We Were Soldiers

In 1965 the Army built a new kind of division around the helicopter. It had never been tested against an enemy army. On 14 November, Lt. Col. Hal Moore flew his 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry into a small clearing in the Ia Drang Valley called X-Ray. On the mountain above it, unseen, about 1,600 North Vietnamese regulars were waiting for a fight.

1. 14 November · 10:48

   First boots on the ground

   Artillery from LZ Falcon pounds the clearing for twenty minutes. Then sixteen Hueys of Maj. Bruce Crandall’s Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, sweep in at treetop level with their door gunners firing. Hal Moore jumps out with the first troopers of Bravo Company. The elephant grass stands five feet high, and anthills taller than a man dot the clearing. The Hueys turn back to Plei Me for the next load.

   

2. 14 November · 11:20

   Three battalions on the mountain

   A patrol brings in a North Vietnamese prisoner. Through an interpreter he tells Moore that three battalions are on the mountain above the clearing, and they want to fight. Moore sends Capt. John Herren’s Bravo Company to search the slopes. At about 12:45 the shooting starts. Lt. Henry Herrick’s 2nd Platoon chases a group of enemy soldiers, runs into far more of them, and is cut off.

3. 14 November · 14:42

   Wave off

   The fifth lift comes in under fire. Eight Hueys get down and unload most of Charlie Company, and Moore waves off the other eight. Minutes later about 200 North Vietnamese charge out of the trees from the southwest. Capt. Robert Edwards’ Charlie Company is ready for them. Rifles, machine guns, artillery and air strikes tear into the attack, and by 16:15 the enemy falls back.

4. 14 November · Afternoon

   Unarmed, into the fire

   Army medevac crews may not land on a landing zone under fire. Crandall decides his own crews will. He moves his base forward to LZ Falcon to cut the flying time and asks for volunteers. His friend of ten years, Capt. Ed Freeman, steps up at once. Their unarmed Hueys land in the middle of the shooting, unload ammunition and water, and carry out the wounded. Crandall makes 22 flights that day, most of them under fire.

5. 14 November · About 16:20

   Marm’s charge

   Moore sends two companies to break through to Herrick’s men. They run into North Vietnamese firing from anthills and trees. A hidden machine gun stops Lt. Joe Marm’s platoon. Marm stands up to draw its fire and hits it with an antitank rocket. It keeps firing, so he sprints 30 meters across open ground, throws grenades and kills the rest of the crew with his rifle. He is shot in the face. At 17:40 Moore calls off the attack.

6. 14–15 November · Night

   The lost platoon

   Herrick is dead. So is his platoon sergeant, Carl Palmer. Sgt. Ernie Savage, a squad leader, takes the radio and rings the tiny perimeter with artillery, some shells bursting 20 meters out. The medic, Spec. 5 Charles Lose, runs out of bandages and stops the bleeding with C-ration toilet paper. Bugles sound in the dark. Three times the North Vietnamese come at the platoon. Three times Savage’s men throw them back.

7. 15 November · 06:50

   Broken Arrow

   At first light about a thousand North Vietnamese hit X-Ray from three sides. In Charlie Company’s foxholes the fighting goes hand to hand. At 07:55 Moore orders every unit to throw colored smoke to mark the perimeter. The battalion’s Air Force forward air controller sends the code for an American unit about to be overrun, and fighter-bombers from all over South Vietnam head for X-Ray. By 09:41 the attack is broken.

   Code words from the battalion’s forward air controllerBroken Arrow.
8. 15 November · 15:20

   The platoon comes home

   Lt. Col. Robert Tully’s 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry marches in overland, and a three-company force sets out for Savage’s knoll. It gets there without a fight. Savage’s men have held for about 26 hours, and not one more of them has been hit since he took command. Every man still has ammunition. At 16:00, eighteen B-52s bomb the Chu Pong massif above the battlefield.

9. 16 November · 04:22

   The last attack

   In the dark the North Vietnamese try again, four times, against Capt. Myron Diduryk’s fresh Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry. Artillery and rifle fire stop every assault, and Diduryk has six men wounded. At 06:55 Moore orders every man on the line to fire into the trees, and hidden snipers drop out of them. At 11:55 the battalion starts to fly out. By 15:00 the last of Moore’s men are gone.