Vietnam: The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. Stand through the night and hold out for the day...
Delta Company 1st Lieutenant James "Larry" Litton arrived at LZ X-Ray, replacing the wounded Sergeant Gonzalez as company commander. His arrival allowed all seven mortars to be consolidated into a single battery, which now operated under a single target designation. The battery could defend the LZ with two helicopters, but most importantly, Moore finally had a closed perimeter between the forward and rear areas. A relatively safe rear area...
Huey became sad...
Interestingly, stories of the Vietnamese's reckless human wave attacks are not confirmed by the Americans' own recollections: despite their numerical superiority, the VPA soldiers made no attempt to attack the positions of Alpha Company's platoons, meaning the Vietnamese commanders weren't eager to inflict unnecessary losses. The cavalrymen's enemy relied on flanking maneuvers and firepower in their attacks. Moore's soldiers were running low on water, and new casualties were constantly arriving. The heat was scorching; the two canteens each GI carried were empty, and the remaining water was given to the wounded. As luck would have it, the MREs for lunch included ham and lima beans—the saltiest dish on the army menu.
The real Sergeant Ernie Savage
The "lost platoon," commanded by Sergeant Ernie Savage, had already repelled four attacks. The Vietnamese were certain the encircled men were finished. Moreover, NVA veterans who participated in the battle still consider the platoon that Lieutenant Herrick led into the jungle to be destroyed. This isn't entirely true, although the Americans suffered serious losses. And the lieutenant colonel again sent Alpha and Bravo companies to rescue the encircled men. Moore had high hopes for artillery Fire thinned the jungle. But first, the dead and wounded had to be recovered from the attacking companies, for which they were given 40 minutes.
Fight in the jungle...
Bravo Company's commander had two platoons left under his command. Captain Herren decided to move in a rolling motion: one platoon would provide covering fire, the other would run, and then switch. Alpha had three platoons, so Captain Nadal chose to form a ledge to the left (previously, all Vietnamese movements had been recorded on the left), and if there was no resistance, to form a wedge. He assembled the company in a dry creek and delivered a motivational speech along the lines of, "There's an American platoon there, we're going to save them." The men were moved, and with cries of, "Yes, we'll get them out," they expressed their readiness for heroic deeds. It was 16:20 PM when Alpha launched its attack.
Artillery support is a good thing!
But it didn't go far. The fact is, as I've already written, Moore's main hope for success in this hopeless undertaking lay in artillery support for the attack. But, as Nadal later wrote:
All the battalion's forward artillery observers had only one radio frequency for requesting artillery fire. It was difficult to get artillery fire in front of more than one company at a time, and the more experienced and persistent observer, who ended up in Bravo Company, managed to direct the fire. As we prepared to leave, I attempted to get artillery fire support, but my forward observer was unable to contact the batteries.
In short, the company's attack was over before it had really begun: the jungle responded with furious fire, with some Vietnamese riflemen perched in trees, others on hilltops and termite mounds, so there were no "dead zones." After advancing about 50 meters, the company went into hiding, with 1st Platoon commander Lieutenant Wayne Johnson and three squad leaders wounded, two of whom were fatally wounded. Sergeant Troy Miller claims the fire was primarily from AK-47s and other automatic weapons. weapons.
Fix bayonets! Ya Drang, November 15, 1965...
Something similar happened to Captain Herren's company: platoon-by-platoon, rolling movements were immediately ruined, and under fire, the company formed a single skirmish line. First, the line, advancing at full height, dropped to its knees, then pressed itself to the ground. RPG-2 rocket-propelled grenades began raining down on the prone GIs, which was quite unnerving. Nadal ordered bayonets fixed, and hand-to-hand combat began. According to Sergeant William Beck, "A tall, skinny sergeant was plunging his bayonet into a Vietnamese man's chest. It was like a drill: 'Ready, shoot, cover, get away! One, two, three.'" However, soon, in addition to the Vietnamese, the company was attacked by Vietnamese hornets: the striped insects crawled under their helmets and stung the overseas imperialists with all their proletarian hatred!
Soviet RPG-2 + Vietnamese eye - that's power!
