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the large amount of preparatory fire, enemy antiaircraft fire was intense.
The 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry air assaulted into landing zone TIGER near the winding road into Laos, and was soon followed by its direct support artillery battery. The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry went into landing zone VICKI on the slope northeast of TIGER. Although the initial assaults of the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry and 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry were virtually unopposed by ground action, subsequent assault lifts received intense antiaircraft fire. In these later assaults, 23 helicopters were hit by ground-to-air fire and ten aircraft were destroyed. Because of the intense antiaircraft fire, deteriorating weather conditions, and the extensive engineering effort required to prepare artillery positions at landing zone VICKI, insertion of the direct support artillery battery into landing zone VICKI was aborted for that day.
To the east, the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division initiated operations out of Fire Support Base BASTOGNE with one battalion attacking to the southwest. Later in the morning of the 19th, another battalion air assaulted into the landing zone near the junction of Routes 547 and 547-A. These battalions received light to moderate contact throughout the day.
On D+1, the 3d Brigade of the 1st Cavalry continued to deploy into the northern A Shau Valley and to spread their area of operations. The 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry under Colonel Wasiak attacked to the southeast out of their original landing zone; the 2d Battalion, 7th Cavalry under Colonel Robinson began an air assault to establish a landing zone further south in the valley; and the 5th Battalion, 7th Cavalry moved to interdict Route 548 which entered the A Shau Valley from Laos.
During the first few days of Operation DELAWARE, in spite of very low ceilings, thunder storms, and heavy enemy antiaircraft fire, the 1st Cavalry Division's helicopters and the U.S. Air Force's C-130 aircraft flew repeated missions into the valley to deliver the required supplies. During the first days of the operation, navigation was strictly by pilotage.
The weather during Operation DELAWARE was almost unbelievably bad. Heavy clouds, fog, thunder storms, and low ceilings made heroic feats of airmanship almost commonplace. Not only were the conditions bad in the area of tactical operations, but even the departure area from Camp Evans had conditions which usually forced our helicopters to climb up through an overcast on instruments, reassemble a formation on top of the clouds, fly to the target area, and then search for some sort of hole in the clouds to make