One maneuver element that made up the 1st Cavalry Division was the 7th Cavalry Regiment. The 7th Cavalry was first formed at Fort Riley, Kansas in 1866. They initially filled it with Civil War veterans and frontiersmen, many of whom were Irish immigrants. The Irish influence on the regiment was noted in an old drinking song, "Garryowen," said to be a favorite of George Armstrong Custer, which became the regimental song. The song, and the greeting of "Garryowen, Sir" exchanged by officers and men of the 7th Cavalry, survives to this day. With the American West opening up to settlement protection of the railroad surveyors and gold miners who crossed Sioux Indian territory became the primary mission of the 7th Cavalry. Moving to Dakota Territory in 1874, the unit was under the leadership of Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer. Custer's subsequent defeat at the hands of the Sioux and Cheyenne will be forever remembered by all Americans.
Although the cavalry had traded in its horses for olive-drab jeeps in February 1943 and the United States Army had eliminated the regimental system in the 1950s, the Army deployed two units designated as the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment and the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, to Vietnam in the summer of 1965. The men newly assigned to the First Cavalry now wore the large distinctive black and gold shoulder patch bearing the profile of a horse's head. Throughout the Army it was known as the "horse blanket" because of its size. In the spirit of the old cavalry off-duty helicopter pilots, who rode into battle aboard machines that were inconceivable to the cavalrymen of old, often wore dark blue frontier cavalry hats with gold braid and crossed-saber insignia, not unlike their forebearers.
Early in 1965 then-Specialist Fourth Class Robert Towles returned from Korea and was assigned to Headquarters Company, 2nd Battalion 9th Infantry, 2nd Infantry Division. During the reorganization he was reassigned to Delta Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry as a an antitank gunner. On July 30, 1965,two days after President Johnson's televised announcement, the men of the 7th Cavalry received Letter Order #342 assigning them from the Third U.S. Army, Fort Benning, Georgia to Destination - SECRET; ETA - CONFIDENTIAL, Theater of Assignment - PACOM (Pacific Area Command). The destination and ETA (estimated time of arrival) at the destination may have been officially classified but due to the President's public announcement there were few people in the United States who did not know where the First Cavalry was heading.
A total of six troop carriers, four aircraft carriers and seven cargo vessels were employed to move the division "across the pond." The men and equipment of the 3rd Brigade, including the 2/7, shipped out of Charleston, South Carolina on the USNS Maurice Rose Monday, August 16, 1965. Two soldiers who were among the troops embarking with Delta Company were Privates First Class Donald E. Crane and Ralph W. Brown.
According to Lieutenant General Harold G. Moore (Retired) and Joseph L. Galloway, in their excellent book "We Were Soldiers Once. . .and Young," it took the "Ramblin' Rose" the better part of the month to reach the port of Qui Nhon, Republic of Vietnam. Ironically, the last elements of the 66th Regiment of the North Vietnamese Army left their base at Thanh Hoa Province, North Vietnam (just north of the North-South Demilitarized Zone) on the very same day that the Maurice Rose left Charleston.
Then-PFC James H. Shadden, a mortar man from Tennessee, and a member of the mortar platoon of Delta Company, remembered that he first met Brown and Crane when the Army assigned them to the 1st Cavalry. On board the Maurice Rose someone had managed to bring aboard a guitar and, with a shared love of country music, the group spent many hours "picking an (sic) singing, in transit." Shadden recalled both as "good ol country boys" just like he, and they found that they had something more than the Army in common. The days at sea were structured to help alleviate boredom and prepare the troops for combat. The time aboard the ship was spent in refresher training, map reading, readying equipment, physical training, playing cards and becoming familiar with their newly issued M-16 automatic rifles.
Leaving Charleston the Maurice Rose passed between the islands of Cuba and Haiti as it proceeded on to the Panama Canal. Its journey took it to Honolulu, Hawaii, there to disembark an appendicitis patient, and then it sailed on to Okinawa where the ship picked up a detachment of Marines.
