This excellent report has been professionally converted for accurate flowing-text e-book format reproduction. These accounts of fighting in Vietnam are based upon official U.S. Army records—daily journals, journal files, and after action reports; upon interviews conducted soon after the events by historical officers in Vietnam; and upon interviews and correspondence conducted later by the authors themselves. Contents include: 1. Fight At Ia Drang, 14-16 November 1965 By John A. Cash; 2. Convoy Ambush On Highway 1, 21 November 1966 By John Albright; 3. Ambush At Phuoc An, 18 June 1967 By John A. Cash; 4. Fight Along The Rach Ba Rai, 15 September 1967 By John Albright; 5. Three Companies At Dak To, 6 November 1967 By Allan W. Sandstrum; 6. Battle Of Lang Vei, 7 February 1968 By John A. Cash; 7. Gunship Mission, 5 May 1968 By John A. Cash.
Up to the fall of 1965 the fighting by U.S. troops in Vietnam had been characterized, for the most part, by hit-and-run counterinsurgency operations against Viet Cong irregulars. It was during the week before Thanksgiving, amidst the scrub brush and stunted trees of the la Drang River valley in the western sector of Pleiku Province along the Cambodian border, that the war changed drastically. For the first time regular North Vietnamese regiments, controlled by a division-size headquarters, engaged in a conventional contest with U.S. forces. The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), took the lead in this battle. North Vietnamese General Chu Huy Man's Western Highlands Field Front headquarters had conceived a bold plan for operations in the Central Highlands of the Republic of Vietnam. To be carried out in the fall of 1965 and designated the Tay Nguyen Campaign, the enemy plan called for an offensive against the western plateau encompassing Kontum, Pleiku, Binh Dinh, and Phu Bon Provinces. It specified the destruction of Special Forces camps at Plei Me, Dak Sut, and Due Co, the annihilation of the Le Thanh District headquarters, and the seizure of the city of Pleiku. Assault forces included the 32d and 66th North Vietnamese Army Regiments.
