Archives: Leatherneck Magazines

From the Leatherneck Archives: Feb. 15, 1945, Pacific Edition

A shrieking Marine-piloted Cor­sair dived on its Marshall Island target. Its bombs released, smoke and dust shrouding the atoll. Suddenly from the smoking blackness below, tiny red balls of fire streaked toward the sky from a well-hidden gun.

The Corsair shuddered as it dropped out of position. A hundred yards from the barely discernible beach the careening fuselage was swallowed by the treacherous surf.

Slowly an oil slick mixed with the green dye of a marker and the yellow of a life raft. The pilot’s comrades circled overhead, radioed his position, and as gas ran low, turned homeward.

The man in the life raft was alone. His one salvation was the well-organized sea rescue service composed of the Navy’s flying boat, the PBY Catalina, known fondly as the “Dumbo,” and the swift destroyers that ply these waters.

In the past six months, 21 men of the 4th Marine Air Wing, commanded by Brigadier General Louis E. Woods, flying with squadrons neutralizing the Japanese-held islands of Mille, Jaluit, Wotje and Maloelap, had been rescued. Twenty of their comrades, shot down in similar actions, were lost. In other words, more than 50 percent of the men shot down in combat have been rescued, most of them to fly again!

Dumbos landed in perilously rough seas, cracking wingtips while effecting rescues, and, like giant crippled birds, the huge planes have taxied miles across the water.

American destroyers steamed defiantly into the range of Japanese shore batteries to pick up crash survivors, at times en­gaging in running battles with the enemy to accomplish their mission.

The vast reaches of open sea that these pilots crossed to bomb Japanese atolls do not seem impressive on a map, but they are incredibly long distances for single-engine planes.

After leaving their own base, the open sea was their only haven of safety if shot down since the only nearby islands were enemy held.

Once shot down, there was fear in their hearts. Fear of failure to be sighted. Fear of slight injuries becoming serious and the even greater fear of being discovered by the enemy. A man without fear is a fool.

They paddled with all the fury that fear inspires. They gave thanks to the heavy, tossing sea, threatening to engulf them, yet offering protective cover from the enemy. In the next breath they would curse it because it made them equally invisible to rescuers.

There was nothing to do now but con­tinue to paddle in the direction of home, and wait.

The length of time pilots spent in the raft is not a matter fate. It may have been a few hours, a day, a week, all depending on the weather and visibility, but in 21 cases, their vigil was rewarded by hearing the drone of a plane, or the sight of the creamy wake of a destroyer.

Once aboard the rescue craft the men were cared for, given clean, dry clothing and fed. At the same time, a laconic radio message, worded thusly, was sent out: “Pilot rescued by aircraft (or ship). Re­turning to base.”

Despite being shot down and rescued, most of these men again took up the aerial cudgel against the Japanese in the Marshalls. Such was the case of Captain George Franck, former All-American halfback at the University of Minnesota.

His head injured in a crash landing, Captain Franck floated in his life raft for two and one-half hours. He was so close to enemy-held Wotje, that he “could count every coconut tree on the island.”

He was picked up by a motor whaleboat from a Navy destroyer that slugged it out with Japanese coastal guns. The destroyer moved in after a Navy PBY, which landed to affect the rescue, was split in two by a 50-foot swell and its crew of six was sent scampering to a life raft. Overhead, Captain Franck’s comrades, who had raced back to their base to refuel and re-arm, joined the fray. They strafed the enemy guns while Franck and the PBY crew were picked up.

Describing his rescue, Captain Franck said, “It was the best piece of teamwork I have ever seen.”

It is not a usual sight to see an Army B-25 pilot affectionately kiss the hull of a battered, weather-beaten Navy Catalina.

First Lieutenant M.B. Watts of Richmond, Calif., did just that to the PBY which brought him and his crewmembers back to Tarawa one day in June 1944.

Shot down in a bombing run, Lieutenant Watts and his crew were picked up at sea by a patrol bomber piloted by Navy Lieutenant Junior Grade Olaf F. Holm, of La Jolla, Calif.

LTJG Holm landed the giant amphibian between two swells and popped 50 rivets in the hull.

By popping rivets, LTJG Holm meant that there were that many holes in the hull where rivets should have been. In addition, several supports were bent as he taxied toward the men on the raft and the PBY started “leaking like a sieve.”

“Two of the Army men had broken legs and a third was badly cut up,” Holm said. “We had a hard time moving them to our ship, but finally managed it by using part of the catwalk for a stretcher.”

“The Army men kept saying, ‘Thank God we’re safe,’ but we weren’t so optimistic about the outlook. My crew kept plugging up the holes with pencils, pieces of wood, and even their fingers. By the time we were ready to take off, we had a foot of water in the plane.”

With so heavy a load aboard and the water in the hull, Lieutenant Holm decided on a downwind takeoff, and recalling his surfboard riding days, rode the crests of three swells until the heavily laden Navy craft was airborne. Tarawa was reached without further incident.

During the rescue of Marine Second Lieutenant Theodore Wyatt, of Chicago, Ill., another triple play was performed. Lieutenant Wyatt, a 4th Marine Air Wing Corsair pilot, was shot down less than 2 miles off one of the Japanese-held atolls he was strafing.

After hitting the water, he managed to get out of the cockpit and into his raft. Members of his flight sighted him and remained overhead until the Dumbo appeared. Also nearby was a destroyer, but as it neared Lieutenant Wyatt’s raft, Japanese coastal batteries opened up. The Navy PBY landed, but was badly damaged by heavy seas, and the nine-man crew was forced to board two rafts and join 2ndLt Wyatt in the water. The shore batteries switched their fire to the plane and rafts, but a motor launch from the destroyer picked up the men without mishap, as Douglas dive bombers provided a curtain of protective fire.

A split second rescue saved the life of Marine Captain Edwin A. Tucker, of Lancaster, Calif.

Capt Tucker, a member of another 4th MAW Corsair Squadron, was shot down into the lagoon of an enemy base in the Marshalls. Capt Tucker was unable to inflate his life raft, and despite his frantic efforts, watched it sink out of sight. He abandoned his plane and was kept afloat by his Mae West. Twenty-five minutes later he was picked up by the ever-present Navy Catalina.

