Dec 9, 1965
Peoples
Army Of North
Viet Nam
Suffers Heavy Losses At Hands Of 1st Cavalry
(EDITOR’S
NOTE: Enquirer military writer Charles Black was with elements of the
1st
Cavalry Division Thanksgiving Day when the troops ended on of the
biggest
campaigns of the war. The following is an account of the mission.
By
CHARLES BLACK
Enquirer
Military Writer
AN
KHE, Viet Nam – On Thanksgiving
Day the 1st Cavalry Division completed a 30-day campaign which had
shattered
the 32nd, 66th and 101st Regiments of the Peoples Army of North Viet
Nam (PAVN)
and cleared the woods and hills from Plei Me to the Cambodian border of
Communist resistance.
The
campaign had made history.
It
was the first time in the
Vietnamese war when regular Communist troops found themselves pursued,
harried
and defeated after playing their old game of “hitting the outpost and
ambushing
the relief.”
The
outpost was hit on Oct. 19 when
two battalions of the 101st Regiment crept into position around Plei Me
and
opened a fierce attack on the U.S. Special Forces Team and 360
Montagnard
troops holding that isolated fortified camp.
Relief
Ambushed
The
relief was ambushed Oct. 24 when
a tank, armored personnel carrier and truck column ran into two
battalions of
the 32nd Regiment in a furious battle on a dirt road south of Plei Me,
where a
helicopter force of Rangers had already effected a relief of the camp.
In
the past history of this war, the
fighting would have been done. The Communists would have withdrawn to
hidden
rendezvous points, their officers would have harangued them on the
“victory”
they had just won and reorganized them and moved the combat-trained
battalions
on into other such pre-planned fights.
The
1st Cavalry Division’s First Brigade, commanded by Lt.
Col. Harlowe Clark, upset this script, however, when on Oct.27 the PAVN
forces
made a last attack on Plei Me.
Arms Caches
On
Oct.28 the Second Battalion 12th Infantry overran hidden arms caches in
the
woods west of Plei Me. On Oct 29 the First Squadron Ninth Cavalry,
reinforced
by Company A of the Second Battalion 12th Infantry, Company
B of
First Battalion (Airborne) Eighth Infantry and the reconnaisance
platoon from
First Battalion (Airborne) 12th Infantry, overran a fie1d hospital
defended by
a fanatical battalion from the 101st Regiment and captured weapons,
$250,000
worth of elaborate medical and surgical supplies and equipment, and
inflicted
hundreds of casualties -- as well as capturing more prisoners than any
other
action in Viet Nam has produced.
The
toll of PAVN defeats kept mounting.
Second Battalion (Airborne) Eighth Infantry smashed the reserve
battalion of
the 101st Regiment, and First Squadron Ninth Cavalry ambushed a
battalion of
PAVN in the Ia Drang River Valley the night of Nov. 3. The First
Brigade has
ruined PAVN forces lingering in the Plei Me area when it came in from
the field
on Nov. 8, turning over the campaign to Co1. Thomas W. Brown’s Third
Brigade.
The
First Battalion Seventh Cavalry drew heavy blood
from the 66th and the few remaining survivors of the 101st in the
now-historic
battle at the foot of Chu Pong Mountain near the Ia Drang River and the
Second
Battalion Seventh Infantry fought the most bitter engagement any
American unit
has been involved in near the river two days later, smashing the final
two
battalions available to the 66th and 101st Regiments and piling up
casualties
on the 32nd Regiment during the two days and nights of fray.
Division
Beaten
When
it was done, a PAVN division had been beaten by
out-numbered Sky Soldiers fighting in an area no other force could have
penetrated. Helicopter-lifted infantrymen and helicopter-lifted
artillery (a
single battalion, First Battalion 19th Artillery. (Airborne) commanded
by Lt.
Col. Joe Bush had moved 39 times from one wilderness location to
another by
helicopter during two weeks of action) coordinated by air strikes from
fighter
planes, Skyraider bombers and B52 bombers, had won a campaign. The
campaign had
been studded with American successes. It proved helicopters could take
men into
battle where no other means would do. It proved that man for man, gun
for gun,
the young soldiers of the 1st Cavalry Division could outfight the
Communist
infantry. It proved that Hanoi could not win its coveted victory in the
Central
Highlands which would split Viet Nam.
The
Americans had killed fanatical soldiers by the
thousands -- at least 2,000 bodies were counted after fights in the
campaign
and air and artillery, gunships and far-ranging cavalry patrols, had
shot
fleeing PAVN soldiers in untold numbers. Hundreds of weapons were
captured,
recoilless artillery, machine guns, mortars and a host of new,
automatic
weapons for infantrymen were piled up in front of 1st Cavalry Division
Headquarters as the campaign went ahead. The final push, which killed
additional hundreds of Communists, came when Col. William Lynch took
his Second
Brigade into the area and supported a sweep by Vietnamese Airborne
battalions
which combed the woods along the Cambodian border. The remaining
Communists (a
prisoner from one battalion of the 66th said that when the regiment
attempted
to regroup, less than 100 soldiers could be counted) fled over into the
hills
of Cambodia and the area was cleared of living enemy by Thanksgiving
Day.
The
first campaign of the 1st Cavalry Division had become the first major
American
victory in Viet Nam and one which is expected to shape the destiny of
the war
in this country. It was a victory which can be repeated as often as the
Communist planners in Hanoi care to risk defeat, officers in the
division say.
It should be the handwriting on the wall for Communist aspirations in
South-east Asia. The stubborness of the Communist planners is expected
to bring
more North Vietnamese troops down the long trail to misery and death
before
they accede to its message -- but the message was sent loud and clear
by the
former Fort Benning soldiers and its contents will finally be
understood in
Hanoi.