 Okay, move out. They're commonplace in the war in Vietnam. Helicopters used as transports, carrying men, weapons, and materiel, soaring easily over terrain obstacles that would have immobilized ground vehicles. Helicopters bombarding the enemy with rockets, preying him with high-volume automatic weapons fire. Helicopters as aerial cavalry, swooping down from the skies to achieve the classic effects of speed and shock action, but with immensely more firepower than ground cavalry. Only a few short years ago, air-mobile operations was just an experimental doctrine, a concept never tested under actual battle conditions. It was only fitting and proper that air-mobile operations should have been first tried in combat by the First Cavalry Division of World War II in Korea fame. Writing helicopters instead of horses or mechanized vehicles, it was renamed the First Cavalry Division Air-Mobile. The air-mobile concept of using organic army aircraft to perform the combat functions of wheeled and tracked vehicles was carefully developed and tested in two-and-a-half years of intensive effort at the Army's Great Infantry Training Center, Fort Benning, Georgia. These revolutionary innovations were tried out by an experimental organization known as the Eleventh Air Assault Division. Its trained cadres and tested equipment provided a major component of the First Cavalry Division Air-Mobile when it was activated July 1st, 1965. Shortly afterward, it received orders to move from Fort Benning to South Vietnam. Its mission? To set up an air-mobile base in the central highlands of Vietnam. This base was called Anche. It set many precedents as an air-mobile combat base of operations. It was built around helipads. Compactness was a prime element in design. To make the base as impregnable as possible, it was encircled by a cleared strip 100 meters wide. Howitzer batteries were dug in ready to deliver pre-planned artillery fire on potential enemy mortar sites. The posts of riflemen and machine gunners dotted the perimeter of the base on watch day and night while combat patrols scoured the area on foot. Within the base, military police manned additional checkpoints and barriers. Another security force was posted on top of a mountain overlooking the base. Because of this strong web of defenses, Anche could be protected by a minimum number of men leaving the rest free to hunt down the enemy. So highly trained and motivated was the division that the Anche base serving every type of fixed wing and rotary aircraft was completed in record time. The army's first air-mobile division was ready to prove itself in battle only two months after being sent to Vietnam. The division was given a vast tactical area of responsibility ranging from the South China Sea to the Cambodian border and approximately 150 miles from north to south. Only certain parts of the coastal plain and nearby valleys were built up and populated. The interior of the operational zone was sparsely settled. Its highlands and mountains were thickly covered with jungle and forest. Into this wild, rugged environment, wholly favorable to a wily enemy skilled in guerrilla warfare the Sky Cavalry launched its first air assaults in September and October of 1965. Though limited in scope, these engagements with the enemy proved that the helicopter had brought remarkable new advantages to the strategy and tactics of ground warfare. Greater mobility for infantry forces and supporting artillery. Additional firepower, quick-firing howitzers on the ground. We're supplemented by aerial rocket artillery. As well as high-volume machine gun fire. Reconnaissance by fire gained ineffectiveness. When door gunners swept suspected areas of concealment with machine gun bursts the enemy was provoked into shooting back thus revealing his presence and location. Command posts could be made air-mobile so that unit commanders were able to direct air and ground attacks from a vantage point right over the battlefield. Equipment damaged in the field could be retrieved by air, swiftly repaired and returned to battle. Logistics operations were speeded up enormously. Vital cargo was delivered in record time right into the hands of troops in the battle zone. Helicopters as flying ambulances saved many lives. Carrying the wounded from firing line to field hospital, sometimes in a matter of minutes. All these advantages of air-mobile warfare were confirmed in the first days of combat. This early baptism by fire gave the Division invaluable experience for its first major engagement, the Plaku Campaign. This was to have historic significance. For many years, North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces had been operating with impunity in the area of Plaku Province. Securing a remote sanctuary near the Cambodian border a North Vietnamese Army Division was getting ready for a major offensive. This was to be a powerful thrust eastward with the ultimate objective of cutting South Vietnam in two. The first step in this plan was carried out on October 13th when the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacked the Special Forces Camp at Playa Naye. This attack was meant to lure the South Vietnamese and ascending a strong relief force to the aid of Playa Naye. Another North Vietnam Army regiment, the 32nd, was waiting in ambush along the line of March. The trap was sprung on the unwary arvan troops on October 24th. It almost succeeded. However, the South Vietnamese fought back strongly even though taken by surprise. The first cav was called to the rescue. Air assault infantry was rushed into the jungle to secure an artillery landing zone. They were sent from the Division's advanced command post at Plaku to an area close to the ambush site north of Playa Naye. Known as LZ Field Go, this area was immediately occupied by artillery flown in from Plaku. These guns supported the arvan troops in their effort to break out of the ambush and protected the relief column when it resumed its march to Playa Naye. At the same time, another battery harassed the North Vietnamese 33rd Regiment attacking the Special Forces Camp. This shelling was so accurate, the