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For educational purposes
Experience the action of one of the most devastating weapons used in Vietnam, including the tactic known as "Recon by Fire."
Experience the action of one of the most devastating weapons used in Vietnam, including the tactic known as "Recon by Fire."
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00:00The End
03:29For those who served or observed, the chopper was a weapon of power and a symbol of futility,
03:47nothing more itself.
04:42größer.
04:45I'll be right back.
04:47I'll be right back.
04:49The chopper impacted the US forces in Vietnam more than any other single year.
05:07Officially dubbed the error,
05:09From the moment it appeared over the skies of Vietnam, the chopper's rock and roll firepower struck fear into the hearts of its enemies.
05:19Euphemistically called fire suppression, it was better known as busting caps by the grunts.
05:28Busting caps on a fire support mission, or carrying troops, or scouting ahead on a ground column.
05:34It was the VC's worst nightmare and biggest threat.
05:39Carrying their artillery and supplies deep into the bush maintained the American advantage of superior firepower.
05:45With its many different weapon configurations, its combat firepower made it an aerial tank.
06:04Versatile, dangerous, and incredibly mobile, the chopper quickly gained an importance and soon dominated the tactical thinking of the American high command.
06:20Still the unforeseen conditions of Vietnam found the American military unprepared for this guerrilla war.
06:27No front lines, no secure areas, no way to tell who the enemy was.
06:33The VC wore no uniforms.
06:36When pursued, the fleeing Viet Cong melted away, often into an elaborate tunnel system which was interconnected to miles of underground passageways.
06:46By expending manpower, of which the North had virtually a limitless supply, the Communists imposed a condition on the Americans which could only be met by money and manpower.
07:02But Vietnam was a war that did not end in a military victory for the U.S.
07:09The Americans had become strangers in a strange land.
07:16Gentlemen, I will give you a brief rundown on our present status in Vietnam.
07:34Together with a thumbnail sketch of the initial landings and subsequent build-up.
07:44Seventeen parallel divides North Vietnam from South Vietnam.
07:55Militarily speaking, South Vietnam is divided into four areas.
08:00The Fourth Corps area in the South, the Third Corps, the Second Corps, and in the North, the First Corps, or as we call it, the I Corps area.
08:14The area within this I Corps is approximately 10,000 square miles.
08:19The first step against the N.T.
08:28The Natural Corps arrives now and is already up left and is going full of darkness.
08:29The Mag and the Second Corps are an System of North Vietnam.
08:34These Marines were from the 3rd Battalion, 7th Division, with their helipad next to
09:00LZO near the Anki River. These men were to be a blocking force behind a retreating BC Battalion,
09:08as another Marine force was making a frontal assault from the coast. This was the vertical
09:13enveloping doctrine in operation.
09:30As the chopper became a fixture in the way war was waged in there, every skirmish, every
09:37battle became an individual struggle for survival. The LZ was hot.
09:45Besides gunships, the Marines had the jet hot pad at Chile. Attacked jets on L5's triple load
10:03could respond in minutes to a call for an airstrike.
10:28This woe is where you found it, or it found you. Danger didn't end when you came back from
10:35a hop or humping the hills and the boonies. Taking casualties became part of everyday life.
10:42After trying so hard to kill the enemy, now you try just as hard to save lives. Distances
10:49and terrain with no guarantee of safety or survival for either side. You learn quickly that death
10:56and fear did not sleep in the Nam.
11:00Choppers were a definite advantage against the harsh and impassable countryside of Vietnam. From the soft ooze of the rice paddies to the canals and rivers, troops faced the near impossible task of moving through jungles so thick the foliage could tear the skin. In the steep
11:07hills and deep ravines, grunts would climb up or slip down, going forward at a snail's pace.
11:14The terrain seemed as hostile as the Viet Cong. Vines and plants wrapped around feed and equipment.
11:21To march even a few miles could take days.
11:28To march even a few miles could take days.
11:33The terrain seemed as hostile as the Viet Cong.
11:36The terrain seemed as hostile as the Viet Cong. Vines and plants wrapped around feed and equipment.
11:43To march even a few miles could take days.
11:55Giant trees blocked out the sun.
11:58It was darkness at noon.