The rescue was accomplished with­out drawing fire from Japanese gun emplacements fringing the lagoon because of continued strafing by Capt Tucker’s squadron mates, who kept the enemy gunners well pinned down.

Another thrilling rescue amid a hail of bullets was the one of Marine Captain Judson H. Bell, of Bel Air, Md., a member of one of the first units of the 4th MAW to use the Corsair as a fighter bomber. Capt Bell was forced into the water after his plane was set ablaze by enemy antiaircraft fire.

For two hours Captain Bell floated in the water, supported by his Mae West, his life raft having gone down with the plane. A destroyer, dispatched to the scene, was kept away by heavy shore battery fire. The destroyer lowered a motor whaleboat, which made its way, amid a shower of bullets to the captain and carried him to safety.

His 13th strike proved unlucky for Marine First Lieutenant Van A. Dempsey. Flying cover for a dive bomber, Lieu­tenant Dempsey’s airplane was hit by antiaircraft fire. Unable to fly the stricken ship home, he pancaked into the ocean. He too, was unable to launch his life raft and had to rely on his Mae West. After 30 minutes of paddling in the water, he was picked up by a Navy flying boat.

These are only a scant few of the rescues of flyers downed at sea. All of them are victories against the ocean and the enemy. Experienced pilots and gun­ners were saved and went on with their mission of neutralizing the Japanese-held Marshall Islands.

On Saturday, Oct. 21, 1967, David Jensen was working at a caterer’s office in Hales Corners, Wis. As the 18-year-old prepared orders for the coming week, the office owner entered the room.

“Dave, you need to go home.”

His terseness caught David off guard. He appeared somber and was obviously not playing around.

“Well, no,” David replied. “I can finish up this order, at least.”

“No, Dave. You can’t linger. You need to go home, now.”

He gathered his things and returned to his parent’s house. The staff car from the local Marine Corps recruit­er’s office sat in the driveway. A re­cruiter’s presence was not unusual. David had known them since he was 12, the first time he entered their office with his older brother, Alan. Alan was a Marine, and David was determined to become one too.

David walked through the front door. A major and first sergeant in dress blues sat in the living room with David’s parents. A Bible lay open on the coffee table. Tears poured down his mother’s cheeks. His father approached him.

“David,” he faltered. “Alan is dead. He was killed.”

David moved toward the recruiters. His gut reaction came out as anger.

“You got proof? Where’s his dog tags?”

The Marines sat him down and described what they knew. Alan was killed in Vietnam on a recon patrol a few days earlier. Due to the intensity of the firefight, Alan’s body had to be left behind. Marines were still working to recover him.

The recruiters left after David settled down. He sat with his family in a group hug. What now? Nothing would ever be the same. His big brother was gone.

A Western Union telegram arrived the following day, officially confirming the news. One of Alan’s Marine buddies traveled to the Jensen home from Detroit. He stayed with them as they waited for further news, helping craft letters to Alan’s unit in Vietnam, and telling the family about Alan’s first combat deployment, where they served together in 1965. Finally, nearly a week later, more news arrived. Marines had recovered Alan’s body. He was coming home.

Alan’s remains arrived in Milwaukee, Wis., on Nov. 7. When his father arrived at the funeral home, the director informed him the funeral would require a closed casket. His father asked to see the body, but the director refused. His father in­sisted and witnessed firsthand the horrors of the war, and how unkind the enemy could be to an American body.

On Veterans Day, a police motorcade brought Alan to General Mitchell Field in Milwaukee to be transported to Arlington National Cemetery. The family flew to Washington, D.C., and prepared for his interment the following week. David watched his brother descend into the earth among the seemingly infinite rows of identical headstones. How could this be real? He reflected on his brother and decided, now more than ever, he wanted to follow in Alan’s footsteps.

David and Alan were the two boys in their family of six. Alan was the oldest child. David arrived seven years later, with a sister between them, and another sister after him. From his earliest memories, David always considered Alan his role model.

“We grew up hunting, fishing, trapping,” David remembered. “One of his friends told me once on a camping trip that Alan had berated him, telling him he didn’t even have what it took to be a Boy Scout. Even back then, Alan was a gung-ho kid, kicking ass and taking names. He taught me how to shoot, he taught me about girls. He was a Marine!”

When Alan decided to enlist, David begged to sign his name on the papers alongside him. The age gap between them, however, meant David would have to wait. Alan shipped out in 1961, serving initially as a machine-gunner with “Golf” Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Marines. He worked his way up the ranks and became a section leader. He deployed to Vietnam where he transitioned to 3rd Recon Battalion and began running patrols behind enemy lines.

David received Alan’s letters and waited for his brother to come home. Alan finally returned during the sum­mer of 1965. He left active duty al­together when his contract ran out that August. David was elated. The brothers returned to their usual outdoor activities. Now 16 years old, David was thrilled to show his brother how much older he’d become and how much closer to be­ginning his own enlistment in the Corps. Alan encouraged the decision.

“I remember he told me if you were going to be a Boy Scout, you’d better be an Eagle Scout,” David said. “And if you’re going to join the military, you’d better be a Marine.”

Alan tried settling back into civilian life. He got a job and even purchased 16 acres in northern Wisconsin with one of his Marine buddies. Something was off, however. David recognized the change. Alan seemed angrier. Neither brother had ever been the holiest of kids, but now Alan’s fuse proved extra short. One day while driving down the road, the car in front of them stopped at an intersection. Alan’s temper exploded when the driver took too long to drive on. David watched in awe from the passenger seat as Alan exited their car in the middle of the road, walked up to the vehicle in front of them, and yanked the driver out onto the street to fight.

Finally, in early 1967, Alan decided he could not take the civilian life anymore. He told David and the rest of his family he had to go back in the Marines. He could not see a good future for himself without the Corps. Alan contacted another Marine he’d served with on his first tour, who was now a recruiter in Louisiana. The recruiter told Alan that he could get him back in, but he’d lose the rank he had when he was discharged. Without hesitation, Alan jumped in his car and drove south to sign the papers. As Alan headed off again, David’s father took him aside.