MVA broke off its siege and withdrew to the west. As a result, the Air Cav's limited role was changed. By order of General Westmoreland, it was sent on an all-out offensive to find and engage the enemy, thus blocking further attack plans. Air Cavalry Squadrons promptly searched large areas west of Playa Naye, seeking out communist forces concealed in the lush foliage below. Helicopters swooped down to skin the ground at low level, sweeping the landscape with reconnaissance by fire to provoke the enemy into revealing himself. Next, infantry battalions were air assaulted deep into North Vietnamese strongholds. The rifle companies were dispersed over several landing zones. Each company set out patrols to search aggressively for the enemy. On November 1st, 1965, the Skytroopers hit Maynard. They attacked and overran an enemy outpost on the Yate, the Teh River, a full-sized battle erupted when the North Vietnamese Army threw in a battalion of men against three Air Cav platoons. However, helicopter troop carriers took off night and day, pouring reinforcements onto the battlefield. It was a brilliant display of the air mobility to replace combat weary and wounded soldiers with fresh troops. Assisted by deadly accurate artillery support, air force tactical strikes, and aerial rocket artillery, the troopers chopped up the NVA 33rd Regiment that had besieged Playa Naye. The enemy was forced to withdraw to its base camp at Anta Village in the Yadrang Valley. The North Vietnamese were stopped cold for the moment. The 1st Cav continued to push westward in its relentless search for the enemy, licking its wounds in its hideouts in the Yadrang Valley. As part of this continuing search, a battalion of Skytroops flew into a tiny landing zone. Soon to be famous under the name of LZ X-Ray. LZ X-Ray was a clearing deep in the valley of the Yadrang and located at the foot of the mountains of the Choupon Massif in the very heart of enemy country. The NVA, reinforced by units of the newly infiltrated 66th Regiment, made an all-out effort to destroy the air-caved battalion. Their idea evidently was to make X-Ray the scene of a miniature Dien Bien Phu. They had not reckoned on the valor of the Skytroopers, who fought all the more fiercely when units were cut off and temporarily isolated from their comrades in arms. Nor did the enemy understand how the seemingly unprotected infantryman could call in the support of air-mobile artillery with such unbelievable speed. Shelled incessantly. Blasted by aerial rockets. Seared with fiery strikes by U.S. Air Force fighter bombers. The NVA was drenched in a rain of fires that decimated his attacking forces. The Skytroopers had to pay a price, but they had turned the Communist plan into a disastrous nightmare. The enemy losses in dead and wounded were tremendous. Once more, the enemy survivors withdrew to regroup their broken units, but they were hounded by demoralizing B-52 raids that pounded them in their mountain strongholds. The X-ray victors were ordered to get out of the way of the B-52 bombings by marching overland to two landing zones. One was an artillery landing zone dubbed LZ Columbus, and the other was for helicopters, its name LZ Aldenay. The Columbus-bound unit reached the LZ without incident. But the truth was that the LZ Aldenay ran headlong into a strong enemy column marching to attack the air-mobile artillery at LZ Columbus. A fierce firefight resulted. It was, in the end, another disaster for the enemy. By November 24th, the NVA was recoiling in defeat, abandoning its camps in the Yardrang and the Chupong Mountains. They retreated, taking their way to the LZ. Left behind were almost 2,000 enemy dead in prisoners, plus large stores of supplies and many weapons. The Plaku Campaign, better known to first-cav-men as the Battle of the Yardrang Valley, was over. Its effect was profound and long-lasting. The American victory proved that the LZ Aldenay was the only country in the United States The American victory proved that the best of the enemy forces, North Vietnam Army Regulars, could be stopped cold and destroyed in their own sanctuaries. No longer could the communists hope to win the war on the battlefield. Most important to the men of the 1st Cavalry Division, Yardrang had proved beyond question the soundness of the air-mobile approach to ground warfare. It was a well-deserved award when the air-cav received a presidential unit citation for the entire division and its supporting units. An award so rare, it had been made only five times in Army history. The division's main thrust in 1966 turned toward the Central Coastal Region of South Vietnam, particularly in the area of Bong Son, a town which gave the campaign its name. Strong air-mobile forces carried out a lightning series of forays against the Viet Cong, who held over 140,000 people in subjection. Each operation was carried out with polished efficiency, using tactics now thoroughly tested in battle. Devastating pre-strike bombardment by Air Force fighter bombers. Attached supporting artillery. Gunships darting in to strafe the landing zone perimeter with rocket fire. Automatic weapons. Infantry assault waves rushing from troop carriers to set up a defense line on the LZ perimeter, while succeeding waves of riflemen advanced through them. Beginning with an airlift into the An Lao Valley, the troopers pushed through all kinds of terrain in their pursuit of the enemy. They routed out the VC from well-camouflaged nests of bunkers and tunnels. The fighting was bitter, and casualties inevitable. By the spring of 1966, scores of villages had been flushed to the enemy, and hundreds of suspects identified for questioning. The immediate threat to Bong Son and other coastal cities was ended. In the operations that followed during the rest of the year, Thayer, Pershing, John Paul Jones, Paul Revere, and many more, the first Cav, often working with Arvin or Korean troops, continued to clear the huge rice-producing province of Bendin of VC control. The cavalrymen took time whenever they could to feed the liberated South Vietnamese who had been stripped of their crops by the