Medal of Honor recipient Drew Dix and taking back Chau Doc

During the '68 Tet Offensive, two Main Force VC battalions took over a town near the Cambodian border, commonly called Chau Doc. On the Bassac River, it was also called River City. Drew Dix, then a USSF staff sergeant advisor to a Provincial Reconnaissance Unit (PRU) took the city back from the VC. In the beginning he only had about fourteen men and a CIA premilitary case officer to do it. He had some help for a while from a few Navy Seals, but when one of their men got hit, the C.O. called the others back.

The fight lasted fifty six hours and resulted in large numbers of dead and captured VC.

Among the rescues Dix accomplished were that of the nurse Maggie O'Brien, some other U.S. civilians, a South Vietnamese police station and the family of the province chief. Dix also captured a VC general, Sau Be and got him out of town with Maggie.

His exploits make excellent scenarios for wargames. So far I have done the rescue of Maggie O'Brien. The AAR of that game is posted here.

https://fieldsoffire.forumotion.com/t559-rescue-of-maggie-o-brien-aar

On the old FoF I posted my AAR of getting Maggie and Sau Be out of town on an Air America Pilatus Porter.

There is an excellent YouTube two part video on Dix and the rescue of River City. For his achievements at Chau Doc, SSG Dix received the Medal of Honor and a direct commission to first lieutenant. Dix, Maggie O'Brien, the CIA officer Jim Monroe, and one of Dix's indigenous soldiers are recount their experiences in the video. I don't like to sit in front of a computer for long videos. This two part story is well worth watching and the time flies by. There are photos taken at the time and movie sequences. However, nearly, or maybe entirely all of the movies are only generally what the narration describes. I recognized Saigon and Hue. While that is unfortunate, they do not detract from the merits of the videos.

Here are links:

Part 1:



Part 2:


Dix wrote a wonderful book, The Rescue of River City. Here is the link to it on Amazon.
https://www.amazon.com/Rescue-River-City-Drew-Dix/dp/0970309600/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Tom

I'll have to watch those. Coincidentally, I watched another interview with him some weeks ago on Youtube:

Sounds interesting. Hopefully i can check these out this weekend.

The videos in my original posting dealt almost exclusively with the battle at Chau Doc. OTBs posting of the interview with MAJ Dix deals a lot more with his whole military career and particularly with holding the MoH. I am a big fan of the Son Tay raid and it was interesting to hear that he applied for that mission as a Special Forces NCO but was turned down simply because of his having the MoH and its potential complications.

What shows up in both videos is that in addition to being a great military hero, he is obviously a really nice guy.

Tom