12:00And behind every tree your vine might be the enemy, waiting for his advantage.
12:06Fatigue.
12:07Fatigue.
12:08Surprise.
12:18Pin down from heavy fire, the marines have run into a large enemy force.
12:26Too far away from their artillery fire base, the marines called in an airstrike.
12:31And gun ships.
12:32Before the enemy can fade away into the jungle tunnels, the choppers attacked.
12:37They were truly the dogs of war.
12:40But the other dumb bastards died for their country the saying went,
12:44Keep your own asses alive.
12:46A murderous fire was rained down on the enemy position and soon the attack jets rolled into their rockets and bombs.
12:53As reinforcements began to arrive, the airstrikes continued, covering the insertion and driving the enemy into cover.
13:00Oh hell
13:17After the airstrike stopped,
13:44more reinforcements arrived and the dead and wounded were evacuated.
14:01As the enemy retreated, the Marines discovered some exposed tunnels that had been blasted
14:06by the bombing, including this one, over 260 feet long and 8 feet high.
14:15Some V.C. resisted and were killed, many others surrendered.
14:19The tunnels were extensive and contained enough weapons to arm a V.C. battalion.
14:26They were blasted closed and the hoochies burned.
14:30Today was a good day for those who lived, but tomorrow never knows.
14:36As Ho Chi Minh told the French in 1947,
14:40you can kill ten of my men for every one I kill of yours.
14:44But even at those odds, you will lose and I will win.
14:49For the dead on both sides, the battle was over.
14:52For the survivors, tomorrow would be another day, back in hell.
15:01The chopper could move in minutes over terrain that could take weeks to walk through, avoiding
15:07booby traps and mines.
15:09Twenty-eight percent of our dead and wounded were caused by these deadly traps.
15:13Almost a third of our total battle casualties.
15:16Troop resupply and reinforcing.
15:19Infantry air assaults, equipment salvaging, repair, and air ground fire support.
15:25All these crucial functions became the responsibility of the helicopter.
15:29In this war, the helicopter had become the jeep.
15:39The truck.
15:40Soaring above land obstacles that would have immobilized ground vehicles.
15:44Helicopters were also the scouts.
15:49A key ingredient to locating and pinpointing enemy positions was the tactic known as recon by fire.
15:56Fly low, blasting everything in front of you to pieces was one version.
16:00The other was to send in light hallows like the Loach.
16:03Teamed up with two gunships.
16:05Together known as pink teams.
16:07They would fly low over the ground or trees trying to draw enemy fire.
16:11When the VC invariably opened up, the gunships would strike quickly with rockets and the machine guns.
16:26If the contact became more involved, pink teams would call in the troop carrying slicks to land infantry and attack the revealed enemy positions.
16:45At Hill 875, a company from the Army's 4th Division ran into a sizeable enemy force.
16:55Needing more than gunships, an air strike was requested by the company commander before charging the hill.
17:02The NVA were well dug in and strongly fortified.
17:07Within minutes the air strike arrived.
17:09F-100 super saver jets armed with napalm.
17:21The F-4 Phantoms firing rockets were awesome in their destruction.
17:25To the grunts they were of godsend.
17:28To the enemy, they were the beasts from heaven.
17:32They weredy-owned from the
17:57At the height of Vietnam, these close air support missions numbered almost 800 hops a day.
18:10Armed with Vulcan miniguns, they pounded the enemy positions.
18:27Along with the F-4 and the F-100 were other planes, like the B-57 and the A-1s, like it'd carry 750-pound bombs, napalm, and the Rock-Eye bombs.
18:57The F-100, with its high speed at low altitudes, was a widely used close air support platform because of its uncanny accuracy.
19:27After the airstrike had softened up enemy resistance, the 4th Division launched a frontal attack on the hill.
19:43Fighting was fierce. The N-V-A and V-C gave ground slowly.
19:57From nearby hilltops, the 4th Division firebases started pounding away.
20:06Along with continuous airstrikes, artillery fire blasted at the N-V-A until the hill was taken.
20:12Despite the hellos' flare for drama and excitement, it was the grunts who had to hump and dig the enemy out from wherever he was hiding.
