Hell on a Hilltop

In May 1968, two small American outposts deep in enemy territory were all that remained of a massive force from the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) that had just been in one of the biggest battles of the war. The division arrived during Operation Pegasus in early April to break the North Vietnamese Army’s siege of the Khe Sanh Marine base, which had been under attack since Jan. 21. After the relief force reached the Marine base on April 8, most of the 1st Cavalry Division troops moved south to the A Shau Valley. But two battalions and associated artillery units in the division’s 2nd Brigade stayed at landing zones Snapper and Peanuts to support Marine regiments that had re-established control of the Khe Sanh base and were going on the offensive against the NVA in the surrounding hills. Before long, wounded and dead from both sides would be scattered around Landing Zone Peanuts in some of the toughest fighting that many of the air cavalry troops would ever see.

In mid-April, troops of the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, had been helicoptered to a T-shaped hill, LZ Peanuts, to protect the westward approaches to Khe Sanh. To the east of the hill were a few thousand yards of open plain. To the south were Route 9 and the Lang Vei Special Forces camp that had been overrun about 2½ months before. To the west were Laos and the Ho Chi Minh Trail. Communist forces there wanted to attack Khe Sanh again, but they would first have to wipe out LZ Peanuts.

troops constructed defensive positions around the entire perimeter of the landing zone and fortified their