The state of the art in modern special operations, frankly, is remarkable. In 2011, a group of elite Navy SEALs inserted via stealth helicopters deep inside hostile territory to kill the most wanted terrorist on Planet Earth.
They successfully accomplished this daring mission for the loss of a single aircraft. Friendly forces exfilled unharmed, and the world stood amazed. However, that didn’t just happen.
Operation Neptune Spear, the mission to kill Osama bin Laden, was the end result of decades of tactical evolution. The Son Tay Raid in Vietnam, the Israeli raid on Entebbe, and Operation Nimrod, wherein the British SAS took down Prince’s Gate in London — each of these bold missions was more audacious than the last. But where did all that start?
Origins
Modern special operations really had their genesis in World War II. The British 22nd Special Air Service and the American OSS led the charge. For the Axis, however, special operations really orbited around a single man. That pioneering German commando was SS Obersturmbannführer Otto Johann Anton Skorzeny.
Otto Skorzeny was a physically imposing guy. At a time when the average corn-fed American draftee stood five foot eight, Skorzeny was six foot four. He also sported a prominent dueling scar across his left cheek. In 1939, Skorzeny tried to fly combat aircraft for the Luftwaffe but was considered both too big and, at age 31, too old. Instead, he entered the Waffen SS and embarked on a career as a shadow warrior.
Accomplishments
We will have to briefly suspend our justifiable revulsion at the SS and its dark association with genocide to fully appreciate Skorzeny’s contribution to modern spec-ops. Skorzeny fought for what was arguably the most depraved regime of the modern era. However, that does not diminish the man’s martial prowess.
Skorzeny freed the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini from the mountaintop fortress at Gran Sasso in 1943. He kidnapped the son of Miklos Horthy, the Hungarian head of state, from under the noses of his troops. Hitler then used the younger Horthy as leverage to keep Hungary in the war on the Axis side.
Skorzeny also commanded the 150th SS Panzer Brigade, the English-speaking Germans who infiltrated behind American lines to sow chaos during the Battle of the Bulge. He was not captured and executed alongside his men because he was deemed both too large and too distinctive to pass himself off as an American soldier and be a part of that mission. Now, hold that thought…
The Gear
Modern special operators require specialized gear. Weapons employed by special forces are often smaller, lighter, stealthier, and more concealable than those used by their ground-pounding counterparts. A critical part of all that is crafting firearms that don’t make excessive noise.
Nowadays, you can’t eat at the cool kids’ table at the local range if you don’t have a sound suppressor threaded onto the snout of your favorite gat. However, back in the 1940s, such tech was in its infancy. The state of the art back then was the British Mk IIS Sten.
Designed by Major Reginald Shepherd and Harold Turpin while working at the Royal Small Arms Factory at Enfield, the name “Sten” is a portmanteau combining letters from each man’s name as well as the Enfield factory. More than four million copies were produced in at least seven different marks. The cheapest version costs $9 apiece. That would be about $150 today. This inexpensive 9mm submachine gun of WWII helped save the British nation during those dark days.
All Sten SMGs fed from the left via an execrable double-column, single-feed 32-round box magazine. The Mk II was the most common version. This variant featured a selective-fire action common to all Stens, as well as a rotating magazine well that could be rotated to seal the action against contaminants.
The Sten Mk II readily broke down into four components for transport or concealment. While the Sten gun was a marvel of modern manufacturing efficiency, the sound-suppressed Mk IIS was legitimately revolutionary.
Mk IIS — The Silent Wonder
9×19 mm Parabellum ammunition is naturally supersonic. A sound-suppressed firearm firing supersonic ammunition is going to make a lot of noise no matter what wondrous things you might do to mitigate its intrinsic racket.
The speed of sound in dry air is 1,125 feet per second. Standard 115-gr. 9mm from a Sten clocks in at around 1,200 fps. The Mk IIS employed a ported barrel that automatically dropped standard service ammunition into the subsonic range. This is not an uncommon solution to the supersonic problem today. It was groundbreaking back in 1943.
Nowadays, we use CNC mills and metal 3D printing to produce complex shapes that maximize the effectiveness of our sound suppressors. During WWII, the designers of the Mk IIS used a series of wire-mesh disks. Think window screen material. This worked shockingly well.
However, the suppressor got hot very quickly and didn’t last terribly long. The Mk IIS came equipped with a canvas cover to help protect the shooter’s hand, and troops were trained to fire the weapon on semi-auto to maximize its efficiency and lifespan.