20:36Walking in a monsoon, where it rains for months at a time, being sniped at, being killed, stepping on booty traps, catching jungle rot, getting devoured by leeches,
20:51humping the hills through humidity and heat that sucked the breath out of you.
20:55It was a walk where death lurked in the trees, and waited underground.
21:01And then there were the tunnels.
21:02Tunnel rats explored the tunnels, exploding sections that they could find.
21:16These tunnel systems sometimes concealed a whole battalion of men and women.
21:21Six hundred people rooted inside the earth.
21:23With their dead and losses from capture, the V-C fought on.
21:53Hundreds of kilometers of tunnels connected villages, districts, and even provinces.
21:58They contained living spaces, storage depots, ordinance production, hospitals, headquarters, a total environment.
22:06They contained living spaces, and they had altura, which which I wanted to drive throughout the world.
22:12They came to record places calledStartJulent companies, or at- khadыв sangre, which were poo-15 много than the entire school there were in geography.
22:15And that happens to make probably worse than the trees.
22:16At-lars, theyег
22:30The tunnels and their incredible proliferation were not a grand design.
22:43It was the answer to modern warfare technology.
22:46Aircraft, bombs, artillery forced the V.C. to live and fight from underground.
22:52Ironically, by being forced underground to avoid the air mobile attack,
22:56the Viet Cong, and later the N.V.A. prolonged the war to the point of showing the U.S. that it would not win.
23:04The underground tunnels were most numerous in the Iron Triangle.
23:26Near Saigon, they stretched from the gates of Saigon to the Cambodian border.
23:33The tunnels were a dagger aimed at Saigon, providing cover for agents, sappers, supplies.
23:39Even though the Americans realized the importance of the area,
23:43they never became aware of the sheer size and complexity of the tunnel system.
23:48These tunnels had their history in the Vietnamese resistance to the Japanese and French invaders.
23:54By 1965, the original 48 kilometers of tunnels excavated during the war against the French had grown to 200 kilometers.
24:05However, the keys to a revolutionary war are in the resistance of its forces to the enemy attacks.
24:11Time, space, time, space, and cost mean nothing to a dedicated revolutionary.
24:16To the Vietnamese who'd been fighting for independence for 35 years,
24:21first against the Japanese, and then the French, and finally the Americans,
24:26time was however long it would take.
24:28If they did not succeed, then their children would.
24:32The concept of air mobile assault was action.
24:46It was based on a rapid response with force to intelligence updates
24:52and a policy of attacking the V.C. whenever he was found.
24:56Ne'er to lie, Marines learned from V.C. prisoners and peasants
25:00that there were more V.C. in a small ville several miles away.
25:04Acting on this information, the Marines moved quickly
25:08and a platoon was airlifted by an H-34 seahorse chopper
25:11to a rice paddy field outside the ville.
25:15As they close in on the enemy position,
25:17they are met by heavy small-arms fire.
25:20The platoon pushes to the edge of the ville,
25:22but the V.C. are well dug in and resists fiercely.
25:26They do not retreat.
25:34Pinned down, the platoon needed a radio for fire support
25:46from a nearby fireplace.
25:47Under the deadly artillery shelly,
26:05the V.C. fire quickly failed.
26:07And once again, it's the grunts who made the frontal assault.
26:17Besides the well-known Huey gunship,
26:26the CH-46C-9 was used for Marine troop transport and resupply.
26:32Both the C-9 and the H-34 seahorse
26:35were older models of helicopters and slow,
26:39but the Marines preferred them for their troop capacity
26:41and proven reliability.
26:43Thirty-seven C's were the only workhorses
26:47for salvaging equipment damaged in combat,
26:50but they were also old and slow.
26:54The newer CH-53 sea stallion was the largest, fastest,
26:58and most powerful heavy lift chopper in the U.S. inventory.
27:02These big birds could carry 38 Marines or comparable heavy loads.
27:06Whether it was patrolling a river
27:08or providing escort to a land convoy,
27:11the Marines carried out much the same mission
27:13as their Army counterparts.
27:15Find the enemy and attack them,
27:17using all weapons at their command.
27:20The CH-46s earned their keep,
27:22and despite their operational age,
27:24they carried out the bulk
27:26of the Marine ground-insertion missions.