Most of the 1st Cavalry Division reached the coastal port of Qui Nhon, Vietnam by mid-September 1965. Although prepared to fight their way ashore the landing was uneventful. After debarking from the ships the troops boarded helicopters and were flown inland to Pleiku Province. In the Central Highlands, with the help of the 101st Airborne Division, they carved out a large base camp north of the town of An Khe. During the autumn of 1965 a series of events and ominous intelligence reports would bring elements of the 1st Cav into a historically unparalleled campaign.
Throughout the history of land warfare life has never been easy for the infantryman. The Second Indochina War was by no means an exception. The terrain in the Central Highlands was a mixture of jungle-covered mountains and flat lands of bamboo and deep elephant grass. South Vietnam has a monsoon climate with two main seasons: hot and wet and hot and dry. The dry season generally lasts from November to April. The wet season lasts from May to October. In the Central Highlands the weather, although tropical, is cooler at night than in other parts of the country and fog often develops in the mountains. Besides the oppressive heat and humidity the men had to contend with a variety of insects, leeches, snakes and diseases such as dysentery and malaria. During the months of October and November 1965 many men of the 1st Cavalry Division were unavailable for "foxhole duty" due to illness.
In the field an infantryman carries with him everything needed to hopefully survive his encounters with the elements and with the enemy. The field load of a typical infantryman was a new lightweight M-16 automatic rifle and a minimum load of ten magazines of 5.56 mm ammunition. Most men usually carried at least twice as much rifle ammunition with them. Each man normally carried at least two or three canteens, an entrenching tool, C-rations, rifle cleaning equipment, insect repellent, a poncho and perhaps a jungle hammock. Carrying extra mortar rounds for the mortar crew was also usual for a rifleman, as was carrying extra machinegun ammunition for the machine gunner, at least four hand grenades, smoke grenades, Claymore mines and, perhaps, a light antitank weapon (LAW) or two. With clothing, a steel helmet, first aid pack, bayonet, and sundries the load would easily weigh at least 75 to 80 pounds.
Infantrymen have often said that combat consists of long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Compounding the harsh climatic conditions was the unpredictable confrontation with an enemy who controlled the conditions of battle and provided the infantrymen with those moments of sheer terror. Several studies of battle conducted from 1966 to 1972 concluded that it was the Viet Cong and main force North Vietnamese Army (NVA) units who determined the time and place of battle in 75 to 88 per cent of all combat engagements. Despite the significant technological advantages of aircraft, artillery, radar and communications equipment enjoyed by the Americans the most common forms of battle during the Vietnam War were ambushes and wave attacks initiated by the Revolutionary Forces. Unsophisticated enemy mines and booby traps exacted even more American and allied forces casualties.
In October the fortified Special Forces camp at the Montagnard village of Plei Me (about 25 miles southwest of the provincial capital of Pleiku) was manned by a Special Operations Detachment, some Vietnamese Rangers and more than 400 Civilian Irregular Defense Group (CIDG) personnel. On the night of October 19, 1965 the North Vietnamese Army's 33rd Regiment attacked the camp in force. Military intelligence suspected that the North Vietnamese had a grand plan of luring the Americans and the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) into a trap; the Special Forces camp was only the bait. Intelligence also picked up the presence of a second NVA regiment, the 32nd. That unit was deployed along the road from Pleiku to Plei Me. Relief columns sent to rescue the defenders of Plei Me would run into an ambush. The enemy's immediate plan was to ambush the relief column and then use both regiments to attack Plei Me.
The North Vietnamese had ambitions beyond that campaign, however. At this point in the struggle South Vietnamese government control was eroding. Well-armed and well-supplied regular force units were now supplementing the indigenous guerrilla force units, known as the National Liberation Front or Viet Cong, and making their presence felt in the Republic. North Vietnamese infiltration into the South, which had been roughly 1,000 men per month, was now reaching 2,500 men per month. As the rainy season ended the Hanoi government of Ho Chi Minh was ready to exploit those advantages. By 1965 the Hanoi regime sought to secure and dominate northern and central South Vietnam, cutting the country in half on a line from Pleiku to Qui Nhon and holding it with three divisions. Ten years later, with United States forces out of Vietnam and with the United States Congress refusing to provide further military aid to the South Vietnamese, the North Vietnamese used almost the same strategy and ultimately succeeded in taking over the country.
