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the area of operations, defeated the enemy, relieved Khe Sanh, and been extracted from the assault—only to assault again four days later into the heart of the North Vietnamese Army's bastion in the A Shau Valley.
9th Division in the Delta
While the 1st Cavalry Division was occupied in preparation for PEGASUS and in the actual relief of Khe Sanh, the U.S. 9th Infantry Division was joined with the enemy in an entirely different type of operation in the Mekong Delta. On 1 March 1968, in conjunction with several Army of the Republic of Vietnam units, elements of the 9th Infantry Division began Operation TRUONG CONG DINH in Dinh Tuong and Kien Tuong Provinces in the IV Corps Tactical Zone. By 19 April, they had accounted for 1,716 enemy killed and 999 detained, while the U.S. forces had only lost 57 men. The division, which was operating on water almost as much as on land, saw airmobility in an entirely different light than those troops fighting in the mountains and jungles in the north.
The Delta region in the IV Corps Tactical Zone stretches from the Cambodian border to the tip of the Ca Mau Peninsula. It is a heavily silted level plain area with elevations not in excess of 9 feet above sea level except in the far western area. The entire area is subject to frequent flooding. Extensive embankments had been built over the centuries to channel water into the fertile rice-producing fields. Mud flats and mangrove swamps encircled the Delta regions along the ragged coastline. Road networks were limited but hard-surfaced major roads did exist. Most of the canals carried a heavy burden of the traffic throughout the area.
The 9th Division's operations in the Delta proved to be a unique testing ground for certain of the airmobile concepts. To begin with, the Division found itself on the low order of priority for airmobile assets and, consequently, could compare its operations without airmobility to those with airmobility.
Major General Julian J. Ewell was to recall later:
"To begin with, the 9th Division worked under two rather unusual conditions which led it into a somewhat different approach to airmobile operations than other units. The Division ended up 1968 in the northern Delta area, south of Saigon, where the terrain was quite low, water-soaked and very open. As a result, ground-pounding operations were extremely difficult to conduct, and the open terrain gave one considerable flexibility in conducting airmobile operations. In addition, the enemy (although able to move freely at night) was more or less pinned