27:28These included transporting their long-range recon units
27:39who often had to be inserted quickly to avoid detection
27:41and to observe and report enemy activity and locations.
27:48Sometimes these small unit insertions could get hot,
27:51and very quickly.
27:52Marine recon, like their lurk counterparts in the Army
27:56or SEAL Navy teams,
27:59had to move constantly to avoid enemy detection.
28:02But sometimes it didn't work out,
28:04and then it was a real fight for your life.
28:06In addition to observation,
28:17teams used dogs, ambush,
28:20and took prisoners
28:21in their quest for intelligence.
28:27Insertions were made on remote hilltops,
28:30in thick jungles,
28:31even onto the Ho Chi Minh Trail.
28:33If the helicopter was the VC nightmare,
28:47it was also their favorite and most important target,
28:50in the air or on the ground.
28:53There was no greater glory for a VC soldier
28:55than to shoot down a chopper of any kind.
28:57They were low and slow over the LZ,
29:00especially on extractions.
29:01A moment of truth for everyone on board.
29:07There were also the objects of artillery
29:09and sapper attacks in their bird cages on the ground.
29:11As the war went on,
29:22the enemy became better marksmen.
29:31There were other problems as well.
29:33Mechanical failures,
29:34navigation mistakes,
29:36using maps where coordinates could be off by miles.
29:39The men on the ground might be off on their position, too.
29:42In a jungle,
29:43that could be fatal.
29:49Waterways could be confusing,
29:51and the VC loved to set a trap
29:53with live bait
29:54just to get a shot at the big prize.
29:56If they could shoot it down and strip it,
29:58they could make weapons from everything they scavenged.
30:01Nothing could ever be left behind for the enemy,
30:03not even suitcats.
30:06In war,
30:07everybody must pay a price to live
30:09and die.
30:10Another mission for the helicopter
30:21was the patrolling of the Mekong River
30:23and numerous canals and waterways.
30:25Along with patrol boats,
30:27U.S. Navy choppers provided air support
30:29to the river and ground operations
30:31aimed at disrupting these routes for the Viet Cong.
30:34With thick jungle right at the water's edge,
30:39VC ambushes could go undetected from a boat.
30:43From their high vantage point,
30:45the patrolling chopper could spot situations
30:48not visible from below.
30:50The Viet Cong also used the river
30:52to ship supplies and air wounded to various areas.
30:55Their strategy for hiding supplies
30:57was to sink the boats during daylight hours
31:00and wait for night to transport it.
31:01Operating from barrack ships moored in midriver,
31:06the armored assault boats were supported
31:08by Navy Huey gunships from a squadron
31:11nicknamed the Seawolves
31:12and were divided into two unit fire teams.
31:16The Mekong Delta is a flat, low-lying area
31:19that covers nearly a third of the south.
31:22Being covered by rice paddy fields and swamps
31:25and intersected by numerous rivers
31:27and drainage canals,
31:29it was impassable for vehicles of any sort.
31:31The rivers were the key to the country.
31:35Nearly 90% of the usable communications
31:37were in the form of rivers and canals.
31:40The number of junks and small boats
31:42totaled over 50,000.
31:44Many were simply innocent fishermen.
31:47To separate those from VC smuggling
31:49was a near impossible task.
31:51A code name for this river patrol operation
32:03was Game Warden.
32:05And eventually there were 750 patrol craft
32:08working the waterways of South Vietnam.
32:10They relied on hello cover and fire support
32:21to find and destroy the enemy.
32:23Often the boats would fire blindly into the thick cover
32:40and needed a Seawolf chopper
32:42to spot the problem from above.
32:43As the boats came under fire,
33:05gunships would be called in
33:07on a fire suppression run.
33:09Coming in low over the jungle,
33:10they could catch the VC by surprise
33:12before the enemy could disappear.
33:44Sometimes without the cover of jungle, retreating enemy were caught out in the open, or using
34:06reeds lay underneath the water in the right spotty fields.
34:09Although the VC continued to use the waterways, these deadly attacks from above made it safe
34:15only at night.
34:39Besides trying to intercept their supplies in the river, the other job for these APBs was
34:56to prevent the VC from withdrawing by water when the marine units were attacking them.