On October 23 an ARVN column from the 3rd Cavalry Squadron, the 1st Battalion of the 42nd ARVN Regiment and the Special Forces-led 21st and 22nd ARVN Ranger Battalions, with the help of American artillery, smashed the ambush and relieved Plei Me. The two NVA regiments broke contact and moved to secret Viet Cong sanctuaries on the Chu Pong Massif, a cluster of peaks and ridges covered with double-canopied rain forest that run along the Cambodian border. The massif was named after its highest peak, Chu Pong.
Once secluded in the jungle and tunnel sanctuaries the NVA sought to recover from the losses that they had suffered at Plei Me. Steep and rugged on the eastern side the hills slope gently on the Cambodian side and allowed easy access for the movement of supplies and men. Coming off the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the Ia Drang Valley provided easy transport and a natural gateway to Vietnam's central highlands. It was at this time that General Westmoreland gave the 1st Cav the mission to pursue, seek out and destroy the enemy and, in the process find, his main supply depots before the NVA could evacuate them. The arena would be a 900 square-kilometer area that would become known as the Ia (river) Drang Valley and a campaign known as Pleiku.
At the direction of MACV commander General William Westmoreland the 1st Cavalry began the campaign on October 27, 1965. Following two weeks of chasing the North Vietnamese through the rugged area of the Central Highlands Major General Kinnard decided to send in fresh troops from the division's 3rd Brigade. Simultaneously the NVA's 66th Regiment had reached the Ia Drang from its trek from North Vietnam. The two forces were destined to clash.
The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, under the command of then-Lieutenant Colonel Harold G. (Hal) Moore, was given the mission to air assault into the Chu Pong Massif area and conduct limited search and destroy missions. On November 14, 1965, at a small clearing designated as Landing Zone (LZ) X-Ray, the air assault was continuing smoothly when the battalion's Bravo Company came under intense fire. Unbeknownst to Lieutenant Colonel Moore he had landed his battalion in the middle of the NVA's staging area for its next major assault against the allies. The three North Vietnamese battalions in the Chu Pong numbered over 2,000 men to Moore's 450. American Troops were facing regular North Vietnamese Army troops in steel helmets and full field kit instead of black pajama-clad indigenous forces.
The battle for LZ X-Ray raged unabated for three days as the 66th Regiment and remnants of the 33rd Regiment employed human wave attacks repeatedly in attempts to overrun the perimeter and to test the resolve of the green American forces. Tactical air support, artillery, and B-52 bomber strikes helped break the siege, but the exceptional bravery and courage of the LZ's defenders and the calm, professional leadership of Lieutenant Colonel Moore were the deciding factors. Before the North Vietnamese broke contact the Americans suffered 79 killed in action and 121 wounded in action. These were the heaviest casualties suffered by United States troops to that date. A Pennsylvanian, Second Lieutenant Walter J. (Joe) Marm, became the first member of the Division awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroism during the battle. The Cav had inflicted casualties of more than 1800 dead according to Lieutenant Colonel Moore. This was the first clash of major United States ground forces and main force North Vietnamese Army units and is regarded as the campaign that ushered in helicopter warfare.
Among the units coming to the relief of the LZ's beleaguered defenders were elements of the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry and the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry. After airlifting the wounded and survivors of LZ X-Ray back to Pleiku for rest, recovery and reorganization the Skytroopers of the two replacement units established a night defensive perimeter. The scene at X-Ray looked like an alien landscape. Except for the largest trees there was little vegetation remaining. The intense gunfire had chopped down most of the trees and parachute flare canopies dotted many of the trees which remained. The ground was uneven and cratered from the impact of bombs, artillery, grenades and rockets. The litter of spent ammunition cases, bloody bandages, and discarded ration boxes was everywhere. The day was spent digging in and included the grim task of evacuating the bodies of the dead.