Nadal's radio operator was killed, and the captain, removing the radio from his back, handed it to Specialist Ray Tanner. The company was down and the situation was critical, but Lieutenant Marm saved the day by approaching a termite mound, throwing a grenade behind it, and then emptying his M-16 at point-blank range. The fire ceased, and after a fight behind the mound, the body of a Vietnamese officer and 11 soldiers were found. However, the lieutenant himself didn't get away with it: Marm suffered bullet wounds to the jaw and neck, after which he was flown to the battalion aid station and from there to the hospital by helicopter. However, Marm was unable to clear a path to the "lost platoon." Nadal's company was outflanked by a hundred Vietnamese, cutting off another platoon. The worst part was that the VNA fighters captured an American M-60 machine gun and began to skillfully use it for its intended purpose, pinning the alpha squad even more tightly to the ground. All three platoon commanders in the company were killed or wounded, and the loss of NCOs was also noticeable.
Lieutenant Colonel Moore and Captain Diduryk
To reinforce the 1st Battalion, Colonel Brown, commander of the 3rd Brigade, was able to send only Bravo Company of the 2nd Battalion, commanded by Captain Myron "Mad Cossack" Diduryk. It was guarding the headquarters while all the other companies were "searching the jungle for some guy named 'Charlie,'" and it was quite impossible to rally them. So, yes, Diduryk was a Westerner from the Ternopil region, and the Ukrainian Wikipedia, gushing with delight, writes that a real American lieutenant colonel mentions him in his book! The thirteen remaining airworthy Hueys delivered Diduryk's company of 120 men to LZ X-Ray around 5:00 PM. Along with the reinforcements arrived Sergeants Jack Yamaguchi and Thomas Shiro from the Special Photography Company, armed with 16mm movie cameras: it’s hard to say how well the Americans can fight, but they know how to turn any skirmish (regardless of its outcome!) into an epic feat and a strategic victory!
Night fight in the Ya Drang Valley, Willie-Peter available!
Meanwhile, darkness was falling, and it became clear that they would be unable to break through to the cut-off platoon, so Nadal and Herren asked Moore for permission to retreat. Permission was granted, and the remnants of the companies retreated to a dry stream under cover of an artillery barrage. Then the lieutenant colonel decided that keeping the battalion scattered overnight was dangerous and ordered the companies to return to the perimeter. American regulations required laying a smoke screen during a retreat, so Moore contacted the artillerymen. It turned out they had no smoke shells with them. Then the lieutenant colonel, a seasoned Korean War veteran, inquired whether they had any incendiary shells with white phosphorus. The battery had some, and Moore gave the order to use "Willie Peter" (slang for incendiary shells made from White Phosphorus), which produce thick clouds of bright white smoke. The shells landed just meters from Alpha, so it was only by a miracle that no one was hurt, and the company successfully withdrew. Then they pulled the same trick on Bravo.
Savage was informed by radio that the remnants of the platoon would have to hold their hill until morning. The cavalrymen had ammo, but that didn't lift their spirits. Moreover, the night was shaping up to be restless: Captain Herren regularly called in artillery fire along the "lost platoon's" defensive perimeter. Alpha and Bravo companies dug in, evacuated the dead and wounded, and replenished their ammunition. Diduryk's company platoons were positioned between Bravo and Delta, and one platoon was assigned to Charlie Company. Two mortars that had arrived with the company were assigned to the battery with the central fire control post. Five American companies prepared for a restless night in the Ia Drang Valley.
Vietnam veterans lay flowers at the graves of their fallen comrades.
But the day was also difficult for the Vietnamese. Nguyen Van Lung, a former soldier in the 7th Company, 8th Battalion, 66th Regiment, who became a famous writer after the war, recalls that after a day of fighting, only 12 men in his company, out of more than 100, remained in the ranks. Many VPA soldiers died not only from bullets and napalm, but also from exhaustion: the only ammunition they had was rice briquettes, which not everyone could chew, and there was no way to cook them: the Vietnamese troops maintained strict camouflage; even washed uniforms were allowed to dry only in the shade, to prevent them from being seen from above. The Vietnamese greatly embellish the losses suffered by the American cavalry in that battle, but, to their credit, the conclusion that "the troops completely defeated the search-and-destroy strategy" (the translation is clumsy, but there is no other) cannot be denied as correct.
