice that the sisters were even missing.
The genocide that took place in the rural villages of Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất, located in the central part of Vietnam, in the Điện Bàn district, Quảng Nam province, remains shrouded in mystery. All we know is that the ROK Marines were at the heart of this enigma. The Viet Cong, whose alleged gunshots lured the troops to Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất in the first place, vanished without a trace. The Korean marines were also gone by the time the U.S. and South Vietnamese armies and militia made it to the villages.
A day before, on Sunday, February 11, 1968, 3:00 pm in Korean time, as if to foreshadow the next day’s massacre, the sound of gunshots filled the indoor shooting range within the Office of the Presidential Security, located in the basement of the Blue House in Jongro-gu, Seoul. South Korean President and former major general, Park Chung-hee, steadied his gun as he stared intently at his target, slowly pulling the trigger. The biting midwinter cold had crept down to a subfreezing depth of -10℃. Insulated by his military jacket, Park continued shooting, using one hand for his pistol, and both hands for his rifle. His accuracy rate in hitting the target improved with each shot. Park let out a self-satisfied chuckle at his own performance. Whether out of obligation or adulation, everyone who was watching nearby complimented their chief of state. “Why, your excellency! Your shooting skills haven’t at all rusted since your military days.” Even the First Lady, Yuk Young-soo, briefly took part in the target practice that day.
Determination filled Park’s eyes as if he were pointing his gun at a specific person. There was no telling at whom his anger was directed. It could have been Kim Il-sung (56), the North Korean head of state who, on January 21, had dispatched special forces to the Blue House in an attempt to assassinate Park. It might have been the Viet Cong guerrilla force, which, 12 days ago on January 30, incited the Tet Offensive against the U.S. and ROK armies stationed throughout South Vietnam, including Saigon. Or perhaps, it was U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson (60), who refused to give a clear-cut response to Park’s plea for punitive retaliation against the North.
Park had postponed his meeting with Johnson’s presidential envoy, Cyrus Vance (51), which was scheduled to take place as soon as Vance arrived at Gimpo Airport, and instead had made his way down to the shooting range. Upon finishing his round of shooting, he turned to Park Jong-kyu (38), the Chief Officer of the Presidential Security, and nonchalantly remarked, “At this rate, I could probably fight in the war myself if push comes to shove, wouldn’t you think?” The next day in the Dong-a Ilbo (East Asia Daily), South Korea’s daily newspaper, there was a related article on the target practice. It ended on a peculiar note, however, open-endedly wondering “...what the practice could possibly signify…” (translated).
On the morning of February 12, 1968, the day that these small villages of Vietnam were set aflame, the Washington Post circulated an article containing an exclusive interview with ROK President Park Chung-hee. Park said in the interview, “The United States has thus far been overlooking the North’s acts of aggression, thereby emboldening the puppet regime. Yet it is now more imperative than ever that the U.S. take retaliatory action.” On January 21, thirty-one armed men of North Korea’s special forces came all the way to the front gates of the Blue House, only to be confronted by the South Korean military police. Park was upset with America’s tepid reaction to this unprecedented battle, as a result of which both sides incurred double-digit casualties. He insisted that the U.S. use the incident as a pretext for attack against North Korea. That day, the South Korean government decided that weapons would be distributed to 550 railway guards nationwide.
That same night, ROK President Park Chung-hee was writhing with impulse to aim his gun northward, rather than at a practice target in his shooting range. To U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson, however, the warfront in Vietnam alone was giving him enough headache. The last thing he needed was an expanded warfront that included the Korean peninsula. Indeed, both geopolitical and pragmatic considerations were causing the United States’ commitment to repeatedly wax and wane between the 38th parallel and the 17th parallel, which demarcated the two halves of Korea and Vietnam, respectively. Meanwhile, the fates of its two client states continued to become more and more intertwined.
Looking for Lieutenant Sylvia (witness to the scene)
Lieutenant Sylvia was stationed near the Route 1 highway near Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất, Điện Bàn district, Quảng Nam province. He was a part of the combined operations guard, under the III Marine Amphibious Force Headquarters. According to documents from the U.S. Army, his service number was 099898. Lieutenant Sylvia witnessed the massacre from his post and thereafter oversaw a relief operation for the casualties. Given that he was a lieutenant at the time, he was probably in his mid-twenties, born somewhere near the year 1943. And if he is still alive, he should be about 75 years old. Recently, the producer of a famous Korean TV documentary, who was working on televising the Phong Nhị and Phong Nhất massacre, visited the United States in hopes of finding former lieutenant, Sylvia, but to no avail. If you know his whereabouts, please contact [email protected]
Written by humank (Journalist; Seoul, Korea) Translated and revised as necessary by April Kim (New York, NY) The numbers in parentheses indicate the respective ages of the people at the time in 1968.
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