35:03Using helicopters to airlift the marines inland, the boats would be the anvil to the marines
35:07hammer as they pushed the VC to the river.
35:10Whenever possible, if the grunts took fire, choppers were called in as fire support.
35:21With the Dora M60 guns, the 2.75 inch rockets, and the Vulcan miniguns, the resulting destruction
35:28on the target below was total and complete.
35:35Even so, to make an insertion under fire could be gut wrenching.
36:00Especially with several choppers landing at once.
36:04The reinforcements and ammo had to be unloaded.
36:07Then the wounded and the dead loaded up, and the choppers gone before Charlie could zero in
36:12the LZ with his 81 millimeter mortar.
36:19the
36:20the
36:21the
36:26the
36:28the
36:29the
36:42the
36:43the
36:44the
37:08Oh boy, run on instinct, incoming, booby traps, the dull thump of an AK-47.
37:14And when the moment gets near, your brains turn to water and pour out your ears.
37:19When you run into heavy contact, you call in a gunship and soak the area in fire.
37:24Get that air cab to bust caps on anything that moves down there.
37:27The chopper is the great equalizer.
37:30All it burns is gas and bullets.
37:33Save the flesh, man.
37:38Fight. Hump. Survive. Any way you can.
37:57Find Charlie and kill him before he kills you.
37:59And when the day is finally over, never mind about one day closing a home.
38:04Just thank God if you're alive and in one piece.
38:08God bless.
38:09Oh boy, God bless.
38:10Oh boy, God bless.
38:11Oh boy, God bless.
38:12Oh boy, God bless.
38:13Oh boy, God bless.
38:14Oh boy, God bless.
38:15Oh boy, God bless.
38:16Oh boy, God bless.
38:17Oh boy, God bless.
38:18Oh boy, God bless.
38:19Oh boy, God bless.
38:20Oh boy, God bless.
38:21Oh boy, God bless.
38:22Oh boy, God bless.
38:23Oh boy, God bless.
38:25Oh boy, God bless.
38:26Oh boy, God bless.
38:27Oh boy, God bless.
38:28Oh boy, God bless.
38:29Oh boy, God bless.
38:30Oh boy, God bless.
38:31Oh boy, God bless.
38:32Oh boy, God bless.
38:33Oh boy, God bless.
38:34Oh boy, God bless.
38:35Oh boy, God bless.
38:36Oh boy, God bless.
38:37Out at sea, the conditions of war demanded different requirements.
38:46Air-sea rescue was the primary duty of helicopters stationed on board aircraft carriers.
38:52The choppers also searched for subs and lay mines.
38:55But in Vietnam, it was the air-ground air-sea rescue hops that made the Sea King or Jolly Green Giant such a welcome sight to the flyers that were rescued.
39:04The Navy's main objective was the bombing of the North, and its F-4s and A-4s flew continually, along with the A-7s and the F-8s.
39:19The danger of being shot down was always possible, and many aircraft were lost.
39:25To the air crews, being captured or dying of exposure was not a pleasant thought.
39:34These big rescue choppers saved hundreds of men, many of them wounded or injured, from capture and drowning, often flying into enemy fire to do so.
39:45This film is an actual air-sea rescue of an A-4 pilot off the coast of North Vietnam.
39:50These rescue choppers were always in the air, and many times arrived on the scene in minutes.
40:10There was one major innovation which truly made the chopper seem an angel of mercy.
40:27The dust-off.
40:28Used as flying ambulances.
40:31They saved lives, getting the wounded to the hospitals fast.
40:34Called medevacs, these choppers were one of the main factors in giving a wounded man a better chance for survival than in past wars.
40:42Most of the time, the medical slicks were escorted by a gunship.
40:46Traveling in pairs, the gunship would give covering fire, while the slick would descend for the pickup.
40:52A hairy few minutes of exposure, while the litter-bearers carried the wounded into the open.
40:57Many times, the wounded man was back on the ground and being attended to within minutes.
41:01These dust-off medevac crews flew into every dangerous situation imaginable, and saved many lives.
41:08Unarmed, low and slow, the risk was enormous every time.
