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A CH-47 Chinook bringing in resupply of ammunition and providing medevac for our casualties

News reporters and cameramen were able to get into our position on one of the choppers and were having a field day interviewing us and shooting film. The NVA then suddenly attacked us again with mortar fire and small arms. I was hit in the left elbow by shrapnel. I put a small battle dressing on and continued working with the other wounded. The newsmen were able to record the events of the attack. I was working on a wounded Marine with a severe facial wound. He had an obstructed airway and was unable to breathe sufficiently. I did a crychothyroidotomy (quicker and easier than a tracheostomy) on him and opened his airway and he was able to breathe again. It was then that another corpsman, HM3 Daniel FUSS, hollered over to me "Hey, Jewett, you got any epinephrine?" (He was doing CPR and was getting frustrated that he was unable to get the marines heart started again) and I hollered back "No!" The area was again secured. I then had a chance to check my own wounds. They were minor compared to what else was around me that I didn’t bother to report it. The helicopters came back in and our casualties and the news teams were able to get out. (My recorded verbal exchange ended up on the evening news on both radio and television back home according to reports from family members and friends.) We stayed a little longer and near dusk the word then came up to move out. We left the hill that we had spent the better part of the day obtaining, at the cost of 11 Lima Company’s men dead and over 60 wounded. We felt that we should have held onto the position at least long enough to destroy all the captured gear, but that was not to be the case. So we destroyed what we could and moved out as ordered. Later that evening I was able to pick the small pieces of metal embedded in the soft tissue around my elbow with a scalpel blade, redressed it, and kept my sleeve rolled down enough to hide it.

The NVA retreated leaving their packs and bandoleers of rice.

Again we were flown back out to the Cam Lo area. We came to an area where there were open fields with very short grass. There were hedge rows around these fields the word came down to dig in within the hedge rows. Late in the afternoon we were hit by mortar fire. The mortars were hitting all around. After they stopped I heard the familiar call for "Corpsman up". I arrived to find Weapons Platoon S/Sgt Eugene CHANCEY getting to his feet. Chancey, normally had his things together, was dazed and in shock. He was babbling saying “Send me in, Coach, I don’t smoke.” I had him sit back down and examined him. Not finding any wounds I ask him what had happened. He babbled something. One of the Marines informed me that Chancey had taken a direct hit from a mortar on his helmet. The Marine then produced Chancey’s helmet with large indentation on the top. Chancey started becoming more coherent and complained of his ears ringing. I checked them and did not see any blood.

Finally Chancey was able to speak and said "I knew it was going to hit me, Doc, but I couldn't move fast enough". I informed him that it was a good thing that he couldn't because if he had he would have been killed. He thought about it and then nodded. He then complained of pain in his neck and the ringing in his ears was still present, so we called in a med evac and sent him back to Dong Ha for examination. Several days later Sgt. Chancey returned to us back at Payable.

Staff Sargent Eugene Chancey- Photo from Al Niece

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