Vietcong. Many Vietnamese received medical care for the first time for ailments that had afflicted them all their lives. The speedy air-mobile assaults of the first Cav brought impressive results, as many NVA soldiers surrendered, bringing large quantities of their weapons with them. With every operation, the first Cav continued to improve its air-mobile techniques. One lesson learned was to travel as light as possible. Troopers carried only weapons, ammo, and two canteens of water, depending on helicopters for further supply. The artillery learned how to be weight watchers, too. The M102 version of the 105-millimeter holizer was 1200 pounds lighter than the earlier model. Bokey radio equipment was scaled down in size and weight. This assembly of two radio sets and an intercom was reduced from 600 to 150 pounds. Collapsible fuel bladders, each with a 500-gallon capacity, replaced metal containers, and were air-transportable. This technical ingenuity, always air-mobile oriented, paid off as operations rolled on into 1967, with Pershing, Wheeler, Jeb Stewart, and others. The pressure on the enemy never relented as the choppers took to the air day and night in foul weather as well as fair. Nowhere in this wild, trackless country was the Viet Cong safe from air-mobile probes. They were pursued deep into the jungle, sawed out high on mountaintops. They were challenged in their most distant hideouts. It made no difference that the first Cav men who had come to Vietnam in 1965, the original first team, had all been rotated home. It was a completely fresh division now, but it was still very much the first team. They took over with smooth professionalism, planning each operation minutely, then lashing out at the Viet Cong with swift, stunning air assaults. The most battle-hardened enemy troops broke under the rain of fires that lashed at them incessantly from the air, and from the ground, as giant 8-inch howitzers reinforced the air-mobile batteries. Throughout 1967, the first Cav troopers constantly took the initiative, showing that they too could use the cutting arts of guerilla warfare, stalking the enemy across rice paddies, swamps through jungle and forest, frequently stopping to slug it out in one firefight after another, virtually toe-to-toe, breaking his will to resist, destroying him when he took refuge in tunnel or bunker. The toll among the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese rose steeply, with a record number killed in Operation Jeb Stewart. While scores of others surrendered. It was a grind, but only the troopers' feet tired, not their fighting spirit. They were heartened by the armor that joined the ground forces whenever terrain allowed. Armored personnel carriers and foot soldiers spraying enemy positions with machine gun fire, small arms, grenades. These spoiling actions kept the enemy off balance, forcing him repeatedly to abort attack plans. When he chose to fight because of superior numbers, the first CAV poured in reinforcements with air-mobile swiftness. This quick reaction capability paid off early in 1968. When the Viet Cong launched its Tet offensive against South Vietnamese cities, diversionary tactics to pin down first CAV units were quickly thrown back by the fast-moving, hard-fighting Skytrucks. Not long afterward, the Air CAV men played a major role in the relief of Que Son, where a marine regiment and South Vietnamese troops were encircled by North Vietnam Army units. To relieve them, elements of the first CAV were committed to Operation Pegasus in April of 1968. Jumping off from an advanced base at LZ Stud, the Skytroopers set out to link up with the defenders of Que Son. Resistance was light. The air-cavalry men easily broke through and found Que Son to be a very dusty place. When the dust settled, it was business as usual for the Skytroopers. The aerial supply chain went into high gear. Attack plans were made with the usual first CAV deficiency. The troopers went about the job they knew and liked best. To engage the enemy, Harris and punish him with firepower. Men fearlessly closed with him, storming the bunkers and strong points with which he had surrounded the marine base. This cleanup operation was pursued vigorously into the summer of 1968, when Que Son, having outlived its strategic usefulness, was closed down. The northwest corner of South Vietnam, where Que Son is located, has a long irregular border in common with Laos. It is ideal country for infiltration. The North Vietnamese were quick to move troops and supplies into the remote Achao Valley, via the Ho Chi Minh Trail. High in the mountains, the valley is covered with a triple canopy jungle, 100 feet tall, and shrouded in fog and mist 10 months of the year. This near-perfect sanctuary was broken into by the air-cavalry men in the spring of 1968. The flying troopers coordinated their battle actions with paratroopers of the 101st Airborne Division and the South Vietnamese Army. Murderously heavy fire from high-altitude anti-aircraft guns attempted to turn back the Achao invasion. Several aircraft were lost, but the troop-carrying choppers made their touchdown. The cavalrymen found an extensive road net, but few signs of the enemy in person. There was little resistance. The North Vietnamese had literally run for the hills. The cavalrymen consoled themselves with the knowledge that they had captured, virtually intact, one of the greatest storehouses of weapons and war material ever assembled by the communists in South Vietnam. The air-cav met each blow with lightning-swift counterblows, sending its air-mobile power ranging far and wide to support other units of the Allied forces in combined operations. The primary confident in its brilliant battle record and the success of its air-mobile doctrine, now accepted throughout the United States Army, the 1st Cav continues to serve far from home as long as needed. The pioneering days of air-mobile operations are past. Changes and improvements impend. Bigger, more powerful army aircraft promising even more effective helicopter tactics. In these advances, the 1st Cavalry Division air-mobile will as always lead the way.