The soldiers who were bivouacking at X-Ray spent a fitful night with the stench of rotting corpses, continued sniper fire and the glow of the parachute flares that punctuated the darkness. For all intents and purposes the battle of Landing Zone X-Ray was over. The next morning the two battalions began preparing for overland movements to two other landing zones: the 2/5 was to return to previously established LZ Columbus to the northeast and 2/7 was to march to LZ Albany, a new landing zone two miles to the north.
The 2nd of the 7th was under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert A. McDade. Although McDade was a veteran of World War II and Korea, he had commanded the battalion for less than three weeks. While he had been with the division for two years as the G-1 or administrative staff officer, he had not been in command of troops for ten years. That aside, according to Lieutenant General Moore the battalion itself "was the same mix of draftees, good NCO's (non-commissioned officers), green lieutenants, and good company commanders that were found in its sister 1st Battalion, 7th Cav." Unfortunately, many men assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry had not worked together or received the same airmobile training received by the 1st Battalion when it was part of the 11th Air Assault Division (Test).
As was true for many units that made up the 1st Cavalry Division, when orders came down to fill the ranks quickly and prepare the 2nd of the 7th for deployment to Vietnam, soldiers and equipment came from all over the world. Most of the assets of the 2/7 Cav had been transferred from the 2nd Infantry Division's 2nd Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment then stationed at Fort Benning. Then-PFC Robert Towles, a member of Delta Company, recalled that "a major problem with D 2/7 is that the company hardly ever worked together as a unit, and the platoons seldom had more than casual contact with each other." However, for the most part the individual soldiers had been on active duty for some time and were well trained in their respective combat specialties. According to information gleaned from the company's morning reports the unit was composed of roughly half draftees and half enlistees. Brown and Crane had each been in the Army for over a year and a half and shipped to Vietnam with less than six months left on their two-year draft obligations.
On Wednesday, November 17, with artillery fire preceding the lead elements, the column, led by the 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry, left LZ X-Ray at 0900 hours to be well out of the area of the Chu Pong Massif by midmorning when giant B-52 strategic bombers from Guam would arrive overhead to conduct an "Arc Light" strike on the North Vietnamese sanctuary. The mission of the two infantry battalions was undefined other that the 2/7 was to establish an LZ and interdict any NVA movement along the Ia Drang River. Although intelligence reports of enemy activity near LZ Albany were negative it remains a mystery why a division that had trained and lived by a philosophy of moving troops quickly by helicopter would require the battalion to march overland in a region known to have been swarming with regimental and battalion-sized units of enemy soldiers less than twenty-four hours before.
At a predetermined location about three kilometers northeast of X-Ray the men of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cav and Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cav turned northwest and continued their march toward LZ Albany, about another two and one-half kilometers. Alpha, 1/5 was attached to the 2nd of the 7th to replace the battalion's Bravo Company, which had fought at LZ X-Ray and had been evacuated back to Pleiku with the 1st of the 7th. The 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry continued marching northeast about one and one-half kilometers toward LZ Columbus.
Accounts vary as to the exact order of march. According to General Moore's account the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry was led by Alpha Company, followed by Delta Company (under the command of Captain Henry (Hank) Thorpe), then Charlie Company, Headquarters Company, and finally Alpha company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry. Captain John Fesmire, the company commander of Charlie Company, stated that it was Alpha, Headquarters, Delta, Charlie 2/7 and Alpha 1/5. The battalion after-action report places Charlie ahead of Delta. Delta Company was the battalion's combat support company and consisted of the recoilless rifle or antitank platoon, the mortar platoon and the machine gun platoon. One of the great tactical errors committed by Lieutenant Colonel McDade was that he had the unit moving in a simple column formation that served to disperse the troop concentration over a greater area. Although this may have saved some lives it had the additional effect of dispersing firepower. Due to the ambiguous nature of the march order issued by Lieutenant Colonel McDade some in the column discarded caution and had not positioned flank security for their march to Albany.
