D Company Losses — Command-Detonated Ambush, Hau Nghia, May 25, 1969
May 25, 1969 — D Company loses three men to one rocket
Research page — in progress. Confirmed: three men of D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry were killed on May 25, 1969 in Hau Nghia Province. A first-person family account states they died together from a single command-detonated B-40 rocket rigged above a trail. The exact grid, the trail, and the enemy unit have not yet been confirmed against a unit after-action report.
On May 25, 1969, D Company, 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry — radio callsign "White Skull" — lost three men:
- 1LT John Preston Karr, of Kenner, Louisiana — 1st Platoon leader — Wall Panel 24W, Line 104
- CPL Wayne Eric Garven, of Mount Vernon, Ohio — radio-telephone operator — Wall Panel 24W, Line 102
- CPL Richard Neal White, of Golden Valley, Minnesota — Wall Panel 24W, Line 109
Their names sit close together on Panel 24W. But the evidence that binds them is not the Wall layout — it is a family's memory.
A coin flip
Andrew Clooney, whose father Ray Clooney was a radio-telephone operator in D Company, left this account on the Wall of Faces:
"My Dad, Ray Clooney served in White Skull Delta 2/8 when you, Lt Karr and Dick White tragically lost your lives from the same command detonated B40 rocket which was set off above the trail in some trees. You and Dad were both RTOs and you apparently lost a coin flip to be Karr's RTO. ... He also wrote of the guilt that he didn't die by virtue of a coin flip. He carried that guilt and loss with him until he passed a few years ago."
A B-40 is the RPG-2 anti-tank rocket. Rigged in the trees above a trail and command-detonated, it was used here not against armor but as a prepared ambush device — a directional charge sprung on infantry moving along a route. It killed the platoon leader and the two men closest to him in a single blast. By the chance of a coin toss, Garven was on Karr's radio that morning; Ray Clooney was not, and lived with that for the rest of his life.
Operational context — most likely Operation Toan Thang III
The specific operation has not been confirmed against unit records. The framing below is the most probable context based on the division's documented activity in this period; it should be treated as likely, not established, pending the 1st Cav after-action records (see open questions).
By the spring of 1969 the 1st Cavalry Division was operating in III Corps, screening the Cambodian border northwest of Saigon. Through 1969 the division ran a sustained border-interdiction campaign under the III Corps offensive umbrella Operation Toan Thang III (17 February – 3
If you served with D Company, 2/8 Cav ("White Skull") in this period, or knew 1LT Karr, CPL Garven, or CPL White, we'd like to hear from you. A family account says the three were killed together by a single command-detonated B-40 rocket rigged in trees above a trail in Hau Nghia Province on May 25, 1969 — we're trying to confirm and fill in that day. 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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