Long-range antenna RC-292
Meanwhile, Moore was tallying the losses of the first day of fighting: Alpha Company—three officers and 31 enlisted men killed or wounded; Bravo—one officer and 46 enlisted men; one platoon cut off outside the perimeter; Charlie Company, having seen little action, suffered only light losses—four enlisted men; the entire officer corps remained operational. However, Diduryk's company had arrived to replace the dead and wounded, so the number of American soldiers within the perimeter had even increased. Furthermore, direct communication with brigade headquarters had been established: the Hueys, among other things, had brought an RC-292 field antenna, which was installed in a tall tree. This eliminated the need for a command helicopter to constantly fly over the perimeter. At 7:15, darkness fell, and the fighting died down.
Joe Galloway in 2017
Then reporter Joe Galloway arrived at the battalion. He asked the pilot of a Huey transport for a lift along with a load of ammunition. And... One thing you can't take away from the Americans is their understanding of the importance of PR! To imagine our superiors giving the go-ahead to deploy a journalist to the hottest spot on the front... "No, son, that's just unbelievable!" But Moore had only two restrictions: stay out of the way and don't give out operational information, plus, at his own risk...
Transport Hueys in the "hot" landing zone
At the same time, transport helicopters evacuated the wounded from the valley: ambulances categorically refused to enter the "hot" zone, so medics had to be loaded onto the transport vehicles, who attempted to stabilize the patients with whatever was available. Those who were successfully evacuated were evacuated by Caribou transport aircraft from Pleiku to army hospitals in Qui Nhon and Nha Trang, from where the most seriously ill were flown to the Philippines after additional surgery, and those recovering were flown to Japan.
The Canadian transport aircraft De Havilland DHC-4 Caribou was actively used by the Americans in Vietnam.
All night long, groups of Vietnamese, 5-10 fighters each, probed the American positions. They were particularly active in probing the area of Captain Edwards's Charlie Company. The Vietnamese scouts were tasked with locating machine gun positions, but the captain gave strict orders to fire only with M-16s. The Vietnamese deliberately kept the enemy awake: blowing bugles, firing, and shouting. It wasn't much use, but it kept them from relaxing. Sniper fire was far worse, costing several lives. The GIs devoted most of their time to digging in: the company was immediately engaged in combat upon arrival, so they had no time to dig proper trenches. Even now, the tangled roots made this a challenging task.
GIs with AR-15s in Vietnam
Delta Company's positions were equipped with six M-60 machine guns with preset firing arcs and a battery of eight 81mm mortars, armed with hundreds of shells carried by Hueys. The battery could cover any section of the perimeter with fire, while the mortars themselves were protected by three more M-60s from Lieutenant James Rackstraw's reconnaissance platoon. All these forces guarded a pair of damaged helicopters located closer to the perimeter's edge. Interestingly, some of the battalion's soldiers, instead of M-16s, were armed with the civilian version, the AR-15: either purchased with their own money or from the first batches delivered to the Saigon regime's army in 1962.
Of Sergeant Savage's 20 men, only seven were unharmed; all the rest were wounded (some of the wounded continued to fight), and nine were killed. There was no water on the hill, and their canteens were running low. The first attack on the "Savage perimeter" began at midnight; the sergeant heard the enemy approaching and called in artillery fire. The second occurred at 3:15 a.m. and was repelled by airstrikes. Overall, the "lost platoon" suffered no further losses that night.
What a plan you thwarted, gooks!
Meanwhile, Moore was preparing another plan to relieve the platoon. He decided to send Alpha, Bravo, and Charlie companies into an attack at dawn, formed in a wedge formation (a classic example of the "pig" attack!), after aviation And an artillery strike. Actually, not "send," but "lead"—the battalion commander was planning to go with the Bravo Company himself. It was an excellent plan, as reliable as a Swiss watch! But the Vietnamese were no worse—they, too, were planning to attack at dawn! Well, they were planning to attack at 2:00 AM, but an airstrike prevented it, so the start was postponed to 6:30 AM. The 7th Battalion of the 66th Regiment and the local Viet Cong H-15 Battalion were assigned to the attack. Surprise failed: Captain Edwards ordered his platoon commanders to send out patrols, which uncovered the impending attack...
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