Courtesy Photo | On March 30, 1972, Sgt. Bruce A. Crosby, Jr. was killed in action at Firebase Sarge in...... read more read more
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by Fiona G. Holter, USAICoE Staff Historian
On March 30, 1972, Sgt. Bruce A. Crosby, Jr. and Spec.5 Gary P. Westcott were killed in action at Firebase (FB) Sarge in Quang Tri Province, South Vietnam. Both soldiers served with the 407th Radio Research (RR) Detachment, 8th Radio Research Field Station, 509th Radio Research Group supporting the 4th Battalion, Vietnamese Marine Corps (VNMC).
In late March 1972, North Vietnam launched the Easter Offensive, a seven-month campaign by the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) and its allies to invade South Vietnam. In the weeks leading up to the invasion, U.S. and South Vietnamese troops at FB Sarge, one of the northernmost outposts in Quang Tri Province, occupied by the 4th Battalion, VNMC and personnel from the U.S. Army Security Agency (ASA) 8th RR Field Station, witnessed an increase of enemy military activity in the area and experienced more frequent rocket attacks.
On 29 March, the NVA began attacking the firebases near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) with rockets, increasing the attacks as the day passed. On FB Sarge, the commanding officer of the 407th RR Detachment, CWO2 Larry Wilson and his superior officers were concerned about an imminent attack and debated on evacuating FB Sarge and FB A-4, where members of Detachment Alpha, 8th RR Field Station were also taking increased rocket fire. Talks continued in the morning of March 30, until at approximately 12 p.m., NVA troops crossed the DMZ and launched heavy artillery attacks against the northernmost outposts, including FB Sarge, in Quang Tri Province.
Only three Americans were on FB Sarge at the time of the attack: Sergeant Crosby, a terminal receiving system repairman who maintained the Explorer III system, Specialist Westcott, a North Vietnamese linguist and Explorer technician, and Maj. Walter Boomer, a U.S. Marine Corps advisor to the 4th Battalion, VNMC. As the attack began, Major Boomer ordered Crosby and Westcott, both twenty years old, to remain in their bunker, a partially buried shelter reinforced with a steel roof and five feet of sandbags surrounding it. Boomer wanted the men to maintain radio contact with him and the ASA members on A-4 throughout the attack. Shortly after the attack began, the RR bunker’s vent took a direct hit from a 122mm rocket with a delayed fuse. The rocket penetrated the wall of the bunker, collapsing the roof and sandbags, and ignited the Thermite demolition charges attached to the ASA equipment housed in the bunker. The bunker was engulfed in a “fire of solar intensity” and continued to burn for two days.
Thirty-seven hours later, at 2 a.m., on April 1, 1972, artillery fire gave way to the ground assault as NVA troops broke through the perimeter of FB Sarge. Major Boomer and surviving members of the VNMC tried to recover the bodies of Crosby and Westcott but were unable to breech the fire. As enemy troops closed in, the men retreated into the jungle and abandoned the base.
Sergeant Crosby and Specialist Westcott were declared killed in action on June 27, 1972 and were the 407th RR Detachment’s first, and only combat casualties of the Vietnam War. In 1999, Joint Task Force-Full Accounting, now known as Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command, tried to locate the bunker to recover the men’s bodies but were unsuccessful. Another mission launched in 2013 successfully located the RR bunker, but no further information has been released about the status of recovering Crosby and Westcott’s bodies.
| Date Taken: | 03.28.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 03.28.2022 14:17 |
| Story ID: | 417323 |
| Location: | FORT HUACHUCA, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 487 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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