The mortar platoon was equipped with 81-mm mortars that, for transport, broke down in the component parts of a tube (weight 28 pounds), a baseplate (weight 48 pounds) and sights or mount (weight 31 pounds). Each member of the crew carried one of these cumbersome, heavy components, plus three mortar rounds and the same gear carried by the men in a rifle platoon. Although in Vietnam dense jungle or canopied forest sometimes hindered its use, an infantry battalion's mortars are usually the first type of artillery fire it will use if there is a contact with the enemy. Time and weather seldom prevent its use. Depending upon the ammunition fired, an 81-mm mortar has a range of about 3600 meters. Captain Thorpe stated that normally the company would only take one mortar tube and mortar crew on an operation. Despite his protests to Lieutenant Colonel McDade that the extra mortars would be cumbersome and of no use due to the dense jungle canopy McDade insisted that all three mortar tubes accompany the battalion. Two of the men in the mortar platoon were Private First Class Donald E. Crane and Private First Class Ralph W. Brown. Brown was an assistant gunner with the 3rd Squad of the mortar platoon; Crane was an ammunition bearer also assigned to the mortar platoon.
Before long heat, humidity, fatigue and jungle began taking a toll on the cavalrymen. As afternoon approached, the weary battalion was unknowingly entering an area crawling with NVA soldiers from the 8th Battalion, 66th Regiment, the 1st Battalion, 33rd Regiment, and Headquarters, 3rd Battalion, 33rd Regiment. The 33rd Regiment had fought and taken casualties in the battle at Plei Me. The Air Cavalry's 1st Brigade had inflicted further casualties on the regiment while pursuing them following that battle. However, the 8th Battalion, 66th Regiment was in the area having arrived off the Ho Chi Minh Trail and anxious to take on the Americans.
Upon nearing the spot designated as Landing Zone Albany the battalion's reconnaissance platoon surprised an NVA reconnaissance team and took two prisoners. The long column of Skytroopers came to a halt as Lieutenant Colonel McDade advised that he was going forward to interrogate the prisoners. At this point unit integrity began to disintegrate. McDade, along with the battalion intelligence officer, an interpreter, radio operators, Alpha commander Captain Joel Sugdinis, his executive officer, and others, came forward to the location where they had captured the NVA prisoners. Minutes later McDade called all of the company commanders forward to his location. It is entirely possible that the NVA prisoners were purposely used to halt the column and bring the cavalrymen within the ambush zone.
As unit commanders and radio operators began gathering at the prisoners' location, about 100 yards away from LZ Albany, the men of the 1st Cavalry relaxed and took a break. They had been marching through hilly, heavy jungle, around giant, gray anthills and through chest deep, razor-sharp elephant grass for more than four hours now and, after having spent a tension-filled night at LZ X-Ray, had been awake for most of the past sixty hours. Now-Lieutenant General Moore said, the battalion was strung out along a line of march for a distance of at least 550 yards. Toward the center of the column the men of Delta Company were lolling around. Charlie Company, 2/7 and Alpha, 1/5 had flank security posted.
As platoon-sized units probed the immediate area for more North Vietnamese and as the entire column began to get to its feet to resume the march to LZ Albany the head of the column came under small arms fire. The scattered shots were replaced by the "clump" of incoming mortar fire and the crescendo of gunfire rose to full earsplitting volume. In no time a full scale battle was raging with intense automatic weapons, rocket propelled grenades and mortar fire raining in on the Cavalry troops. The most savage one-day battle of the Vietnam War had begun.