Back to Otto Skorzeny
Skorzeny coveted a sound-suppressed, pistol-caliber SMG for his special operators in the worst way. There was some tepid research on both 9mm P.08 Luger pistols and 9mm MP40 submachine guns, but nothing of consequence emerged.
The few copies of the suppressed Mk IIS Sten that were captured by the Germans were redesignated the MP 751e. Skorzeny had an example for his personal use.
Otto Skorzeny tried to get Nazi logisticians to allocate precious resources to support his special operations troops. However, nobody would take him seriously when he requested a stealthy 9mm submachine gun. Firearms are noisy. There was clearly little to be done about that.
To prove his point, Skorzeny supposedly tucked his captured Mk IIS Sten gun underneath a long coat while out walking with a German official in downtown Berlin. On a crowded street, Hitler’s favorite commando then stepped behind his counterpart, produced the weapon, and emptied a magazine into the air without alarming either his companion or the other Berliners strolling about around them.
The SS officer made his point. However, by that phase of the conflict, submachine guns were not going to turn the tide. The Nazis were already doomed. Meanwhile, the Mk IIS Sten gun eventually led to the extraordinary sound-suppressed weapons in common use today.
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The U-Boat Awarded An Iron Cross
Awarded the Medal of Honor for this!
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Been there, done that!
by In June 1966, a significant portion of the 1st Marine Division’s Area of Operations (AO) included the provinces of Quang Ngai and Quang Tin, in the southern portion of the I Corps Military Region. Straddling the two are the hills of Que Son Valley, including Nui Vu: also known as Hill 488..
Reports of North Vietnamese forces moving into the strategically important valley in mid-June necessitated a response. General Lewis Walt, III, Amphibious Force and 3rd Marine Division commander, deployed elements of 1st Recon Battalion, including a team led by SSgt Jimmie Howard, to the valley.
Initial intelligence pointed to the main-force 620th NVA Division, consisting of two NVA regiments and one VC, gathering in multiple small units numbering in the thousands in the vicinity of the Que Son Valley. These formations were reportedly crossing the boundary between Quang Tim and Quang Nam, northwest of Chu Lai. General Walt launched Operation Kansas to counteract them. A fertile, rice-rich and populous farming area, the Que Son Valley was the strategic lynchpin of I Corps. The Battle of Hill 488 would soon become the most intense action of this efforthttps://www.breachbangclear.com/wp-
Since the North Vietnamese weren’t using large base areas, Walt decided on a strategy somewhat different from a large unit sweep.
Instead, Marine Reconnaissance was tasked with inserting small teams to scout the hills. Were they to find small units of Communists, they had PRC-25 radios to call in air and artillery. Should they find one of the larger concentrations of North Vietnamese troops, they would report back and bring in Marine infantry by helicopter.
1st Reconnaissance Battalion Gets the Duty
On the evening of the 13th of June, 1966, Lt. Col. Sullivan, 1st Recon Battalion’s commanding officer, inserted at Nui Loc Son and set up his command post. That same evening, Team 2, an 18-man recon platoon of C Company, 1st Recon Battalion, led by SSgt Jimmie Howard, inserted on Nui Vu (Hill 488).
They were not alone. That same night, a team from 1st Force Reconnaissance Company parachuted onto Hill 555, to set up their own observation post. One man was injured on landing, but the insertion went without incident otherwise.
The following night, two more teams from 1st Recon Battalion also inserted on other surrounding hills.
The Force team was extracted first, as a woodcutter had found one of their parachutes and alerted the North Vietnamese. The Force Recon Marines observed the woodcutter talking to the leaders of a 40-man unit that appeared to be conducting tactical training within the team’s line of sight.
All of the teams were spotting enemy movement. For the next two days, Jimmie Howard and his Team 2 called in artillery strikes from an ARVN (Army of the Republic of VietNam) 105mm artillery battery.
The top of Hill 488 was relatively barren, with only low scrub to provide any concealment, and it was an obvious observation point. Lt. Col. Sullivan was concerned that it was a little too obvious, and so not all of the fire missions the Marines called in were approved. This was an attempt to make it less obvious that the North Vietnamese were under constant observation. Howard made an effort to time his calls for fire for when there were observation planes or helicopters overhead, potentially leading the enemy to think that they were being spotted from the air, rather than from the hill.
