Provenance ~for~ Smith & Wesson 9mm Model Number 39 I, Donald E. Zlotnik (Soldier’s Medal for Valor, Bronze Star for Valor, Purple Heart) arrived in Vietnam as a 2nd lieutenant in mid-November 1966 and was assigned to B-24 in Kontum and further assigned to the Special Forces A-Team at Duc-Co (A-253) near the Cambodian border. I was the executive officer serving under Captain Mark Ponzillo. Duc-Co had been under siege since the battle of the Ia Drang (Nov 1965) and had suffered heavy casualties. (I would be the third XO in a row to leave Duc-Co by medical evacuation.) SSG Thomas Jones (Silver Star, Purple Heart), one of the A-Team engineers gave me the pistol with a canvas French holster to use as a personal side arm. He told me it was given to him by Captain James B. Conway (Distinguished Service Cross, Purple Heart), a week before he was killed in action April 12, 1966 near Duc-Co in the Ia-Drang Valley. (I-Drang is misspelled on the pistol.) Jones stated he was with the relief force that recovered Conway’s body and found the pistol underneath his body with the breech open and the pistol empty. (Conflicting story is based on the pistol was given to Jones before the mission, but Conway decided to use it while on the mission.) Jones carried the pistol during patrols in the Ia-Drang Valley as his personal side arm and a back-up to his weapon of choice—a WWII Thompson Sub-machinegun. I was very hesitant to take a “dead man’s” hand gun—but Jones, who was highly respected assured me the pistol had become a “good luck” charm and no one carrying it would die again in combat. I accepted the pistol to not insult Jones. In February 1967, the Special Forces A-Team at Duc-Co was over-run and shot out of the camp. We had to be rescued and I was medically evacuated to the C-Team at Pleiku with my pistol belt and M-16. My treasured engraved (Donald E. Zlotnik OCS 18-66) Randall knife was lost during the fighting. I was assigned to a new A-Team in IV CORPS after recovering from my wound. We were building a new camp in a Viet Cong stronghold in the Delta of Vietnam on the border of the Plain of Reeds. We build My-An (A-426) as a “floating camp” at the junction of two canals where an old French Fort had once stood. During a very intense firefight (ambush patrol) Easter Eve 1967—I fired the pistol in combat. My M-16 had jammed from a muddy magazine and I was forced to go to my side arm. Eleven Viet Cong were found dead directly in front of my fighting position—but they could also have been killed by the men to my left and right during the intense fighting. In June of 1967, I requested a transfer to the 173rd Airborne Brigade to get some combat time with my basic officer branch (artillery.) Within weeks after my transfer and assignment as the Battalion S-2 (Intelligence Officer) for the 3/319th Airborne Artillery, the whole brigade was moved to Dak-To. A major disaster had occurred under Brigadier General Deane with the end results a complete company of paratroopers had been annihilated by the North Vietnamese army (The Battle of the Slopes—76 KIA, 23 WIA out of a single company.) In November, 1967, two days past my rotation date (DEROS) back to the States, Brigadier General Leo H. Schweiter came to a forward support base (12 or 16, I had been moved constantly from site to site during the prolonged battle.) where I was helping the battery commander design a self-defensive perimeter for his 105mm howitzers to fire beehive rounds direct fire because the infantry company guarding his fire support base was being moved to fight at Hill 875. General Schweiter was told I was well past my rotation date by the battery commander and I was ordered to get on the General’s helicopter to return to the 173rd base camp at Dak To proper. Minutes before I boarded the helicopter, a classmate of mine from Special Forces Training Group and Officer’s Candidate School appeared. He was assigned as the forward observer with 4/503rd Infantry, who were being deployed to rescue 2/503rd that was fighting on Hill 875 where the complete medical section treating more than eighty wounded paratroopers and battalion leadership were killed by a (2?) 500# bomb(s) dropped by one of our jets. We talked for a few minutes and then I was told to board the chopper. Just as the chopper was lifting off the ground, 1LT Bill Atkins (Silver Star, Purple Heart) yelled, “Throw me your lucky pistol!” I quickly unhooked my web gear that supported my WWII BAR belt (held 24 M-16 magazines) with my pistol attached and dropped it from the chopper to Bill as it banked away from the hill. 1LT Bill Atkins carried the pistol during the Battle for Hill 875 and carried the pistol to the top of the hill on Thanksgiving Day, November 23, 1967. Atkins stated he fired the pistol numerous times clearing bunkers and spider pits of NVA. He lost three magazines during the intense fighting. Atkins returned to the United States and we met again in 1968 at Fort Bragg, North Carolina where he reluctantly returned the pistol to me. I returned to Vietnam and was assigned to the 1st Brigade of the 5th Division. I served as the artillery liaison officer to the 1/77th Armor under LTC Milia where I carried the pistol during Operation Remagan to the Khe-Sahn plateau in Northwestern I CORPS and into Laos on long range patrols where I was in charge of Project DeathWatch. (1 and 2 man “stay-behind’ recon men. They were inserted and camouflaged by a recon team or infantry unit and then called in artillery fire and air strikes