At the beginning of 1967, General William Westmoreland had the best-trained and best-equipped forces that the USA had to offer under his command in South Vietnam, following a two-year build-up. Westmoreland headed the Military Assistance Command Vietnam, a joint-service organisation that directed the US-South Vietnamese war effort against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese.
Among his most valuable forces were those trained as airmobile infantry. These elite units could be moved around the country to deal with expanding battles, and could match the best of the North Vietnamese units. One of these airmobile forces was the 503rd Infantry Regiment of Brigadier General John Deane’s 173rd Airborne Brigade. These ‘Sky Soldiers’ no longer jumped like their predecessors in WWII. Instead, they were airlifted into battle on Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopters, which were called ‘Hueys’. Westmoreland used the three battalions of the 173rd as a ‘fire brigade’ that he transferred as needed to hot spots along the South Vietnamese frontier bordering Laos and Cambodia.
Westmoreland’s strategy at the outset of 1967 was to strike Viet Cong and North Vietnamese base camps and large troop concentrations. The North Vietnamese regularly infiltrated the Central Highlands of South Vietnam to engage US and South Vietnamese forces. They would move south along the Ho Chi Minh Trail and then cross uncontested into the sparsely populated highlands. Once there, they routinely attacked the chain of US Special Forces camps and ambushed US units airlifted into the mountains to engage them.
Blanketed in triple-canopy jungle, the Central Highlands were the southernmost section of the Annamite Range