Even so, Lt. Col. Sullivan and his X.O. worried about the team being in place for two days—ordinarily a deadly sin in Reconnaissance. However, because the OP was so perfect and was giving an abundance of intelligence and fire on targets of opportunity, Jimmie Howard and Sullivan agreed to keep the team in place for one more day.
However, the game was up, as the North Vietnamese recognized the hill’s commanding position, the clear fields of view, and, in Lt. Col. Sullivan’s theory, they knew that Recon was out there, and wanted to destroy a Recon team, to demoralize the others.
On the afternoon of June 15, a two-man Special Forces team leading a Civilian Irregular Defense Forces platoon detected hundreds of North Vietnamese troops climbing Hill 488.
They radioed in, alerting not only their own command but also SSgt Howard, whose radio was set to the same frequency. The two Special Forces soldiers, Sergeant 1st Class Donald Reed and Specialist 5 Hardey Drande, wanted to engage, but found themselves dealing with a platoon of local militia who most definitely would not rush the North Vietnamese.
Howard called in his team leaders, set a central rally point, and gave instructions to fall back to it when they made contact with the enemy. With the teams alert and ready, they waited.
The Battle of Hill 488 Begins
The first attack hit at just around 2200. The attacking forces were later identified as elemtnts of the 3rd and 21st Regiments of the 2nd NVA Division
Lance Corporal Ricardo Binns fired his rifle at a seemingly random bush, and the North Vietnamese soldier crawling forward using that bush as cover was killed, falling back down the hill. The Marines of Binns’s team threw grenades and fell back toward the central rally point.
The rest of the team fell back to the central outcrop, which had formed their assembly point. Howard quickly got them into a tight, 20-meter-wide perimeter, setting each Marine into his firing position.
When the enemy attacked the rocky knoll on Hill 488, they were within twenty feet of the Recon Marines’ positions.
The North Vietnamese led with a volley of grenades, some of them bouncing off the rocks, some failing to detonate, but others falling on Marines and exploding. Three 12.7mm machine guns and 60mm mortars provided further fire support for the assaulting North Vietnamese.
Every man wonders how he’ll react the first time he sees combat. Similarly, SSgt Howard wondered how his Marines, many of whom were young and inexperienced, would react.
As the North Vietnamese rose up and charged the knoll at the top of Hill 488, firing their AK-47s, throwing grenades, and screaming, they found out.
The Marines responded with a fusillade of M14 fire that cut down the assaulting North Vietnamese in short order, forcing the rest behind them to go to ground, dropping to find cover.
As the night wore on, small groups of North Vietnamese troops crawled forward to probe the Marines’ perimeter, tossing grenades at the Recondos’ redoubt. They were often answered with grenades in turn, and the US grenades were much more effective than the ChiCom stick grenades. Furthermore, the Marines were better at throwing them, often gauging the enemy’s location by sound and throwing a frag, answered by screams.
The Communists pulled back, and Howard got on the PRC-25 back to Lt. Col. Sullivan’s command post. “You’ve got to get us out of here. There are too many of them for my people.”
Sullivan called the 1st Marine Division Direct Air Support Center and demanded flare ships, gunships, and fixed-wing attack aircraft to provide fire support for the men fighting the Battle of Hill 488.
Yet by just before midnight, the aircraft still had not arrived. And the North Vietnamese attacked in force again.
The Marines threw the last of their hand grenades and fired their rifles on semiautomatic, conserving ammunition and hoping for accuracy to trump numbers and volume of fire. They beat back the assault, but at the cost of every Marine being wounded.
As they redistributed the ammunition from the dead, Howard considered their situation. They were unlikely to be able to repel another massed assault. He could hear the enemy calling out their taunts, warning the Marines that they were soon going to die, down in the dark below the hill.
In response, he got his Recon Marines to taunt the enemy back, yelling every bit of invective and profanity out into the night they knew. And then, he got them to laugh at the enemy, just to show the North Vietnamese that they weren’t demoralized or broken—and therefore were not a good prospect for a third assault.
At 0100, an Air Force flare ship arrived on station and started dropping illumination. As they looked out into the valley, the Marines saw that North Vietnamese reinforcements outnumbered them by hundreds to one. “There were so many, it was just like an anthill ripped apart. They were all over the place,” said Lance Corporal Joseph Kosoglow.
With illum overhead, the jets and helicopter gunships that had been circling overhead without being able to see the enemy, on the radio with Howard but unable to help, descended on the North Vietnamese.
“There were so many, it was just like an anthill ripped apart.”