41:14The enemy had a fat target during these moments, and coming into a hot LZ was never cake.
41:20At any moment, you could stop a bullet, address to whom it may concern.
41:24Like a fireman waiting for a call, these units were constantly on alert.
41:32From a fatality rate of 5.5% for battle-wounded men in World War I, the rate dropped to under 2% in Vietnam.
41:40Let me have your own.
41:45Relax for what you can here, let's put it in a little bit.
41:48Lay down, lay down.
41:51It's okay, you have to put the paint in, now you're all right.
41:54Oh my God.
41:55Okay.
41:55Let me go.
42:25Out in the field, the thumping sound of the chopper's engine was like music to the men
42:44below.
42:45The birds represented survival, victory, reinforcements, extraction.
42:51To the enemy the chopper made discovery, surprise, attack, danger.
43:04Americans could travel 100 miles in less than an hour and be fresh, ready for a fight.
43:09It is a bitter irony that this initial mobility, firepower, and surprise forced the enemy to
43:15give up their larger scale military operations and revert to the smaller actions in tunnel
43:21warfare.
43:24This gave the enemy the ability to retain the initiative and adjust the level of combat to
43:32the available manpower and munitions.
43:35Stalemate.
43:36The communist forces did not have to defeat their enemy in a classical military sense.
43:41They had only to avoid defeat themselves while inflicting losses on their American folk.
43:58The story of chopper, which will be incompletely developed between the most famous air mobile
44:03division, the First Air Cav.
44:05Located at Anki in the Central Highlands, with over 16,000 men and 468 helicopters, the First
44:12Air Cav was the first division totally dedicated to being air mobile.
44:17With a cleared strip of land over 100 meters wide as a fire zone buffer and a dug-in artillery
44:23and infantry positions inside the camp, the base at Anki resembled a huge circled wagon train.
44:30Their Aeo stretched from the Cambodian border eastward to the China Sea and 150 miles north
44:37to south in the northern section of Tukor.
44:40The First Air Cav was based in Indian country, having long ago turned in their horses.
44:46The troops rode choppers.
44:48Quick-firing howitzers, airlifted to faraway combat zones, were complemented by gunship rockets
44:54and heavy machine guns.
44:56A flying rock and roll party of fire and destruction with the enemy as the dance floor.
45:02This division laid the groundwork in the war's first major engagement, the Pleiku campaign.
45:24A full NBA division was geared up for a major offensive eastward.
45:29Driving through Pleiku to the China Sea, cutting Vietnam in half.
45:35This intelligence came from a Green Beret camp near Plei Mei.
45:39This attack began on October the 13th, 1965, when the NBA 33rd Division besieged the outpost at Plei Mei.
45:48But it was only a thing.
45:50The real objective was to lure the Alvin troops into sending a rescue force overland.
45:56They were then ambushed along the line of march in Pindang.
45:59It was now October 24th.
46:01The South Vietnamese fought back strongly despite the surprise,
46:05and were able to hold out while the Air Cav saddled up,
46:09and launched the first major infantry attack by chopper forces in the history of modern war.
46:15The battle of the Yajrang Valley had begun.
46:32The air assault infantry was inserted into the area to secure and set up LZ field goal for an artillery fire base.
46:39Sent from Pleiku, the troops landed their artillery and began supporting the breakout of the Alvin troops,
46:45and later their advance to Plei Mei.
46:47At the same time, another artillery battery began shelling the NBA forces surrounding the original Green Beret force at Plei Mei.
46:54Under this intense barrage, the NBA retreated to the west, and the siege was broken.
47:15Immediately, the Air Cav launched a counter-offensive west of Plei Mei, seeking out the retreating enemy to prevent future attacks.
47:28Infantry battalions were airlifted deep into Indian country, the heart of the NBA stronghold.
47:34Dispersed over several LZs, they searched for the enemy.
47:38On November the 1st, they found them.
47:41The first Air Cav attacked and overran an enemy outpost on the Yate River.
47:46Suddenly, a full-scale battle erupted, when the NBA sent a battalion of men against less than a full rifle company.
47:55A five-to-one advantage, with the troop carrying sticks bringing in a constant flow of ammo and reinforcements,
48:01supported by the fire base still at LZ field goal.
