D Company Losses — Operation Sheridan Sabre, December 4, 1968
December 4, 1968 — D Company loses three men
Research page — in progress. Confirmed: three men of D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry were killed on December 4, 1968 during Operation Sheridan Sabre in Binh Long Province. The specific action that killed them — the landing zone, the nature of contact, and the enemy unit — has not yet been confirmed against a unit after-action report.
On December 4, 1968, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry lost three men:
- SP4 Willie Gerald Jones, 21, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida — Wall Panel 37W, Line 40
- SP4 Donald Robert Stoltz, 20, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin — Wall Panel 37W, Line 42
- SSG William Charles Williams, 22, of Horton, Mississippi — Wall Panel 37W, Line 44
Their three names sit on consecutive even lines of Panel 37W, the pattern on the Wall that marks men killed in a single shared action. The Virtual Wall states directly: "Delta Company, 2/8th Cavalry, lost three men on 04 December 1968."
Operation Sheridan Sabre
By December 1968 the 1st Cavalry Division had just made a major relocation — from I Corps in the north, where it had spent much of the year near the DMZ and Hue, down to III Corps northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border. Operation Sheridan Sabre (7 November 1968 – 4 April 1969) was the division's first major operation in III Corps, part of the larger Operation Toan Thang II under II Field Force, Vietnam.
The mission was interdiction: block PAVN infiltration routes from Cambodia into the populated areas south of Saigon. The 2nd Brigade — D Company's parent — operated from LZ Rita and LZ Billy in Binh Long Province, conducting reconnaissance-in-force operations in the Fishhook area along the Saigon River infiltration corridor.
The day before: D/2-7 Cav
The men died the morning after one of the most costly single-day actions of Operation Sheridan Sabre. On December 3, Company D of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry — a sister battalion in the same brigade — air-assaulted into a landing zone northeast of Hớn Quận (Hon Quan) and was met immediately by B-40 rockets, 82mm mortars, .51-caliber machine guns, and command-detonated mines. The PAVN force was estimated at battalion strength. After five hours of fighting, supported by airstrikes and aerial rocket artillery, the contact broke — but at a cost of 24 Americans killed and 1 missing. Sergeant John Noble Holcomb was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor for his actions in that battle.
Whether the December 4 D/2-8 Cav contact was a follow-on in the same area, a separate patrol action elsewhere in the brigade's AO, or something in between has not yet been confirmed against unit records.
SSG Williams: a comrade's account
SSG William Charles Williams was the 2nd squad team leader in D Company — confirmed by a tribute left on the Virtual Wall by his squad leader, Mike "Mouse" McGhie, who later ran the Angry Skipper Association website for D/2-8 veterans.
A fellow sergeant, Barney Tharp, served alongside Williams from the beginning of their military service. They attended the NCO Academy at Fort Benning together as part of the 25th class, 85th Company, graduating June 4, 1968, then went to Fort Polk together as young buck sergeants. At the Long Binh replacement depot, the Army separated them — Williams to the 1st Cavalry Division, Tharp to the 1st Infantry Division. "We hugged as we departed, and vowed to write to each other every week," Tharp wrote. They did. One of his letters came back with an Army notification that Williams had died on December 4, 1968. Tharp named his son William in his memory.
The location records are disputed
As with the 1965 cluster in Pleiku, the individual casualty records are unreliable for province. DCAS lists Tay Ninh Province for at least one of the three men — but Tay Ninh was the 1st Brigade's operational area during Sheridan Sabre, not the 2nd Brigade's. Until confirmed against a unit operational report, this page treats Binh Long Province as the correct setting based on the 2nd Brigade's documented AO.
Help us complete the record
If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cavalry during Operation Sheridan Sabre, or knew Willie Jones, Donald Stoltz, or William Williams, we want to hear from you. Please reach us through the contribute form.
If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cav during Operation Sheridan Sabre, or knew SP4 Jones, SP4 Stoltz, or SSG Williams, we'd like to hear from you. We're trying to reconstruct the action that took all three on December 4, 1968. You don't need to have researched anything or know the operation's name — a nickname, a face, or a fragment of that day all help us complete the record.
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