“I was pissed,” David remembered. “My brother had such a profound influence on me. My father told me, ‘This is what he has to do. A man has to do what a man has to do.’ I was disappointed, but I had to understand.”

Alan reenlisted in February, and by May was already back in Vietnam. Now with 1st Force Reconnaissance Company, Alan once again operated on clandestine patrols behind enemy lines. By the time of his death that October, Alan had achieved the rank of sergeant and was an assistant team leader in the company.

David carried on with his plan to follow in his brother’s footsteps. His parents held reservations about him enlisting and they worked with recruiters to guarantee David would not see combat. He enlisted in March 1968 and served with land and carrier-based maintenance squadrons servicing jet engines. He tried to go to Vietnam but was refused. The Corps decided one son was enough for the Jensen family. David left active duty after his initial contract ended, then returned to service later in the Marine Corps Reserve as a Huey maintenance technician. He exited the Marines altogether in 1977.

In 1982, David learned about the newly dedicated Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. He had visited Alan’s grave at Arlington several times but now hoped to make the journey again and visit “The Wall.” For years, life’s obligations delayed the trip. Regrettably, David’s father passed away in 1985 before he had the opportunity to visit the memorial. Finally, in 1987, David flew to Washington with his mother and sister.

David entered The Wall’s pathway near the Lincoln Memorial. The Wall grew beside him as he searched for panel 28E. The sea of names blurred together. Others walked the path beside him. Some wept as they placed flowers at the base of a panel. Some stood in silence with hands raised over a name on the wall. As The Wall began to shrink once more, 28E came into view. David traced his finger down the left side counting lines. When he reached 26, Alan’s name surprised him, first in that line at the left of the panel. David paused with his fingers touching the name above his head. Below Alan’s name, David’s reflection filled the polished granite. Names continued to infinity left and right. Other passing visitors moved as a blur through the reflection. In that moment, David felt his brother again, just the two of them, there on The Wall.

“Looking at the big picture of over 58,000 names on that wall, that meant there were a lot of other people who had to go through these things like my family had to go through,” David reflected. “I realized there were so many other brothers or sisters out there with someone’s name on the wall. I was not the only one.”

David flew home to his wife in Col­orado. Recounting the trip for her felt like reliving his brother’s death 20 years earlier. Memories of his parents’ house and the recruiters’ car in the driveway rushed back into his brain. They broke down his manly facade and forced him to confront a painful reality he’d long tried to ignore.

“I think I have more healing to do.”

David embarked on a journey to dis­cover what happened to Alan, and who he was as a Marine in combat. He reviewed letters his family had received 20 years earlier. Alan’s commanding officer, ex­ecutive officer, platoon commander, and other fellow Marines responded to the family’s requests for more information in the wake of Alan’s death. Their letters painted a basic picture of the patrol where Alan died. David progressed slowly at first as the Marines directly connected to Alan’s final patrol proved difficult to find.
He finally achieved a breakthrough in 1989. An ad appeared in Leatherneck Magazine for an upcoming Force Recon Association reunion in Dallas, Texas. David explained who he was to the con­tact listed and received an invitation to attend. When the time came, David traveled to Texas, eager to learn what questions might be answered.

David discovered how small a world the Force Recon community lived in. Virtually everyone at the reunion either knew of or served with his brother. Ma­rines who served with Alan on his first deployment in 3rd Recon Battalion told David of their shadowy missions in rubber boats off the Vietnamese coast in 1965. Many others told him stories from 1967, leading up to Alan’s death. David met Stan Chapman, a Navy corpsman. Chapman described his painful memories of caring for Alan’s remains once they were recovered, and his presence in the room when a group of Marines were summoned to positively identify him.

The patrol where Alan died was some­thing out of the ordinary for Force Recon. A team of 17 Marines, dubbed Recon Team Petrify, went into an area swarming with North Vietnamese Army (NVA) soldiers. The enemy presence was normal. The size of the patrol was not. Petrify consisted of more than double the number of Marines on a standard mission. Every member of the team was wounded. One other Marine besides Alan was also killed. A company-size “Bald Eagle” reactionary force was called to rescue Team Petrify. Multiple helicopters were shot down trying to extract them.

David arrived back in Colorado armed with information and contacts he’d never dreamed of making. Several weeks later, David found a package on his front doorstep. He cut open the box and remo­ved an unlabeled cassette. A small note accompanied the tape, penned by one of the men he met in Dallas.

“David, I think you’ll find this interesting.”

He hustled to a cassette player and inserted the tape. The speaker crackled to life with pops and static as it turned from reel to reel. A grainy, scripted voice broke through in a southern accent.

“These interviews are narratives of a recon patrol originally inserted to set up an observation post in Elephant Valley northwest of Da Nang. The location is the Command Post, 1st Force Recon Company, 1st Marine Division, Quang Nam Province, Da Nang TAOR, Republic of Vietnam. The day is 23 October 1967. The subject is Recon Patrol Petrify. The classification of these interviews is secret until downgraded by proper authority.”

Different voices followed each other in succession. The interviews had been done in Vietnam mere days after Petrify returned to base. When they were re­corded, David’s family had only recently been told of Alan’s death, and his body had still not yet been recovered. The tape played through interviews of four patrol members, all describing every detail they could remember surrounding the patrol, Alan’s death, and their terrifying extrac­tion. David rewound the cassette and played it again. He still could not believe what he was hearing. Two years into his search, Alan’s story was finally coming into focus.

On Oct. 14, 1967, leaders from 1st Force called for volunteers to go out on a special mission. Another Recon team had inserted on a hill called Dong Top Mountain. In less than 24 hours, the Ma­rines faced continuous enemy contact, taking a severe beating. First Force was tasked with relieving the team and con­tinuing the patrol where they left off. Due to the known enemy presence, officers wanted a larger team and asked for volun­teers. Seventeen Marines were thrown together into Team Petrify. Alan volun­teered for the mission and acted as one of the senior members.

