Nui Ba Den Republic of South Vietnam 15 October 1962
The incident referred to in paragraph 3 of the Daily Report of Incidents Involving Loss of U.S. Military Persormel for the period 000 I to 2400 14
October 1962 took place at what was officially known as Camp 7.
Camp 7 was, however, known to its American garrison as Dien Bien Phu II, and there was a neatly painted sign to that effect. Even more informally, it was known as “Foo Two.” The American garrison consisted of nine soldiers: a captain, a lieutenant, two master sergeants, three sergeants first class, and two staff sergeants. There were also 160 Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) officers and men under the command of an ARVN captain. The ARVN
troops were in many cases accompanied by their dependents, of whom there were 236, ranging in age from babes in arms (some of whom had been delivered by Sergeant First Class Dugan) to grandfathers and grandmothers.
Most of these, though they looked to be about ninety, were in fact in their late forties- or early fifties.
The American garrison was officially “A” Team #16 of the First Special Forces Group. Two members of the Team were Afro-American: Lieutenant A. L. Wills, the Exec, and SFC Dugan, the Medic. The Old Man-who was twenty-six Captain William French and everyone else save Master Sergeant Petrofski, the Operations Sergeant, were White, Anglo Saxon Protestants. Petrofski had been brought to the United States as a teenager from Russia.
