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early 1st Cavalry operations was done for several reasons, not the least of which was the maintenance requirement.

It has been said, with a certain amount of truth, that the Army refused to face up to the price that must be paid for airmobility. As a consequence, its organizations have usually been short of the necessary maintenance, supply, and security personnel. Part of this chronic shortage resulted from a long-standing battle between the "user" and the logisticians. Understandably since the early concept of an airmobile division, the tactical commander has wanted organic maintenance detachments down to the battalion level. This gives him the maximum responsiveness and a great deal of flexibility. From a logistician's viewpoint, such decentralization is a fragmentation of scarce skills and expensive special tools.

The tests of the 11th Air Assault Division included an extensive evaluation of what was known as the A-B-C maintenance concept. In this concept, the A-level was organic to the battalion and was designed to do all that repair which would return a helicopter to operable status within four hours. The B-level was organic to the division and could do all echelons of maintenance short of depot repair. The C-level provided that echelon of aircraft repair beyond the capability of the direct support levels.

While the 11th Air Assault tests conceded that the A-B-C system worked, the logisticians convinced the Department of the Army that it was impractical to field the 1st Cavalry Division in the time required using this maintenance concept. As a consequence, An Khe became a sophisticated fixed maintenance and supply depot which would inhibit tactical planning for some time to come.

By mid-October 1965, the North Vietnamese Army had begun its major operation in the Central Highlands. There is every reason to believe that it planned to cut South Vietnam in two at this time, for three North Vietnamese Army regiments had assembled in western Pleiku Province and adjacent Cambodia. On 19 October, the enemy opened his campaign with an attack on the Pleime Special Forces Camp twenty-five miles southwest of Pleiku. On 27 October, General Westmoreland directed General Kinnard to move his 1st Cavalry Division and seek out and destroy this enemy force consisting of the 32d, 33d, and 66th North Vietnamese Army Regiments. This became the month-long campaign known as The Battle of the Ia Drang Valley.

Initially the 1st Cavalry Division reinforced the South Vietnamese Army in relieving the Pleime Camp, and the North Viet[namese]