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I recommended to General Rosson that D-day be postponed until the 19th in which he concurred. In my initial plan I had selected the area around A Luoi for the landing zones in which the 1st Brigade would make the initial assault, the 3d Brigade having made the initial assaults into Operation PEGASUS. The area around A Luoi offered better open landing zones and it gave us immediate control of the airstrip which we could improve for future operations. However, during the final days of the reconnaissance by the Air Cavalry Squadron, I could not get any assurance that an assault into the A Luoi area would not be very costly because they had encountered the heaviest antiaircraft fire right in that area. Though much had been neutralized by air strikes, new positions appeared each day and it became obvious that an alternate plan should be considered. The alternate I selected was an assault into the northern part of the valley by the 3d Brigade, since the 3d Brigade had been prepared to go into this area from the beginning. This alternate plan had several advantages. By going north first, we would immediately cut off the entries into the valley from the new highway coming in from Laos which the enemy had constructed. But, most of all, the threat from antiaircraft fire was less in this area and, after the initial assault, artillery could be placed in the northern landing zones to further neutralize the antiaircraft fire in the center of the valley. The disadvantages of this plan included the fact that we would have to use extremely limited landing zones and that we would delay securing the A Luoi airstrip.

For Operation DELAWARE the 1st Cavalry would have its own 1st and 3d Brigades and coordinate with the 3d Army of the Republic of Vietnam Regiment. The 2d Brigade of the Cavalry remained in the Khe Sanh area to secure the base and continue limited operations in that area. This left the Camp Evans area almost completely void of combat units. Consequently, the 196th Light Infantry Brigade of the Americal Division was given the mission of defense of the base at Camp Evans under operational control of the 1st Cavalry Division. As a further mission they were also designed as a reserve unit for the Corps.

On the morning of the 19th of April the 3d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division under Colonel Campbell made the initial assault into the A Shau Valley. Prior to the assault, six B-52 strikes had been delivered in the northern part of the valley and two strikes delivered on the main roads to the east. Tactical Air and artillery hit numerous targets just before the helicopters set down. Despite