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a violent attack at all sectors of the perimeter, covering his assaults with an intense barrage of grenade and rocket launcher projectiles. The intensity and violence of the incoming fire indicated an assault by at least a battalion-sized unit.

Both companies fought bravely side-by-side for nearly two hours. Enemy riflemen came within a few feet of foxhole positions before being killed, and the ammunition in the perimeter began running alarmingly low. The approach of another relief company—Company C, 1st Battalion, 12th Cavalry—moving up from HEREFORD, apparently caused the enemy to break contact. As the enemy riflemen faded back into the jungle, the men in the perimeter already had fixed bayonets and had loaded their last magazines in their rifles.

When the smoke cleared, casualties were counted. Bravo had lost 25 killed, and 62 wounded. Alfa had 3 killed and 37 wounded. There were 38 enemy bodies found within or immediately adjacent to the friendly perimeter. Later evidence indicated that as many as 200 additional enemy had died in the fight. (Long afterward, in upper Binh Dinh Province, a North Vietnamese soldier surrendered to the Division. He said that his battalion had been involved in the battle against B Company and testified that his company had been decimated.)

For Bravo Company, the remainder of 17 May was spent evacuating dead and wounded. For the 1st Cavalry Division, Operation CRAZY HORSE had begun.

The rest of the action took place in the most mountainous and heavily forested area in the province, far from the lowlands. Because of the extraordinarily difficult terrain, aircraft commanders found themselves carrying a maximum load of only two or three soldiers as they went into "elevator shaft" single helicopter landing zones in the triple canopy hilltops, where the aircraft would barely fit in a circle of giant tree trunks. Chinooks hovered over the jungle so that the men could climb down swaying "trooper ladders" through the triple canopy. Nevertheless, in the three weeks of CRAZY HORSE, over 30,000 troops moved by helicopter—an example of the tactical value of airmobility in mountain operations.

The battleground was a complex morass, 3,000 feet from bottom to top and 20 kilometers square. In the fighting it soon became clear that the 2d Viet Cong Regiment was bottled up in these rugged hills, but the Division's companies were having trouble in finding and attacking this elusive enemy. In a new plan, the Division marked off the battle area into pie-shaped sectors and moved the airmobile companies to the outer edges on all sides to set up a