Petrify inserted the following day, pick­ing up where the previous team left off. For over 24 hours they moved through the jungle around Dong Top without contact. Signs of the enemy, however, were omnipresent. In the afternoon of patrol’s second day, the team’s machine-gun crew opened fire when NVA soldiers rounded a bend in a trail. One soldier dropped dead, and a second enemy fell wounded. The two Marines advanced toward them. Grenade rounds launched from a M-79 grenade launcher suddenly exploded near them, driving them back.

Seemingly out of nowhere, Alan came sprinting through the underbrush. Scream­ing and hollering and firing his rifle, he drew enemy attention off the machine-gun team, allowing them to move to cover. When the M-79 rounds ceased, Alan ran forward to collect anything he could find. Blood and body parts covered the trail, but both NVA were gone. Alan and the gun team re­joined the main group. Alan exposed himself to more enemy fire to help the rest of the team break contact. The team harbored in the thickest brush they could find. Dusk settled into the defense with the Marines, and the last rays of sun faded to black. The night passed at an excruciat­ing pace. Small arms fire punctuated the silence in all directions as the NVA scoured the mountainside.

Dawn of Oct. 17 brought little relief. At noon, the team decided they had to move. They located an area filled with huge rocks and set up their defense once more. The position offered ample cover and concealment. Unknown to the Marines, however, the NVA occupied a ridge above them. Rustling voices increased in all directions around Petrify. Suddenly, around 4 p.m., machine-gun fire raked the position and grenades rained down.
The opening enemy barrage devastated the Marines. Within seconds, Alan was dead. Two bullets ripped through his chest, and grenade fragments hit his head. LCpl Jerry DeGray fell also, shot twice in the head. Several other Marines were seriously wounded, and every member of the patrol suffered at least minor shrapnel wounds. Despite the damage inflicted, every surviving Marine returned fire. A ferocious roar enveloped the mountain as the Recon team battled with NVA surrounding them.

Huey gunships arrived on scene within 30 minutes. They worked over the ridge and surrounding jungle. An observation plane arrived, armed with an assortment of jets behind him. As the first flight of gunships expended their ordnance, jets took turns racing in with bombs. A second flight of Hueys arrived, pumping rockets and machine-gun fire into the jungle. A CH-46 approached at dusk to attempt an emergency medevac but was shot out of the zone. All the air support available seemed only to kick the hornet’s nest harder. Seeing the team’s predica­ment, officers called for a reaction force to get Petrify out. A company of grunts deployed to the base of Dong Top at dusk and began the long trek up the hill.

Helicopters arrived back over the team shortly after 7 a.m. the next morning. Hueys once again pounded the ridge and jungle floor. Even as more gunships and jets expended their ordnance, enemy fire struck three choppers attempting another extraction and forced them out of the zone.

Finally, around 9 a.m., the reaction force arrived on the hill. The grunts established their defense and worked toward the Recon team. A single squad finally battled through to reach them two hours later. Because of the amount of gear and wounded to get out, they split the patrol in half. The first group, with the most seriously wounded and the body of LCpl DeGray, moved out with the infantry squad. Nine Recon Marines remained behind with Alan’s body.

The firefight swelled as the morning wore on. NVA soldiers appeared from every direction with grenades, mortars and machine guns, hell bent on stopping the grunts and wiping out Petrify. After several hours, the remainder of the team still among the rocks decided their position was untenable. The grunts would not make it back. The team would have to make it to them.

They placed Alan’s body on a stretcher and moved out along a trail. The battle raging between the reaction force and NVA increased in ferocity as they neared the grunts’ position. A fever pitch of explosions roared through the jungle. Suddenly, tracer rounds crisscrossed the trail all around and among them. The Marines carrying Alan’s stretcher dropped his body and brought up their rifles. On one side of the trail, less than 20 meters away, a group of NVA fired machine guns and mortars. On the other side of the trail the same distance away, grunts fought back. The recon team hit the deck, trapped in the crossfire between the opposing forces. NVA grenades soared over and landed amongst the team. Marines scattered in all directions searching for cover, while Alan’s body remained unmoved on the stretcher. He lay less than 15 feet away from the rest of the team, but the enemy fire was so intense they could not move back to him.

The grunts advanced far enough to reach the team. They worked together to suppress the NVA, now mere feet away. One infantry Marine was killed in the fight and fell ahead of the rest, a stone’s throw away from Alan’s body. Two squads made multiple attempts to recover Alan and their own casualty but failed. Finally, the commanding officer on the hill directed all Marines to get back to the main line. They had to move off the mountain before the NVA overran their position.

A second reaction force arrived to relieve the first one and evacuate Dong Top. The going was incredibly slow as Marines worked down the steep terrain. They reached the bottom of the hill at dawn the following morning where everyone moved back to Da Nang. Two Marine infantry companies plus the heavy recon team lacked the numbers and firepower to overcome the NVA on Dong Top Mountain.

The contents of the cassette tape painted a vivid picture of the events surrounding Alan’s death, but for David, it was still incomplete. The interviews took place before his brother’s body was recovered. He remembered the funeral director refusing to open the casket at Alan’s funeral, and his father’s face after he’d seen the body. He remembered the words of the corpsman he’d met at the reunion when David insisted he tell him the details of what the NVA did to Alan’s body. The old Doc described the terrifying details of Alan’s mutilated corpse, and his disgust for the bastards who could do such things.

Over the next few years, David filled in Alan’s story. He attended two more Force Recon reunions. At one point, he met in person with a member of Team Petrify who was one of the seriously wounded on the patrol. David gave him copies of the cassette tape interviews, which the Marine never knew existed. David realized that because of his research, he actually knew more of the big picture surrounding the patrol than someone who was there on the ground. In less than five years following his visit to The Wall, David felt he’d accomplished his mission. His brother’s loss still tore at his heart. In some ways, even more so now than before, given the tragic details. Pride, however, overcame the grief. Alan was a loved and respected teammate within the recon community. For his actions on the patrol, Alan posthumously received a Bronze Star Medal with Valor device. As David closed the book on his research, he knew his brother’s death was not in vain and was remembered by more than just him.

