South Viet Nam: The Valleys of Death

When the siege of Plei Me was lifted five weeks ago, the mauled Communist attackers faded westward into the uninhabited valleys of elephant grass and scrub-covered hills that for a long time have been their sanctuary. But this time a sanctuary it was not to be. The U.S. undertook what had rarely been attempted before in Viet Nam—a hunting expedition to seek out and destroy the retreating Reds rather than let them escape to fight again on their own terms. For a fortnight, the troopers of the 1st Air Cavalry got lots of blistered feet, fought some brief skirmishes and took some prisoners, but made no real contact with the enemy. The chance of real battle seemed lost until last week, when the U.S. abruptly found its foe in the shadow of Chu Pong Mountain (see map). The result was the first major encounter between U.S. and North Vietnamese regular troops—and the biggest, bloodiest and most brutal losses for both sides in the war.

A Hi & a Smile. The longest week began on a sun-drenched Sunday morning in a small clearing, designated Landing Zone X Ray, in the Chu Pong foothills. Intelligence had long suspected the Chu Pong massif of harboring a large Communist base fed from the Cambodian side of the border. X Ray seemed a likely spot to find the enemy, and so it was. No sooner had the 1st Battalion of the Air Cav’s 7th Regiment rushed from its choppers in the landing zone than the shooting began.

Struggling to set up a perimeter near the base of a hill, the 2nd Platoon of B Company found itself under such severe shelling from mortars that it was soon forced up a fingerlike slope—apart from the rest of the battalion and in the very midst of the enemy. Finally taking refuge on a narrow ledge, the isolated platoon fired at the khaki-clad North Vietnamese attackers from as close as five to ten feet. Sergeant Clyde Savage stood up to blast down three of them, found to his horror that his automatic rifle was empty. “I didn’t know what to do,” he recalls, “so I just said ‘Hi’ and smiled. All three of them stood looking at me, sort of confused. Then they began fumbling, but I had slipped in a fresh magazine by then and sprayed.”

For 26 hours the fight raged on as Communist crossfire kept the little band pinned down. “Anyone who moved was hit,” said Savage, as he described the bitter struggle in which first the platoon leader and then the platoon sergeant were mowed down. But the rest fought on as wave after wave of attacks was beaten back by the platoon’s guns and pinpoint Air Cav artillery support. When the remnants of the 2nd Platoon were finally rescued and brought back to safety, they were dazed and jabbering, but still had discipline, pride and—most amazing of all—ammunition to spare.

Glowing Red. The main battalion force soon had an even larger tragedy on its hands. At dawn, two platoons of C Company manning X Ray’s southeast corner fanned out on patrol. The Communists cunningly sniped and retreated ahead of them, then sprang an ambush from the flanks and rear. Simultaneously a direct Red onslaught smashed head-on at the main ¶Company positions back at the landing zone, diverting both attention and possible aid to the two trapped platoons. Both were virtually annihilated. When relief forces arrived, they found several G.I.s who had been taken prisoner, later shot with their feet tied. One was left hanging head down from a tree.

Four days and nights the battle around X Ray raged, while a remarkable concatenation of American firepower kept the estimated two attacking North Vietnamese battalions at bay. The 1st Air Cav’s artillerymen poured more than 8,000 rounds into the area, firing so fast that their barrels often glowed red with heat. By day and night, tactical air pounded the enemy (see following story), and for the first time, in a series of ten raids, the giant B-52s from Guam were used in tactical support, blasting suspected enemy concentrations in the lowering mountains around X Ray. Bullwhip after bullwhip of Red infantrymen cracked down the slopes against the American defenses, only to be thrown back each time. By Wednesday, despite their own severe losses, the G.I.s had killed by body count some 890 North Vietnamese, and perhaps another 1,500 perished in the artillery and bombing barrages in the hills. It was far and away the worst Communist loss in a single engagement in the war.

Man to Man. Wednesday morning, X Ray proudly theirs, “the First Team” split into two units and moved on. For one unit, some 500 men from the 5th and 7th Regiments, it was a move toward near disaster. Barely three miles north of X Ray, the long column crossed the la Drang River. There lay two North Vietnamese soldiers sleeping in the grass, a sure sign that more trouble was not far away. It wasn’t. Suddenly from all sides came a deadly hail of gunfire. The enemy seemed to be everywhere—slung in trees, dug into anthills, crouching behind bushes. It was a classic horseshoe trap, the fields of fire obviously meshed in perfect ambush.

As the U.S. force scattered and took cover, a Communist battalion sliced through its middle, cutting the Americans into two isolated halves. “After that,” said an officer later, “it was man-to-man, hand-to-hand fighting between two very well-disciplined and very determined outfits.” Though artillery and air support were soon on the way, and reinforcements were rushed from Pleiku (where many were abruptly called out of a memorial service for their dead at Chu Pong), la Drang quickly succeeded Chu Pong as the costliest U.S. battle of the war in human lives.

But when the smoke cleared above the blasted elephant grass, Hanoi hardly had reason to gloat. Some 350 of their crack troops, many of whom had come over the border into South Viet Nam within the last month, lay dead in la Drang valley, bringing to well over 1,000 their losses in the week’s Armageddon with the 1st Air Cavalry.

All told, since the siege at Plei Me first began, the enemy suffered 1,769 dead. Some 140 were captured, as were 903 individual and 110 larger weapons —almost enough armament to equip a regiment. That was evidence enough of the fresh influx of North Vietnamese troops that U.S. intelligence had long anticipated once the rainy season ended. Where the infiltration rate down the Ho Chi Minh trail was once 1,000 a month, it is now probably running 2,500, bringing, to date, seven, possibly eight North Vietnamese regiments into South Viet Nam.

It may well have been the 1st Air Cav’s threatened interdiction of the enemy’s manpower pipeline that produced the unprecedented ferocity of Communist attacks last week. For Chu Pong is clearly a central enemy enclave and funnel point into South Viet Nam. On the Cambodian side, the hills slope gently, allowing easy access for the supplies and men arriving from the North. To the east, the la Drang River provides easy transport and a natural gateway to Viet Nam’s central highlands—whose takeover some U.S. intelligence experts believe to be the goal of Hanoi’s massive buildup. In its probes, the Air Cav apparently hit a vital nerve, and the Communists fought back in what may have been a critical defensive action.

At week’s end, while Vietnamese paratroopers moved in to continue the battle and give the torn ranks of the 1st Air Cav a well-earned rest, General William Westmoreland summed up the official American view of the long month that began with the siege at Plei Me: “I consider this an unprecedented victory. At no time during the engagement have American troops been forced to withdraw or move back from their positions except for purposes of tactical maneuver. American casualties were heavier than in any previous engagement, but small by comparison with the enemy’s.”