A New Look at Ia Drang
The 1965 Battle of Ia Drang was one of the most iconic battles of the Vietnam War. It was popularized in the 1992 book We Were Soldiers Once…and Young, by retired Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and journalist Joseph L. Galloway, and the 2002 film adaptation, starring Mel Gibson as Moore. Yet the engagement remains one of the most misunderstood battles of the war.
The battle began the morning of Nov. 14, 1965, when helicopters dropped Moore’s 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), at Landing Zone X-Ray in the Ia Drang Valley to go after North Vietnamese Army troops in the area. Shortly after arriving, Moore’s soldiers were attacked by a large NVA force, and fierce fighting followed.
When American commanders saw that the enemy had countered Moore’s one battalion with two NVA battalions, they began reinforcing his unit that evening with men from another battalion. Devastating U.S. airstrikes, including B-52 bombing, began the afternoon of Nov.15. Earlier that day, more troops from the reinforcing battalion had arrived, and a third battalion was rotated in to allow Moore’s troops to withdraw on Nov. 16. The remaining two battalions departed on Nov. 17, while the B-52 bombardment of the battered NVA force in the area continued through Nov. 20.
Those events are typically portrayed as a ground force operation supported by air attacks, but the battle plan actually was designed principally as a massive airstrike supported by a ground operation that lured enemy forces into the open where they could become targets for B-52 bombers.