Nearly three decades passed before David reopened the book, beginning a second chapter on his brother’s death. In 2018, David learned the name of the reaction force grunt killed in the same place as Alan. Lance Corporal Howard Ogden went down on Dong Top Mountain less than 50 feet from where Alan’s body was left. Though Alan even­tually returned home, Ogden’s body disappeared. His status was officially listed as Killed in Action/Body Not Re­covered. He posthumously received a Silver Star for his role in the battle.

David located Ogden’s memorial page on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Wall of Faces.

“Thank you, Marine,” he wrote in the comments. “You sacrificed your life in recovering my brother’s body. Sgt Alan T. Jensen, who in his first enlistment was also in 2/7. God Bless you.”

David received a surprising response from a lady named Maggie Ardery. Maggie was Ogden’s older sister. Just like David, Maggie devoted considerable effort to discovering what had happened to her brother on Dong Top. Maggie’s journey, however, continued to the pres­ent, as Ogden’s case remained active at the Defense Prisoner of War/Missing In Action Accounting Agency (DPAA).

David called Maggie and learned of her quest to see her brother return home. He sympathized and understood her pain in ways most people never could. He committed to help Maggie with her efforts and resumed his own journey from a different perspective.
David learned of the Virtual Viet­nam Archive, hosted by Texas Tech Uni­versity, where he located the com­mand chronologies of other units involved in Team Petrify’s extraction. The documents revealed a broader picture and told the story of Alan’s recovery a week later.

Marine Observation Squadron (VMO) 2 and Marine Medium Helicopter Squad­ron (HMM) 265 provided the helicopters that forced the enemy back and attempted the emergency medevacs of Team Petrify. Their efforts came at a cost. Enemy fire shot up one CH-46 so badly it was forced to crash land at the base of Dong Top. Another Huey gunship suffered similar damage and crashed nearby. Part of the reaction force sent to the mountain peeled off to secure the area around the downed aircraft. Despite the crashed choppers and enemy mortar fire into the crash site, no Marines were injured.

The first helicopter from HMM-265 attempting a medevac of Petrify’s wounded on Oct. 17, however, did not fare so lucky. When the CH-46 arrived at dusk, Cpl Howard Morse lay on his stomach peering down through the “hell hole” in the center of the bird’s belly as a hoist lowered painfully slowly to the ground. NVA on the ridge opened fire. Bullets passed through the thin aluminum skin of the helicopter. One found its mark and entered Morse’s abdomen below his body armor. The pilot aborted the extrac­tion, but it was already too late. Morse died in the hospital eight days later. To quantify the air wing’s efforts over the two-day period of Petrify’s extraction, VMO-2 reported that their Hueys fired 446 rockets and 54,500 rounds of ma­chine-gun ammo.

Golf Co, 2/7, formed the initial reaction force to rescue Petrify. The battalion also provided a reaction force to rescue the recon team that Petrify was assembled to relieve. On the same day Alan was killed, in a separate area of Dong Top Mountain, another company from 7th Marines de­ployed to rescue a third surrounded recon team. In the end, the jungle into which Team Petrify walked swarmed with an estimated 800 NVA, and a full battalion of Marines was needed to get all the recon teams out.

Several days later, 2/7 returned to Dong Top to search for Alan and Howard Ogden. The battalion’s casualties mounted once again as grunts spread across the hill. On Oct. 24, Golf Co reached the area where the Marines went missing. Through the jungle, they saw a desecrated body tied to a tree. Mortars, grenades, and machine-gun fire greeted them as they moved to recover the body. The grunts withdrew, unable to force their way through. A squad returned the fol­lowing morning to find the NVA moved out of the area overnight. They cut the binds from the tree and moved the body back to the command post. They im­me­diately identified the remains as a recon Marine. Ogden was nowhere to be found.
David worked with Maggie to locate Marines who served with her brother, the same way others had helped him locate recon Marines who served with Alan. They contacted veterans from 2/7 and spoke with Marines who fought on Dong Top alongside Alan and Ogden. Maggie included David on all her cor­respondence with the DPAA. In July 2019, a DPAA team went to Dong Top Mountain look­ing for information on Ogden and other missing Americans. They searched the area, but did not ex­cavate, planning to begin those efforts at a later date. Regrettably, all DPAA field activities abruptly halted with the coronavirus pandemic in 2020. As of this writing, the excavation on Dong Top has still not been rescheduled.

In September 2020, David and Maggie met in person at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Angel Fire, N.M. Though they had been acquainted barely more than a year, they regarded each other as adopted siblings and embraced as if they were reuniting with a beloved old friend. They purchased memorial bricks engraved with the names of their brothers to be included in the memorial walkway. As Alan’s brick was lain down along the sidewalk, memories flooded David’s consciousness. His father’s face appeared as he told David of Alan’s death at their childhood home. David’s own face ap­peared, reflected in the memorial wall in D.C., as he determined to begin his journey. Over five decades of discovery led him here. He met many people who helped him along the way. He gained a new sister, one of those other siblings like him that he’d reflected on at the wall years before. He’d never imagine someone else out there might be enduring the same grief as he, losing their brother on the same mission and in the exact same place as his own.

David learned the man he knew as his big brother was no different to the Marines he served with; still a role model, a leader, and a friend. The time had still not come to close the book on the story of Team Petrify and Dong Top Mountain, only another chapter was set to close. Howard Ogden still needed to come home. Maggie’s family deserved the closure. As for Alan’s story, David felt whole. The healing he sought was finally found.

Author’s note: David’s journey, and this story, could not have happened without the help of many people over the five decades since David set out to learn what happened to his brother. David would like to recognize the following individuals. Semper Fi, and thank you!

Maj Charles Wilkins, USMC (Ret), who was a corporal on Team Petrify with Alan. Wilkins was one of the Marines recorded on the original cassette tape, and David finally connected with him over 50 years later in 2020.

Sgt Dave Thompson, USMC, who served with First Force Recon in 1968 and 1969. Thompson was featured in another story I wrote, “The Flying Ladder.” Thompson maintains his own website, containing a wealth of history on Force Recon in Vietnam. Thompson aided David in locating Maj Wilkins and orchestrated the call between them.