The clash, which had begun at the head of the column, now spread quickly down the right flank of the American unit with Charlie Company and Delta Company immediately taking heavy casualties from grenades, automatic weapons and mortar fire. Screaming for the battalions' medics, desperate men tried to be heard above the din of battle. Since most of the radio operators had moved forward with the commanders the elements, who now found themselves in a fight for their lives, were without radio communications and could not tell other units of their position, coordinate an effective defense or call for help. Taking cover behind the giant anthills the surprised soldiers responded by using every weapon in their arsenal: M-16 automatic rifles, M-60 light machineguns, M-79 grenade launchers, light antitank (LAW) rockets, hand grenades and .45 caliber semiautomatic pistols. They responded as best they could but they were no match for the firepower being layed down by the well-prepared NVA.
As the center of the column came under heavy attack mortar crew members PFC Donald Ellis Crane, age twenty-four, and PFC Ralph Wayne Brown, age twenty-three, reacted as they had been trained. The exact positions of Crane and Brown within that part of the column are unknown. It is known that they never had a chance to set up their mortars and exchange countermortar fire. Their only chance to defend themselves was with their individual weapons and they both did it until they were mortally wounded. Captain Thorpe believes that they died within the first two minutes of the battle. Due to the intense enemy fire he was unable to return to his company. His immediate action was to form a defensive position at the head of the column. For his actions he was awarded the Silver Star. His valor was acknowledged and the award was presented in 1996 thirty-one years after the battle.
NVA snipers tied in the trees and armed with AK-47 automatic rifles picked off the American leaders and radio operators. Chaos reigned as the Americans tried to return fire that seemed to be coming from all directions. Indeed, it was since the Americans had walked into a battalion-sized U-shaped ambush and another NVA unit struck at the center. The tall grass made it virtually impossible for the soldiers to distinguish between friend and enemy and in the horrible confusion of that November day friend often killed friend. Charlie and Delta Companies took the brunt of the attack as the North Vietnamese attempted and succeeded in cutting the column in two and overrunning the stunned and helpless defenders. Charlie Company suffered forty-one killed in action; Delta Company lost twenty-six men on this fateful day. Many, many others were severely wounded.
To this day James Shadden says that he has". . .wondered thousands of times about these guys (Brown and Crane), never have talked to anyone who could enlighten me on their death. . ." Not surprisingly, he goes on to sadly relate that one of the reasons for this lack of knowledge is that ". . .there were not many of us left so info is hard to get."
As the intense battle progressed, Colonel Tim Brown, commander of the 1st Cavalry's 3rd Brigade, was flying in a command and control helicopter over the scene anxious to send in ground reinforcements, artillery, air support, aerial rocket artillery and medical evacuation helicopters to help the confused, struggling and dying men of the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry and Alpha Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry. The combination of heavy fire, smoke, dust and mix of two forces engaged in hand-to-hand combat made any support unthinkable. Eventually, the surviving Americans began to cluster into defensive perimeters and it became possible to call in close air support from helicopter gun ships. However, because of the confused situation on the ground and the proximity of the combatants some observers on the ground were horrified as close-range napalm bombing sometimes turned into "friendly fire" and killed United States soldiers along with the enemy.
As day turned into night Company B, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry was flown into the area and Company B, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry marched from Landing Zone Columbus toward Albany. Heavy artillery and aircraft flare illumination around the perimeter of LZ Albany discouraged further massed NVA attacks during the night. Nevertheless, it did not prevent the ruthless North Vietnamese from combing the area, seeking out lost or wounded Americans and shooting or bayoneting them on the spot. More than one soldier lived through the night by feigning death or lying beneath the bodies of others who had been killed.
In the morning light the full horror of the tragedy became apparent. Bodies of friend and enemy lay near one another. The close-in napalm and bombs horribly burned both American and North Vietnamese. The bodies of the execution victims were found shot in the head at close range. By the time the battle was declared over, some sixteen hours after it began on the afternoon of November 17, the 1st Cavalry Division would be counting another 151 Americans dead, four missing and another 124 wounded in this phase of the Pleiku campaign. They estimated the enemy dead at LZ Albany at 503.
Continued in Part III
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