The Battle of Tam Quan — Bong Son, December 1967 (Death of SP4 Follett and SP4 Paulson)
The Battle of Tam Quan — December 1967
Context page — operation level. Built from the published accounts of the Battle of Tam Quan and the 2/8 Cavalry firebase records, which place the battalion — A, B, C, and D Companies — in the fight. It frames the engagement in which D Company lost SP4 Allan Follett and SP4 John Paulson on 11 December 1967. The battle's shape is well documented; D Company's exact 11 December action awaits the battalion staff journal.
What it was
The Battle of Tam Quan (6–20 December 1967) was the largest named engagement of Operation Pershing for the 1st Cavalry Division's 1st Brigade — a two-week fight against the PAVN 22d Regiment of the 3rd ("Sao Vang") Division near Tam Quan and the village of Dai Dong on the northern Bong Son Plain. In late November, U.S. intelligence detected the 22d Regiment preparing to operate in the Bong Son area; on 6 December the 1st Brigade located its headquarters near Dai Dong, and aero-scouts of A Troop, 1/9 Cavalry drew fire and were pinned down. The 1/8 Cavalry was ordered in that evening and linked up with an armored cavalry platoon of the 1/50 Infantry that had pushed up from LZ English.
By 09:15 on 7 December, after the contact site was worked over with aerial rocket and tube artillery, Company A, 1/8 Cavalry and Companies B and C, 2/8 Cavalry had air-assaulted in and, with the ARVN 40th Regiment, sealed a perimeter around the area. On 10 December the PAVN 8th Battalion, 22d Regiment attacked the ARVN positions and was thrown back by gunships and artillery. The encircled regiment, pinned between the allied cordon and the sea, was badly mauled before search-and-destroy operations closed the battle out on 20 December — one of the sharpest defeats dealt to the 3rd Division during Pershing.
The division's own airmobility history (written by its commander, Gen. Tolson) holds up Tam Quan as the model of airmobile "piling on": the fortuitous discovery of an enemy radio antenna, a small force inserted within hours, and then battalion after battalion — plus the 1/50 Mechanized Infantry and the 40th ARVN Regiment — flown in to fix and surround the enemy before he could slip away. Tolson judged that the battle, by shattering the 22d Regiment in early December, pre-empted the enemy's Tet offensive in northern Binh Dinh.
Where 2/8 Cavalry — and D Company — fit
2/8 Cavalry was in the fight from the start, under battalion commander LTC John Stannard (the 1st Brigade was led by Col. Donald V. Rattan, who put LTC Christian F. Dubia of the 1/8 Cavalry in tactical charge of the battle). B Company air-assaulted to LZ Dai Dong and C Company to LZ Thien Chanh on 7 December — and that afternoon C Company was pinned down crossing a rice paddy and its commander killed, until Stannard personally took command and got them out. The battalion's A and D Companies entered the battle on 10 December; A and D held blocking positions on 15 December and joined the pursuit on 16 December, and on 19 December D Company made the air assault that opened the battle's final fight at An Nghiệp.
It was in that span, on the night of 11 December 1967, that D Company lost two men. The 1st Brigade's after-action report records that "at 22:15, Company D 2/8th Cavalry ambushed several PAVN units as they attempted to escape the area to the South" — and the two D Company dead of that date fit the action:
- SP4 Allan Eugene Follett, of Independence, Missouri — killed by small-arms fire — Wall Panel 31E, Line 79
- SP4 John Paul Paulson Jr., of Neenah, Wisconsin — killed by an explosive device — Wall Panel 31E, Line 82
Their Wall lines sit three apart, and the two causes — small arms and an explosive device — fit a close night ambush. That action is documented on its own page: D Company's night ambush, 11 December 1967. Both men now have profiles: Allan Follett and John Paulson.
What's still open
The battle is well documented at brigade and battalion level, and the after-action report names the D Company 11 December ambush — but it does not break out casualties, so which man fell to which cause, the exact ambush grid, and any wounded are still open. The man-level record awaits the 2/8 Cav daily staff journal (NARA RG 472). Two threads also remain: confirming LTC John Stannard as the 2/8 Cav commander against the AAR distribution list, and verifying a possible Silver Star for SP4 Paulson (listed by Honor States, no citation located).
Help us complete the record
If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry at the Battle of Tam Quan, or knew Allan Follett or John Paulson, please reach us through the contribute form.
If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry at the Battle of Tam Quan, or knew SP4 Allan Follett or SP4 John Paulson, we'd like to hear from you — especially anyone who can describe the 11 December 1967 action.
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