Maj Bill Picking, U.S. Army (Ret), and SgtMaj Jack Parsons, USMC (Ret), both of whom were enlisted Marines with the reaction force from Golf Co, 2/7, who battled the NVA on Dong Top Mountain and witnessed the events surrounding Alan and Howard Ogden’s deaths. David just connected with them in 2022.

Capt Jeremy Nelson fires the Beretta M9 during a weapons marksmanship course at Camp Leatherneck, Afghanistan, Oct. 4, 2013. (Photo by Sgt Bobby J. Yarbrough, USMC)Carried by many but seldom fired at the enemy, handguns fill a somewhat strange niche in the Marine Corps’ arsenal. Because they are mainly issued to personnel who are not expected to need them, their importance is often overlooked; those who carry handguns, however, rely on them as a weapon of last re­sort in case all else should fail. As it is finally replaced by the M17 and M18 Modular Handgun System (MHS) after 32 years in U.S. military service, the Beretta M9 leaves behind a mixed legacy. Those who trained on it alternately praise and criticize the pistol’s attributes. Depending on who’s talking, the M9 is either one of the finest service pistols of its time or an inherently flawed design totally unsuited for military use. To uncover the truth behind these claims, one must understand the history behind them. The story of the Beretta M9 is a complicated one, poorly documented and fraught with political scandal, public controversy, and inter-service rivalry from the very beginning.

Marines who favor the classic M1911A1 over the M9 platform will rejoice to know that they can blame the Army and Air Force for causing the beloved .45 to be replaced. When the Air Force became an independent branch of the U.S. Armed Forces, it took with it whatever small arms it had in inventory as part of the Army. As the service rapidly expanded through the 1950s and ’60s, its security forces needed to expand their arsenal. Because the last M1911A1s were manufactured in 1945 and the Department of Defense would not authorize further orders, the Air Force had instead relied on the smaller and lighter .38-caliber M15 re­volver to arm its security forces since at least the early 1960s. Beginning in the 1970s, however, the Air Force began to encounter problems, mainly squib loads, with their M41 ball service ammunition. Each time a defective round created a catastrophic failure, the entire lot of ammunition had to be marked as unsafe and removed from stockpiles; the Air Force found itself facing a shortage of .38 Special ammunition its airmen could trust to function.

The pistols were run through a battery of tests from 1977 to 1980, analyzing their performance in everything from accuracy and ergonomics to reliability in extreme conditions. Most of the pistols suffered from frequent malfunctions or parts breakage, with some even having their front sights fall out on the range. Only two designs survived to the end: the Smith & Wesson 459 and the Beretta 92SB-1. Military small arms requirements quote reliability in “mean rounds between failure” (MRBF), calculated by simply dividing the number of rounds fired by the number of any type of stoppages ex­perienced. The Beretta proved to be the most reliable of the bunch; whereas the original requirements demanded at least 625 MRBF, it achieved a whopping 2,000. Furthermore, it proved to be easier to shoot accurately than either the M1911A1 or the M15, especially for less experienced shooters. Declaring the Italian pistol as the winner, the Air Force concluded its testing and prepared to sign a contract for 100,000 pistols in early 1982.

Before that could happen, however, the Army raised a complaint on the basis that the testing had not been sufficiently scientifically rigorous. They specifically cited the mud and extreme temperature testing as not replicable and complained that the M1911A1s in the control group were issued weapons and not factory-new examples procured specifically for the trials. Furthermore, because the Army uses more handguns than any other branch of the U.S. military and has its own very robust procurement system, they insisted that the responsibility to adopt the new service handgun should fall on them. Army Ordnance leadership dis­carded the AFAL’s results entirely and decided to conduct their own testing to select a new pistol, now dubbed “XM9.”

The Army issued a set of requirements in 1981 and received samples from four manufacturers but terminated the pro­gram the next February on the basis that none of the pistols met their requirements. Allegedly, none of them achieved any more than 600 MRBF. Due to increased scrutiny from Congress and the media, the Army withheld as much information as possible; to this day, very little is known about the 1981 trials. The original requirements and results are either not publicly available or have been lost to time. It is possible that the testing was ma­nipulated so as to defeat foreign manu­facturers’ designs or even sabotage the XM9 program as a whole in favor of keeping the M1911 in service. It is known that the Army was interested in the pos­sibility of converting its existing pistols to 9 mm for NATO standardization in­stead of buying a new design, and that a significant contingent in the military and in Congress supported this idea. What­ever the case may be, widespread accusa­tions of fraud convinced the Army to discard the results of its own “secret” trials and start over from scratch.

A total of eight manufacturers chose to compete; Beretta and Smith & Wesson both submitted virtually the same pistols they had sent to the AFAL trials. Famed German gunmakers Hecker & Koch and Carl Walther Waffenfabrik put forth their P7M13 and P88, respectively, and Steyr-Daimler-Puch out of Austria sent the model GB. Back from the AFAL trials were the Colt SSP and FN BDA despite their previous lackluster performance. Swiss company SIG had recently formed a conglomerate with a factory in Germany and offices in the United States; they submitted the P226, a derivative of their own highly innovative P220.

The Steyr GB was the first to fall, eliminated in May of 1984 for failing in reliability testing. It was an innovative and well-made pistol from Austria but never achieved success in the military, law enforcement, or civilian markets. Fabrique Nationale voluntarily withdrew its BDA soon after—not a debilitating loss, as they already held contracts for the M2 and M240 machine guns and would soon get one for the M249. Colt had suffered from issues with its SSP for years and unceremoniously withdrew the weapon in June; it would never see a full production run. Testing continued through the summer and was nearly finished by September. That month saw the rejection of the Walther P88, HK P7M13, and Smith & Wesson Model 459M, each for multiple reasons.

That left just two models still standing to compete head-to-head in the final phase of testing: the SIG Sauer P226 and Beretta’s current model, the 92F. Both achieved excellent reliability, 2,877 and 1,750 MRBF respectively, with a large advantage to the latter in dry conditions. Both pistols passed with flying colors and were deemed technically acceptable. Preference would be given to whichever manufacturer offered a better price on the total system package, including a set list of replacement parts, not just the unit price for the pistols. Bidding was aggressive, but Beretta gave the government a better deal. On Feb. 14, 1985, the U.S. Army officially adopted the Beretta 92F as the M9 pistol.

