Battle of Ia Drang - Background

Background

Throughout 1963 and 1964 a series of political and military mishaps had seriously affected the capabilities of the Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) main forces in South Vietnam. ARVN commanders were initially under the direct orders from President Ngo Dinh Diem to avoid pitched combat at all costs, allowing the NLF (VC) forces (known around the world as the Viet Cong, or simply "VC") to train and grow without significant opposition, despite losing several leaders to CIA search and destroy squads which relied heavily on rocket attacks using attack helicopters. Even after Diem's overthrow in a 1963 coup, the new military leadership largely consisted of commanders put in place by Diem prior to the coup. They showed equal lack of interest in fighting the NLF, spending their time in a series of coups and counter-coups.

In this unstable political climate, the NLF (VC) units were able to mount increasingly larger military operations. At first these were limited to building up larger formations (battalions and regiments), but by late 1964 they had evolved into an all-out war against ARVN units, which they outperformed in every way. By early 1965 the majority of rural South Vietnam was under limited VC control, increasingly supported by NVA regulars from North Vietnam. By 1965 ARVN units in the field were hopelessly outclassed and being ambushed and slaughtered.

U.S. advisers in the field had long been pushing for the ARVN forces to be "taken over" by U.S. commanders. In addition to actually getting the men to fight (something they generally seemed willing to do when well-led), the U.S. command's better training and leadership were expected to be more than enough to make up for the existing deficiencies in the ARVN command. However, the newly-appointed commander of the Vietnam efforts, General William Westmoreland, felt the direct application of U.S. forces was a more appropriate solution; perhaps the ARVN units would not fight, but the same was certainly not true of U.S. Army regulars. By early 1965 he had secured the commitment of upward of 300,000 U.S. regulars from Lyndon B. Johnson, and was actively trying to get them into the field as soon as possible. Buildup of combat-ready forces took place throughout the summer of 1965.

By 1965, the VC forces were in nominal control of most of the countryside and had set up a major military infrastructure in the Central Highlands, to the northeast of the Saigon region. Vietnamese communist forces had operated in this area during the previous decade in their war against the French, winning a notable victory at the Battle of Mang Yang Pass in 1954. There were few reliable roads into the area, making it an ideal place for the communist forces to form bases that were relatively immune from attack by the generally road-bound ARVN forces. During 1965 large groups of North Vietnamese regulars of the PAVN moved into the area in order to conduct major offensive operations. Attacks to the southwest from these bases threatened to cut South Vietnam in two.

The U.S. command saw this as an ideal area to test their newly developed air mobility tactics. Air mobility called for battalion-sized forces to be delivered into, supplied, and extracted from an area of action using helicopters. Since heavy weapons of a normal combined-arms force could not follow, the infantry would be supported by coordinated air, artillery, and aerial rocket fire arranged from a distance and directed by local observers. They had been practicing these tactics in the U.S. in the newly-created 11th Air Assault Division (Test). The 11th was redesignated the 1st Cavalry Division (the 1st Cavalry had been in South Korea since the Korean War, it was redesignated the 2nd Infantry Division and its colors transferred to the 11th Air Assault (Test) at Ft. Benning Georgia just before deployment overseas.) The division's troopers dubbed themselves the Air Cav. Starting in July 1965 they began deploying to Camp Radcliff, An Khe, Vietnam. By November most of the division's three brigades were in-field and ready for operations.

In early November 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division was sent into combat on a search-and-destroy mission in order to track down a force that had unsuccessfully attempted to overrun the United States Army Special Forces base at Plei Me, about 25 miles (40 km) south of the 3rd Brigade's base of operations at Pleiku. The 3rd Brigade had searched around the base for several days but had found nothing. Westmoreland sent word to continue the search westward toward the Cambodian border, but unsure of where to look, the 3rd's commander, Col. Thomas "Tim" Brown, returned to Pleiku in an attempt to gather additional intelligence. He learned of some sort of concentration of forces on Chu Pong Mountain at 13°34′11″N 107°40′54″E / 13.56972°N 107.68167°E / 13.56972; 107.68167 (Chu Pong), 14 miles (22 km) northwest of Plei Me. Brown decided that this was likely the only lead they had and decided to test the intelligence with a reconnaissance in force.