Word: drang
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...battlefields. For six days the reconnaissance helicopters of the 1st Cavalry Division (airmobile) hummed over mountaintops, darted down the alleys of valleys, recklessly trying to draw fire-which would pinpoint an enemy in the elephant grass below. It was familiar terrain: the Chu Pong massif and Ia Drang valley in the western highlands near Cambodia, the "Valley of Death," where the division last fall had fought the bloodiest battle of the war. Chu Pong was a perfect place to hit the enemy off-balance as he prepared his campaigns for the coming monsoon, and Air Cav Commander Major General Harry...
Pleasant Living. Far and away the most important operation was White Wing, led by 1st Air Cav Colonel Hal G. Moore, 43, a lean, laconic Kentuckian who earned a battlefield promotion at bloody la Drang last November. In that fight, he held together a single infantry battalion surrounded by three battalions of North Vietnamese regulars. This time he was the aggressor, leading the largest allied force of the war: five infantry battalions, four artillery battalions, plus a team of combat engineers and a troop of aerial reconnaissance men, all riding the helicopters of the most mobile force warfare has ever...
Moving out of the mountains and across the la Drang River, 500 troops walked through prickly elephant grass into a Communist ambush. From three sides, Viet Minh hardhats rained mortar, rocket and small-arms fire on the troops. Shouting "G.I. son of a bitch!," they sprang from behind hedgerows and trees, giant anthills and bushes to take on the Americans in savage hand-to-hand fighting. The cavalrymen hollered right back, "Come on, Charlie, come and get it!" The Reds, their flanks raked by strafing fire and napalm, finally retreated...
...tangled jungle paths, ever fearful of snipers' bullets, ever watchful for the trip wire that might set off a lethal "Bouncing Betty" mine or drive poison-tipped stakes into a man's chest. The big set-piece battles-Chu Lai and Plei Me, Chu Pong and la Drang-were the exceptions, and even they
Boiling Ants. In this dark, watery world, the enemy lurks like a predatory pike, seldom visible, forever poised for the kill. Both the black-pajamaed guerrilla and the khaki-uniformed Viet Minh regular from the North have become increasingly sophisticated and determined fighters. At la Drang, Major General Harry W. O. Kinnard, commander of the Army's 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), marveled at the way the Viet Minh hardhats "came boiling off those hills like ants and pushed their attack right through our artillery, tactical air and small-arms fire-in broad daylight. It was eloquent testimony that this...