IA Drang: The Huey's bloody baptism under fire

Flight Journal, Aug 2002 by Gabella, William F

IT'S POSSIBLE THAT THE GODS OF WAR PLANNED THE IA DRANG BATTLE BETWEEN THE NORTH VIETNAMESE REGULAR ARMY (NVA) AND THE 1ST CAVALRY DIVISION (AIRBOURNE). TOUGH AND BRAVE NVA INFANTRY FOUGHT AGAINST EQUALLY TOUGH AND BRAVE CAVALRY TROOPERS RIDING A HORSE CALLED THE "HUEY" INTO BATTLE. IT WAS NOT JUST A CLASH OF WILLS BUT A CLASH OF TECHNOLOGIES, TOOTHE 19TH CENTURY VERSUS THE 20TH. AND AFTER THE BATTLE WAS FINISHED, THE SHAPE OF MODERN WARFARE WAS CHANGED FOREVER. IT WAS A MAJOR TURNING POINT IN HISTORY; ONE THAT MANY OF US WERE PRIVILEGED TO PARTICIPATE IN OR WITNESS. IF NOT FOR SOME MAJORS BLUNDERS BY THE NVA, THE BATTLE'S OUTCOME MIGHT HAVE BEEN FAR DIFFERENT. READ ON TO LEARN FIRSTHAND WHAT ONE OF THE HEROES HAS JUST REVEALED AND WHAT HIS STARTLING CONCLUSIONS.

PREPARATION

The run-up to the Ia Drang battle was complex. The 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) was created in 1965 as an outgrowth of the 11th Air Assault tests at Ft. Benning, Georgia. These tests were performed to see how the Army could forge the great versatility and flexibility of its new helicopters and special-- mission fixed-wing aircraft into a type of warfare based on air mobility and air assault.

Toward this goal, the Ist Cavalry Division (Airmobile) was formed with 15,000 men and 401 aircraft and was dispatched to Vietnam in August 1965. Ahead was the task of carving an Army post out of the jungle atop An Khe Pass, which could be reached only by climbing a daunting series of hairpin turns 1,400 feet up the face of an escarpment worthy of a "Tarzan" movie. This was the gateway to the Central Highlands, 42 miles from the port of Qui Nhon. Its importance cannot be overstated. It was a tenet of North Vietnamese strategy that "Whoever controls the Central Highlands controls Vietnam." An Khe Pass was along famed Highway 19-scene of many a bloody ambush by the Viet Minh and, later, by the Viet Cong and the NVA.

The bloodiest ambush occurred 15 miles west on Highway 19 in Mang Yan Pass. The men of the French Foreign Legion Garde Mobile 100 (a mobile strike force) were slaughtered when the first and last vehicles in the caravan were blown up, and every Legionnaire-more than 900 of them-was killed or wounded with terrifying precision. Two hundred vehicles and 20 guns were destroyed or damaged.

To understand the imprint that An Khe and Camp Radcliff (1st Cav's base) hammered into a 1st Cav trooper's psyche, you must have some understanding of the locale. On the flat portion at the northeast base of an imposing peak called "Hong Kong" mountain was the famous "Golf Course," a pierced steel-plank runway (elevation 1,380 feet). At An Khe strip-about 3,000 feet long and better suited to USAF C-130 Hercules traffic-20 tons of aircraft parts were delivered each night! This was where a combat-loaded Herc (that could hold 88 troops) dumped a bunch of Army aviators one night, who were greeted by the 1st Cav personnel officer with these sobering words: "Welcome, gentlemen. I want you to know that no Ist Cav aviator has ever been taken alive!"

Though the village of An Khe was instantly off limits to troops, a myth of epic proportions grew to such an extent that it nearly prompted a Congressional investigation. Legend had it that because so many noxious "VD fumes" emanated from the reedy little "ville," merely flying through An Khe's "Clap cloud" was enough to infect aircrews! In addition to the natural dangers of fanged reptiles (we once caught an 11-foot, half-- grown king cobra during a bunker repair), a den of about 100 wild dogs existed in a brushy gulch off the southwest end of the Golf Course. This became a breeding ground for rabies. MPs took to cruising the fringes of this area and shooting the canine stragglers.

An Khe was a rough patch of jungle where mosquitoes spread a dreaded strain of malaria that was immune to drugs. The 1/7th Cav Battalion alone had to medevac 56 troops because of the disease before the battle of la Drang.

A Cav trooper's home was his half of a tent, with a tin can for a mess hall. In those days, Coca-Cola and beer were often used to brush one's teeth, as clean water was in short supply. To mail a letter home required U.S. stamps-if you could find any to buy, and they usually got gummed up in your wallet.

Flying was what everyone wanted to do! They wanted to get off the ground and climb to the cool, clean, sweetsmelling air away from the "feces burners" with all their stink, the stinging and biting critters, doped-up VC, murderous NVA and nightly mortar and rocket attacks-through which I normally slept. (Mortar rounds make a large fluttering sound like huge arrows passing overhead. Before they impact, rockets sound like bed sheets being ripped.)

This was where the Cav troopers first did combat by vaulting off their aerie in Hueys onto the coastal plains below to do battle with nests of VC. It was a time of training and testing of men, equipment, weapons and tactics. Even the M-16 rifle (5.56mm) was new to these men who trained with the heavier M-14 (7.62mm). In fact, everything was new to the Cav troopers: uniforms, boots, plastic payroll cards, new malaria pills, radios, Aerofab tents, "Army mules"-little fourwheel vehicles that were almost as deadly as the VC. Being Airmobile, the Cav was short on ground transportation, and its Chinook units quickly learned the art of snatching M-- 151 Jeeps "wherever" and painting "Ist Cav" bumper markings on them in flight! This earned the Ist Cav the everlasting enmity of other groups, divisions and even other services.