Nov 1965 - The Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam - Part I

I've just completed reading We Were Soldiers Once... And Young by Hal Moore and Joe Galloway. The book covers a series of fierce battles that took place in November 1965 - the very first large battles between the US and the North Vietnamese Army, and also the first tests of the newly-developed air mobility concept. The book itself was later adapted into a surprisingly good movie, "We Were Soldiers" starring Mel Gibson. You can interpret the phrase "surprisingly good" as "Hollywood didn't totally screw this up", oh say like Pearl Harbor.

Setting the Scene
In the fall of 1965 the North Vietnamese began an offensive in the Central Highlands, specifically targeting several Special Forces bases the US had established there, and eventually the capture of Pleiku city. The US 1st Cavalry Division, based in An Khe was there to meet the threat. The 1st Brigade of the division deployed westward to Plei Me Special Forces Camp after a major attack on the camp was thrown back in October, later to be replaced by 2nd Brigade including the 1st and 2nd Battalions, 7th Cavalry and the attached 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry. After several days of patrolling with little contact, the Brigade commander was ordered to probe westward toward the Cambodian border in search of the PAVN forces. And that's exactly where they were, refitting after the earlier failed attack on Plei Me and preparing for another try. And Lt. Col. Harold G. Moore, Jr's 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry was about to drop right into the hornet's nest.

Prior to the assault into the valley, the Brigade first established a firebase at LZ Falcon, approximately 5 miles ENE of the intended assault area. Not much can be seen at this location today, and in fact the LZ itself appears to have become somewhat overgrown in the years since. But from here the artillery was to take a terrible toll on the PAVN forces.

Into The Valley
Early on the morning of November 14, 1965, the understrength 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry dropped into a small clearing called LZ XRay, hard against the Chu Pong massif. They came looking for a fight and did they ever find one. For up on the mountain next to the landing zone was the equivalent of a division of North Vietnamese Army regulars - over 2,000 troops. Over the next 3 days a near-constant battle erupted, as the encircled battalion fought for its life against a much larger PAVN force right in its own back yard.

The satellite coverage in the area is hit-and-miss, and unfortunately LZ XRay ends up being just yards out of a better quality shot. Because of this it took me a while to find the clearing that is LZ XRay, but here it is. It's hard to tell given the resolution that this is actually the clearing, but I've cross-referenced a number of maps online and am pretty confident this is the spot. This overview shows the mountain, LZ XRay, and another LZ Victor, which was used to ferry in reinforcements during the battle, with the river Drang just north. You can see there are dirt roads crossing the area today, roads which did not exist in 1965. The area is also dotted with tea or rubber fields, which you can see in higher quality photos just to the east.

I won't go into a lot of detail on the battle itself, as you can read that in Moore's book or other online sources (see links below). The book is absolutely great, and well worth the read. There's a followup book out as well, which I've listed below. After reading a lot of additional material online and spending some time reflecting on it, the thought that struck me was how extraordinary of a man Mr. Moore is. Being a WW2 nut of course I've read many of the books around E Company, 2/506th and what an outstanding leader of men Dick Winters was and still is. I see so many of the same qualities in Hal Moore the more I learn about him. He is an amazing individual, simply amazing. Spend some time and see for yourself.

OK now here's where the fun part comes in (hopefully). I've got a few links and sources below. If you have any other interesting material, I want to know about it and I'll update this post with the good stuff. Participation counts!

Materials, Links, and Other Sources
BOOK: We Were Soldiers Once... And Young
BOOK: We Are Soldiers Still: A Journey Back to the Battlefields of Vietnam
MOVIE: We Were Soldiers - (reviews on IMDB)
VIDEO: The Fight for LZ XRay (YouTube)
SITE: lzxray.com. This is Moore and Galloway's website, and contains many pictures, maps and background info not contained in the book.
SITE: Fight at Ia Drang - US Army Center of Military History
SITE: Joe Galloway's US News & World Report story
GOOGLE EARTH: Google Earth KMZ File - Google Earth placemarks, maps, and overlays.

OK So What's This Blog All About?

I've been interested in military history for as long as I can remember. Like many boys I grew up reading books, watching war movies, playing games, and generally immersing myself in all things military. It's been a life-long passion. With the Internet and all the tools and information that can be obtained now, it makes exploring history even more interesting. So with that background, I've found myself these past few years reading a memoir or historical narrative on some particular battle, and wanting more. More information, more maps, more stories, more pictures, and more of an ability to see how things were, and how things are today. That's what this blog is all about. I have these dreams of visiting these sites one day, of going to Iwo Jima and Peleliu, of walking along the factory area of the Volga in Stalingrad, of visiting Bastone, the Seelow Heights, and so many other places. But the reality is that work, family, finances and finally the sheer number of them make that impossible. So in place of visiting them myself, the next best option is to use the web and a community of like-minded people to do the next best thing. My hope is to develop some interest and a community around this idea, and get people who are local to these areas or who are going on a trip to provide very targeted, on-the-ground pictures and narrative of the terrain as it exists today. This vision then explains the seemingly contradictory title of my blog - Military History Today.

So how is this going to work? Well that remains to be seen somewhat, but here's my thoughts so far. I find when I'm reading a book I also take time to research the battle on the web, look at the terrain in Google Earth, overlay maps, pictures, in it as well to get a sense of the terrain and where key locations are situated (yes I'm a geography geek as well as a history geek), and that leads me to pictures, and other places. It really fills out the story and provides so much more depth to it. So I decided to start this blog to post the information I'm already digging up, and encourage others to contribute. I know too many other mil-geeks like me who would enjoy this. So I see picking a topic and then diving in for a while to see what we can find - kind of like exploring. It should be fun and certainly interesting.

Just so folks know, while I'm a history geek in general, I take my WW2 history really seriously. Like probably not healthy seriously. So expect a lot of focus in that area. That being said, I'm currently reading a Vietnam narrative, so that might just be my first post. We'll see how this works out. I'll be fun for me anyway, and I hope for you as well.