Rockets, bombs, napalm, and machine gun fire raked the enemy force, with gunships (including Marine assets of VMO-2 and VMO-6) dropping to 20 feet on their strafing runs. Napalm was dropped within 100 yards of the Marine positions, trying to keep the North Vietnamese off them.
Two Hueys stayed overhead all night, directing air support, though at least one was struck by ground fire in the process. With Howard marking their position with a filtered flashlight, gunships strafed as close as 25 yards to the rocky knoll.
The enemy had learned to “hug” US forces to avoid air support, though, and the fight continued at close range, often at ranges of less than 30 feet. The North Vietnamese would crawl toward the Marine positions, and the Marines would throw rocks, since they were out of grenades, hoping to smoke the enemy out of cover, then either engage them on the move, or identify the position they’d moved to, shift and aim in, and kill the enemy soldier when he got up to move. With ammunition critical, they kept to single shots, making every round count.
In the dark, when the flares faded, each man found himself alone. How some of the Marines died will never be known. One was found propped up against a rock, a dead Communist soldier in front of him, their muzzles touching each other’s chests. Some Marines fought with their entrenching tools.
At 0300, H34 helicopters came in to extract the Recon Marines, but were forced off by heavy fire, and Howard was informed he would have to fight on until dawn. Shortly thereafter, he was hit in the back by a ricochet, losing the use of his legs. He came back strong on the radio, and for the rest of the night, he crawled from position to position, keeping his remaining Marines alert and encouraged.
The fire became more sporadic as the night waned. But the enemy was still out there, despite the litter of bodies and equipment all over the slopes of Nui Vu, Hill 488. They were dug in and gone to ground, still determined to wipe out Team 2.
Early that morning, Major William J. Goodsell attempted to fly in a medevac Huey, lured in by the lack of fire until his bird was hit by a storm of machine gun fire. His copilot, 1st Lt. Stephen Butler, was able to get the Huey under control, but Maj. Goodsell died of his wounds before he could reach the hospital.
Air support, unfettered by darkness now, swooped down in revenge. Another Huey was lost, but the air support destroyed the heavy machine guns that the North Vietnamese had been battering the hill with.
While they had been delayed by heavy fire, forced to circle for 45 minutes as jets cleared a landing zone, Charlie Company, 5th Marines, was en route, and as soon as they landed, they moved up the hill, clearing out resistance as they went. Howard and his men met them at the top, Howard warning 2nd Lt. Meyer to stay down because there were snipers still taking them under fire.
The surviving Recon Marines asked their brother Marines if they’d brought cigarettes.
Howard, despite his wounds, took charge, directing the defense of the hill. The fire on the slopes was still intense, and Charlie Company lost two Marines as they slowly secured the slopes. Howard’s Team 2 had lost six, and of the remaining 12, all were wounded. The North Vietnamese had left behind 42 dead and 19 weapons.
The six dead 1st Recon Battalion Team 2, Battle of Hill 488
- Cpl Jerrald R Thompson, Navy Cross
- LCpl John T Adams, Navy Cross
- LCpl Alcadio N Mascarenas, Silver Star
- PFC Ignatius Carlisi, Silver Star
- PFC James O McKinney, Silver Star
- PFC Thomas D Glawe, Silver Star
Other Casualties, Battle of Hill 488
The two dead of Charlie Company, 5th Marines:
- 2nd Lt Ronald W Meyer, Silver Star
- LCpl Terry P Redi
VMO-2 and VMO-6 each lost one:
- Major William J Goodsell, VMO-6, Navy Cross
- PFC Leo B Buckholdt, VMO-2
SSgt Jimmie Howard was subsequently awarded the Medal of Honor.
Post-Vietnam War and retirement
Upon his return to the United States, he was assigned duty as Battalion Training Non-commissioned Officer, Service Company, Headquarters and Service Battalion, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California.
Howard retired from the Marine Corps on March 31, 1977, with the rank of first sergeant.
Following his retirement, Howard lived in San Diego, California and worked for the local Veterans Affairs office.
Howard became involved in coaching/volunteering for Point Loma High School. He was a coach for the Point Loma High School football team which went undefeated in 1987 and won the San Diego Section CIF championship.
He was also a coach for the Point Loma High School football team which won the CIF championship again in 1991.
When asked why he liked coaching, Coach Howard stated the men he lost in combat were relatively the same age as the high school football players and it reminded him of them.
Jimmie E. Howard died on November 12, 1993, at his home in San Diego, California. He was buried in the Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in San Diego.