on large NVA units. The insertion unit would return and recover them.) October 15, 1969 until July 7, 1970, I was assigned to MACV Studies and Observation Group (SOG) at Command and Control North (CCN) operating out of Da Nang, Vietnam. I carried the pistol during operations at RRS Hickory, Thailand (Nakom Phnom Launch Site) and into Laos. The pistol was carried in combat into all four of the combat CORPS in South Vietnam and also into; Cambodia, Laos and Thailand on missions. To the best of my knowledge every paratrooper and Special Forces soldier who carried Smith & Wesson #66454 in combat was decorated for valor and/or heroism from the Distinguished Service Cross to the Bronze Star for Valor. During 1970, the black gloss paint on the aluminum lower case of the pistol was chipping and I had the CCN (Command and Control North. MACVSOG) armorer buff off all of the paint to re-paint the frame and I ended up liking the brushed aluminum look and decided not to re-paint it. In 1972, while serving at the JFKCMA on General Hank Emerson’s (Distinguished Service Cross w/2nd Oak Leaf cluster) staff—I had the pistol engraved by one of my Special Forces sergeants. Captain Drew Dix (Medal of Honor) was the general’s aide at the time and admired the pistol on a number of occasions as it was being worked on. The master paratrooper wings embedded in the left pistol grip has a provenance of its own. They are the original paratrooper wings that were embedded in the cement at the base of the Mess Hall flagpole at Officer Candidate School’s Robinson Barracks, Fort Sill, Oklahoma (1950?-1970.) The master jump wings were placed in the cement base of the flagpole sometime between 1950 and 1960. The tradition was that an Airborne candidate who had been polishing the wings daily upon turning upperclassman would select a lower classman to polish the jump wings—daily—without being caught by “leg” upper or middleclass men. Both Bill Atkins and I had been selected to polish the jump wings. To be selected was an honor and only a paratrooper could pull the detail. As with all things in a very difficult leadership school—there was a heavy price to pay for “honor calls.” Non-Airborne (Leg) upper classmen made a point out of harassing any paratrooper polishing the jump wings (making them lick the wings or do one-handed push ups while polishing the wings, etc.) so extremely evasive tactics were employed to polish the wings in front of the Mess Hall. Both Atkins and I were enlisted Special Forces men, which made catching us a treat for Leg upperclassmen. There were many a night between two and three AM, where I would sneak out of my barracks (Getting caught was an immediate dismissal from the school!) polish the wings and return. When I returned in 1970 to Fort Sill for the Officer’s Advanced Artillery Course, I made a sentimental visit to the old Robinson Barracks that were being torn down and a new OCS barracks was being built. I noticed the Mess Hall was boarded up and I saw the old flagpole was still standing. I checked the base of the flagpole and under three inches of sand was the master jump wings. I paid a passing soldier twenty dollars to find me a chisel and hammer. He returned with a screwdriver and hammer. I removed the wings from the cement and kept them for a couple of years before placing them in the handle of the pistol (1972). The Command and Control North (CCN) crest in the right pistol grip is from a pair of cuff links that were presented to me on my departure from CCN. The matching cuff link is in the leather case to my Buck Knife. Inside of the wooden pistol grips I have placed a condensed version of this provenance for the jump wings and CCN crest. The last I heard from Bill Atkins who carried the pistol on Hill 875 during the Battle for Dak To was he had left the military and had joined the Rhodesian and then South African Sealous (Sea-lou) Scouts. I thought I would put this history down in writing before it is forgotten. S&W # 66454, Model 39 is a special weapon. It is a true war pistol that served its Airborne and Special Forces owners during our “Glory Days” and was a welcome companion during some terrifying times. What also makes #66454 very special and very rare is the fact it was a private pistol carried in combat and even among Special Forces men who brought Browning 9mm pistols home with them—the Smith & Wesson is extremely rare in that it was hand-carried to and from Vietnam twice. Another interesting story concerning the pistol was during a return trip from Vietnam to the United States in 1967, I boarded a civilian flight from Los Angeles International to Detroit. (I visited a friend in Malibu for a week, Bill Burkholz.) On entering the aircraft, I opened my carry-on case, removed the pistol and removed the full clip, ejected the shell in the chamber placing it in the clip and handed both the pistol and the full clip to the stewardess and said, “Please have the pilot hold on to this for me during the flight.” When we arrived in Detroit, the pilot met me at the door and handed back the pistol and clip to me and said, “Welcome home.” The gold Special Forces ring with the red glass stone (Red is the 7th Group’s flash color) was awarded to me in December 1965 for winning “Soldier of the Year” for the 7th Group, no mean task considering the competition. I keep the ring with the pistol. Donald E. Zlotnik, Major (Ret.) Special Forces
Posted on: Fri, 29 Aug 2014 11:07:35 +0000
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