Despite the Army coming to the same conclusion as the Air Force had years before, the service pistol controversy only intensified. As soon as the Army made its announcement, competing manu­facturers raised legal challenges to the decision. While the Army began purchasing shiny new M9s, the other manufacturers went to court, and the General Accounting Office launched an investigation into their allegations.

Smith & Wesson argued that the rejec­tion of their 459 for failing firing pin energy and service life requirements had been unfair. In the interest of guar­antee­ing reliable ignition with the hard primers found on some military ammu­nition, the pistols were expected to meet NATO standards for the kinetic energy of the firing pin on impact. In converting from metric to U.S. im­perial units, how­ever, the Army had rounded their num­bers up enough that the Smith & Wesson pistols were no longer deemed acceptable. Regarding service life, the published requirement was for the pistol to survive 5,000 rounds on average. In testing, the Army treated this as a minimum require­ment rather than an average and rejected the 459M in part because one example out of three began to suffer cracks in its frame between 4,500 and 5,000 rounds.

SIG Sauer, represented in the United States by SACO Defense, complained that the pricing model the Army had used to make its decision was unfair. The Army’s solicitation required four magazines per pistol and one full set of spare parts for every 10 pistols. Beretta’s significantly lower prices played into their pistol’s selection as the M9, but SACO’s legal challenge suggested that their P226 required fewer replacement parts than the Beretta 92F and alleged that the listed spare parts had been counted incorrectly.

Part of the GAO’s investigation into the recently concluded pistol trials sought to address accusations of outright cor­ruption. According to some people, the U.S. government had made a secret deal with the Italian government to adopt Beretta pistols for the military and the entire trials process had been a cover operation. According to others, the Army had conducted some of its testing in secret and leaked other competitors’ pric­ing data to Beretta to give them a com­petitive edge in the final bidding.

In the world of government contracts and especially military acquisitions, many safeguards exist to ensure free and fair competition. Unfortunately, bad actors can abuse those same legal mech­anisms to waste taxpayer money by filing protests they know will not hold up in court. None of the legal challenges re­garding the XM9 trials were deemed to have sufficient merit and were promptly thrown out, but the GAO continued to investigate at Congress’ behest until every allegation had been put to rest. The GAO’s independent investigation found no evidence of corruption or conspiracy surrounding the XM9 program and noted that SACO’s claims about spare parts were inaccurate at best, disingenuous at worst. They did find that Smith & Wesson had been eliminated unfairly; to put the whole matter to rest, the Army agreed to test the Smith & Wesson pistols again. After the manufacturer declined to participate, the final obstacles to full adoption of the M9 seemed to be gone.

Marines who served during the late 1980s will remember another controversy surrounding the M9 which arose soon after it entered service. Some pistols in Army and Navy service began suffering from excessive wear; frames developed cracks and a few slides even broke in half and caused minor injuries. The spectacular slide failures prompted an immediate response: until the problem was identified and solved, pistols were to be thoroughly inspected and have their slides replaced every 1,000 rounds. The government publicly accused Beretta of shoddy manufacturing and demanded they redesign the M9 to rectify the issue as soon as possible, lest the whole $75 million contract be thrown out. Such accusations dealt significant damage to the reputation of the pistol and the company itself.

By that time, the Beretta 92 had been in production for well over a decade with no such problems surfacing until now, so the company quickly recalled the failed slides to its factory in Italy to find out what was going wrong. The slides had already passed high-pressure proof testing and magnetic particle inspection when they were made, and metallurgical analysis showed that they had indeed been made to the proper specification. What Beretta found was that the slides had failed due to repeated firing with overpressure ammunition far outside the NATO specification, which would also account for the cracked frames.

The U.S. government then turned its attention to the ammunition manufactur­ers. Olin Winchester and Federal Car­tridge Corporation had been awarded contracts to produce NATO-compliant M882 ball ammunition for the M9, but without any history of manufacturing NATO ammunition, Olin Winchester simply took civilian load data and reused it for military production. NATO car­tridge cases, however, are not the same as civilian ones—while visually indis­tinguishable, the smaller internal volume meant that the same charge of gunpowder would produce much greater pressures. The result of the ammunition manufac­turer not taking the time to recalculate its powder charge was that the pistols were subjected to mechanical stresses far greater than what they had been designed or built to handle. Given such defective ammunition, the real surprise is not that the pistols failed, but that it took multiple years for that to happen. Even after the problem was fixed, USSOCOM was still wary of the M9 and opted to purchase P226s instead, type designated MK25 Mod 0.

Understandably upset that the U.S. gov­ernment had so publicly denigrated their pistol over failures caused by faulty ammunition, Beretta filed suit for def­ama­tion and won. Furthermore, the de­sign changes and modifications to exist­ing pistols were done at the government’s expense. All military M9s and civilian Beretta 92s produced since 1988 have a hammer pin with an enlarged end and a corresponding groove inside the slide. With this modification, even if early, defective Winchester M882 ammunition is used, it will physically block the slide from traveling far enough back to exit the frame. The civilian model’s designa­tion was changed from 92F to 92FS to reflect this change; the same pistol is still in production and available on the civilian market to this day.

Ever since the technical data pack­age was updated to reflect those safety modifications, every M9 pistol purchased by the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force has been identical. Apart from serial num­bers and other manufacturer mark­ings, any M9 part made in the late 1980s should be identical to the corresponding part made in the 2010s. On the civilian side, however, Beretta continued to refine and update the design throughout the next several decades. The beginning of the Global War on Terror sent thousands of M9s into combat for prolonged periods, and with that trial by fire, Marines be­gan to recognize some of the pistol’s short­comings. In 2003, the Marine Corps ex­pressed interest in certain improvements made to civilian variants of the pistol but that were not available to the military. Because the Marine Corps lacks the same kind of resources and acquisitions system the Army has, it was not allowed to bring new M9s into the inventory that did not comply with the old specifications from the 1980s. It could, however, use its dis­cretionary powers to purchase new pistols in a commercial off-the-shelf configura­tion (COTS) with the features they desired.

