BRUTAL STRUGGLE IN THE HEDGEROWS OF 506 VALLEY
After darkness fell on Dec. 17, 1966, the dead and wounded of Delta Company lay in an open area between North Vietnamese Army bunkers and hedgerows. In daylight it had been a no man’s land where anyone who moved was shot. Pfc. Michael Noone was shot three times—once in the leg and twice in the torso. The bullets broke his ribs and knocked his stomach out of the body cavity. Giant red-and-black biting ants, dubbed “blood ants” by American soldiers, crawled over him, feasting. He used his one good arm to slowly pick them off and bite them in self-defense.
Under the light of flares, NVA soldiers crept out to execute the wounded and scavenge the dead. One approached Noone and peered over him. A flare went off and the enemy soldier ducked until the light receded, then got up and looked Noone directly in the eyes. The American feigned death. The NVA scavenger put his rifle down and picked Noone up by the pistol belt. Unfamiliar with the hook attachment, the North Vietnamese soldier struggled to remove it. As he fiddled with the belt, the ants bit him and he immediately dropped Noone to the ground. After searching the American, he left him for dead. Noone was one of the lucky ones.
Seven hours earlier, at 1:38 p.m. Noone’s Company D, along with companies A and B of the 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade (Airborne), 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), were told to prepare for helicopter pickups. The troopers were going into a valley north and west of Landing Zone Uplift, 8 miles south of Bong Son in Binh Dinh province in South Vietnam’s central coastlands. The area was called 506 Valley, named for the “highway” that ran through it.
The Dec. 17 battle in the valley involved all of 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment; two companies of 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment; a platoon of 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment; and elements of 1st Squadron, 9th Cavalry Regiment, for a total of more than 20 1st Cav infantry platoons.
In number of U.S. casualties, the Battle of 506 Valley