48:04Repeated airstrikes and chopper aerial bombardment, the NBA retreated to their base camp at Anta Village, in the Yadrang Valley.
48:21The NBA offensive had stolen, and now the choppers again led to push westward in the relentless counter-attack on the enemy.
48:28As part of their air assault, a battalion of troops was airlifted into a remote clearing named LZ X-Ray, deep in the heart of the Yadrang,
48:38and at the foot of the mountains called Chu Pong Massif, the bastion of the NBA.
48:44The enemy, now reinforced, made another all-out attack on the X-Ray defenders, hoping for a big military victory and making X-Ray into an American DMV-ing fool.
48:56The enemy's
49:22The first air cav fought well, although outnumbered and despite small units being cut off and forced to fight alone, the intensity of the NVA attack was fierce.
49:38Mobile artillery was chopped into place and American firepower was brought to bear.
49:43Under constant and deadly shelling from artillery and blasted by gunship attacks and airplanes carrying Nippon, the NVA was smothered under a curtain of fire he didn't expect and had never experienced.
50:05But the yard drying battle wasn't over.
50:13Our troops paid for the victory in blood as always, but the enemy losses were staggering.
50:25Blood was the only currency in Vietnam for victories or defeats.
50:33B-52s were being called in to make a raid on the area.
50:37These raids were nicknamed aerial excavations and all friendlies had to hump out of there.
50:42The X-ray troops were now ordered to march overland to two LZs.
50:47The Columbus-bound column made it without trouble, but the grunts heading for Albany ran headlong into another enemy group, trying to surprise the air mobile artillery at LZ Columbus.
50:58A nasty firefight followed.
50:59Again, the American firepower overwhelmed the attackers, and by November the 24th, the enemy was abandoning its camps in the Yadrang Valley and the Chu-pah Massif.
51:16Left behind were almost 2,000 dead and captured, plus huge amounts of supplies and weapons.
51:24The battle of the Yadrang lasted one month.
51:36Its effect was profound and long-lasting.
51:39But there was more to this war than firepower.
51:52Although the Americans inflicted grievous losses on the enemy forces, through the advantage of firepower and mobility, the enemy won by not losing.
52:03They prevented their own defeat by stalemating the American effort.
52:10Combat experience refined the chopper battle techniques and operations.
52:15The weight of the mobile artillery was reduced by 1,200 pounds.
52:19The choppers themselves were modified by installing collapsible fuel bladders holding 500 gallons of gas.
52:25Less weight meant longer range and more speed.
52:28As these and other lessons refined tactics for air support, the chopper continually made it easier for its own troops, and created incredible hardships for its enemies.
52:39The V.C. lost so many men that after 1969, they ceased to be an effective military entity.
52:47But the fighting would remain bitter, and heavy losses on both sides grew as the N.V.A. continued to supply and reinforce their divisions in the South.
53:03Without increasing the U.S. commitment, already at over 500,000 people, there could be no classic military victory.
53:11The Vietnamese communists were dedicated, hard-fighting soldiers with good military leaders, and a strategy that neutralized the tactics of the American forces.
53:25Their perseverance in the face of such overwhelming firepower was respected by their American opponents.
53:31Their losses in military personnel were staggering.
53:34By their own admission, the communist side lost over 600,000 military casualties killed.
53:43The U.S. over 58,000.
53:44Whether the military should have been committed into Vietnam or not, with the limited rules of engagement that it functioned under, will be debated for years to come.
54:04But the tactical use of the helicopter is not to be disputed.
54:08Neither is the fighting ability of our military.
54:11The American soldiers, Marines, and sailors fought courageously, inflicting grievous injuries to the enemy.
54:22The chopper proved itself reliable and tough, adaptable and powerful, and has become a mainstay of American combat tactics.
54:31A classic military weapon.
54:33This machine helped win many victories, using mobility to achieve surprise, firepower to overcome the odds.
54:42It is a final irony that this weapon also saved thousands of lives.
54:50To the men who flew in them, and to those who fought against them, Vietnam will always be remembered as the first chopper war.
54:59God willing, it will be the last.
55:02God willing, it will be the last.
55:02God willing, it will be the last.
55:31You
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