Marines have carried pistols from the M9 family from Operation Just Cause to the war in Afghanistan and every de­ployment in between. The weapon has served the Marine Corps for more than three decades and on six continents. While fired relatively little in combat, the M9 saw extensive use among Marines in more specialized roles, such as MPs and Personal Security Details. It was also relied upon by some machine gunners and radio operators, among others, as a last line of defense against enemy com­batants should all else fail.

Throughout its service history, the M9 garnered a controversial reputation. Some hailed it as a highly accurate and reliable handgun, while others complained about its perceived lack of lethality. It is usually compared to its long-lived predecessor, the iconic and heavily romanticized M1911. “Every time you get rid of some weapon, there is a lot of nostalgia,” said Colonel Tim Mundy, a retired Marine infantry officer. “People always act like the sky is falling.”

Some older Marines initially viewed the M9—a new Italian pistol firing a smaller German round—with some skepticism, but according to Mundy, whose assignments included a tour as commanding officer of the School of Infantry-East, “A few would admit that the 1911s were loose, inaccurate, and worn down.” Despite the older pistol’s legendary reputation, it was clearly anti­quated and most of the examples in inventory had long outlived their usefulness. Colonel Chris Woodbridge, USMC (Ret), who also served as an in­fantry officer, agreed with that assess­ment. “You’d still see them [M1911s] in the armory in the late 1980s,” he recalled. “They were like maracas, they were so loose. The parts were so worn that they were really loose-fitting and consequently they could be unsafe.” Mundy and Woodbridge, both of whom commanded infantry Marines in combat, said that the new pistols were a welcome replacement.

Although the M9 proved easier to shoot than its predecessor, some safety prob­lems sprung up as a result of user error. Marines in combat arms military occu­pational specialties, such as gunners and mortarmen, had ample opportunity to train with the pistol, but many staff offi­cers and senior NCOs usually only fired their service weapons once a year for qualification. Good safety habits, there­fore, weren’t always retained. As re­quested by the military and produced by Beretta, the M9 by itself is an exception­ally safe pistol, with multiple mechanical interlocks to prevent it from firing unless the trigger is physically pulled all the way to the rear with the external safety disengaged. No mechanical safety, however, can completely prevent acci­dents that arise from mishandling. Neg­ligent discharges occasionally occurred at the clearing barrel when a Marine pulled the trigger without clearing the pistol properly. Mundy and Woodbridge both said that this was mostly a problem early on in the M9’s service history, particularly in the summer of 1990 during the large mobilization at the outset of Operation Desert Shield. Marine Corps leadership decreased the spate of neg­ligent discharges by increasing safety training and punishing those who caused them.

As for reliability in combat environ­ments, opinions on the M9 differ. In retired Major Vic Ruble’s experience, it was “totally luck of the draw who gets what,” adding that some of the pistols worked well, while others did not. The poor reliability was primarily due to lack of maintenance, according to those with firsthand experience, including Ruble, who made numerous combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. The Beretta 92 series was already a mature and refined service pistol by the time the U.S. mil­itary adopted it; the Marines interviewed for this article all said that while no firearm is perfectly reliable, the M9 typically ran well when properly main­tained. During the Global War on Terror, however, M9s in service began to suffer from serious mechanical problems and even parts breakage issues. Small arms expert Christopher R. Bartocci worked as a consultant for the Department of Defense investigating failures in service weapons during that time; he noted that every broken part that he found had either not been replaced at the proper time or had been manufactured incorrectly to begin with. He determined that armorers had either not been trained properly on the required maintenance and parts replacement schedules or were simply not paying enough attention to notice signs of excessive wear in critical areas. The M9’s recoil spring and locking block are two of the most critical components to replace with expected service lives of approximately 5,000 and 10,000 rounds, respectively. If either of these components are not replaced on time, the pistol will begin to malfunction and will eventually jam up completely when the locking block breaks.

In recent years, M9 and M9A1 pistols in U.S. military service have begun to show their age. Decades spent in harsh conditions combined with poor main­tenance and infrequent parts replacement have taken their toll, and advances in technology have made the core design appear relatively dated. While the mil­itary originally sought out the Beretta 92 for its double-action/single-action trigger system in the interest of safety, modern striker-fired pistols offer a more consistent trigger pull and less complex control scheme. The M9’s aluminum al­loy frame made it relatively lightweight for its time but relatively heavy compared to modern polymer-framed pistols. Due to these and other reasons, every branch of the military has moved toward the new M17 and M18 pistols, which began to replace M9s and M9A1s in 2017; the last of the legacy pistols have already left Marine Corps service.

Between its introduction in the 1980s and its replacement in recent years, the M9 was fielded in large numbers and served the Marine Corps in conflict zones all over the world. Ruble said he is still glad he carried it in Iraq and Afghanistan as it demonstrated its value on several occasions. Inside buildings and vehicles too cramped for the M16 to be useful, he took advantage of the M9’s greater maneuverability.

Even beyond its utility in combat, it was a valuable tool for self-defense and deterrence. Handguns are still seen as a status symbol in many parts of the world. As chance would have it, officials in Saddam Hussein’s government had favored older Beretta designs before the invasion; the Italian pistol’s familiar lines made a significant impression on locals who saw it. “A pistol was a big deal, so you needed to know that going in,” Ruble recalled. “If you pull it, they expect you to use it, and they’re … terrified of that.” Over in Afghanistan, with the pre­ponderance of green-on-blue attacks, Ruble said he depended on his pistol even more when working with the Afghan military and police.

Even when he and other Marines didn’t know if they could trust the locals, they trusted the pistol as a symbol of authority, a deterrent, and a last line of defense. In that respect, though held back by lack of maintenance, the M9 served the Marine Corps admirably for more than three decades in every clime and place.

Author’s note: The author would like to give special thanks to Christopher R. Bartocci and David J. Schneider.

Author’s bio: Sam Lichtman is a free­lance writer who specializes in small-arms technology and military history. He has a weekly segment on Gun Owners Radio. He is a licensed pilot who lives in Virginia.