 The history of the First Division, the Big Red One, begins as far back as the Revolutionary War, when its Battery D of the Fifth Field Artillery served under Captain Alexander Hamilton. This battery has the longest record of continuous service of any unit in the United States Army. Its history runs parallel to the history of America. The Fighting First was organized as a division in World War I, when it scored the first American victory of the war at Canton Yee. In the great battles of Soissons, Saint-Michel, and the Muses-Argonne, it helped smash the German Army and end the war. During World War II, the First Division, true to its name, was in the first waves of the invasions of North Africa, Sicily, and Normandy. It smashed across France and Belgium in bloody fighting, was the first to enter Germany and helped stop the Nazis in the Battle of the Bulge in the drive to the final victory in Europe. Twenty years later, when Communist aggression in South Vietnam threatened the peace of Southeast Asia, the first full U.S. Army division sent to meet the challenge was the Big Red One. The Vietnam engagement was to be the longest and in some ways the most arduous of the wars fought by the First Division. But as always, the division lived up to its great heritage of valor and success in battle. The arrival of the First Big Red One troops in Vietnam in July 1965 was very quiet and efficient. They were moved swiftly off the beach at Comron Bay and sent to various base camps in the Saigon area. The first task was housekeeping and setting up defense perimeters. Then patrols, not only to clear the area around the base camps, but also to harden the men to the difficult climate and terrain. In all the varied combat history of the First Division, it had never fought in the soggy, humid climate of the tropics, or in the tall grass or thickets of the jungle, or in its rivers and swamps. The foot soldiers were inducted into airmobile patrols. There was contact with the enemy so that they learned something about his guerrilla tactics. But there was no big action until November. By that time, over 14,000 First Division men were in Vietnam. Their area of operations was to be a vast portion of central South Vietnam, from the Cambodian border to the South China Sea. Division headquarters was set up 20 miles north of Saigon at Ye An. Under Major General Jonathan O. Seaman, first of the five commanding generals the Big Red One was to have in Vietnam. The first of the dozens of major battles the Division would fight in Vietnam took place at the tiny village of Ap Bao Bang, north of Lai K, on Highway 13. On a sweep along Highway 13, several units of the First were hit by a reinforced Viet Cong regiment. Three enemy frontal assaults were thrown back by intense small arms fire plus automatic weapons. The fourth and heaviest Viet Cong assault was stopped by 105s, firing at closer range. As the weakened enemy fell back, the Air Force was called in to pound their escape routes. In its first engagement in jungle warfare, the men of the Big Red One fought like veterans. There were casualties, but the Viet Cong left 198 dead on the battlefield. It was more than just a victory for the tired infantrymen. It was proof they could defeat a hard fighting enemy on his own terrain. A few days later on November 20th, another road convoy turned the tables on a would-be Viet Cong ambush near Trung Loi. The convoy immediately set up a defense perimeter and returned fire. When a gunship drove the enemy from cover, heavy ground fire, especially by the mortar platoon, smashed the trap. The victory at Trung Loi was followed early in December by the biggest and most successful battle of the year. This was Ap Nyamma, northwest of Third Brigade headquarters at Ly K. A task force was searching the countryside, eliminating Viet Cong bases, blowing up bunkers and underground factories. When they ran head-on into a fortified base camp, defended by four battalions of the enemy. A violent firefight broke out immediately. A radio call for fire support brought in deadly concentrations of power supply and repeated tactical airstrikes. After two hours of fierce fighting, an infantry assault finally routed the enemy. The Big Red One had its losses, but Medevac Ambulance helicopters saved many lives by flying in to remove the wounded, even as the fighting went on. The trolls grew larger and longer as the division increased its pressure on the elusive enemy. Even so, there was time for mercy missions to the South Vietnamese. Civic action, medical supplies, skilled help, and friendliness to villagers and their children. The beginning of 1966 saw an upsurge of activity by the battle-hardened First Division, with armor playing an increasing role in campaigns like Operation Crimp and Rolling Stone, and fierce engagements like those at Tan Bien and Locay, where First Division soldiers proved at devastating cost to the enemy that they were masters of the jungle ambush. It was at Locay that the division won its first medal of honor in Vietnam in the person of First Lieutenant Robert J. Hibbs, whose 15-man patrol chopped up two Viet Cong companies. Lieutenant Hibbs was killed when he attacked an enemy machine gun to cover the rescue of one of his wounded soldiers. Under a new commanding general, Major General William E. De Pew, who took command in March, the Big Red One lashed out at the enemy in ground drives and aerosalts by helicopter. The campaigns were continuous, as task forces struck hard throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 1966 in the humid jungle on dusty roads in the vast swampy delta of the Rung Sat special zone below Saigon. Battle followed battle, as sudden swift probes took the Viet Cong by surprise. Search and clear teams swept through his sanctuaries and hiding places. Armored road marches baited the enemy into would-be ambush traps, then turned the tables with devastating effect. Vast quantities of supplies and weapons were captured as dozens of VC base camps were overrun, the toll of enemy dead and wounded rows. Operation Atalboro alone accounted for over 1,000 North Vietnamese and VC killed. Communist plans for taking the offensive were completely disrupted. By the end of 1966, the men of the Big Red One were experts in the revolutionary new tactics of air-mobile operations, which rushed troops to the battlefield with unprecedented speed and mobility. Division canineers set new records for the speed, volume and accuracy of supporting fires. Coordination with aerial support, either by gunships firing rockets or jet fighter bombers became a highly polished art. Of great benefit were the lessons learned in how to fight the guerrilla and ambush tactics of the enemy. The battle of the Mean Ton Road was a striking example. After very careful planning, a powerful armored column from the first brigade was sent on a road reconnaissance in order to lure the 272nd regiment of the crack Viet Cong 9th Division into battle. As expected, the Viet Cong tried to ambush the column. Three battalions attacked abreast along the entire 1,200-meter length of the convoy. The heavily armed column, ready and waiting, blazed back with everything it had and it had plenty. While the army held its blocking positions on the road, helicopter-born infantry was flown in to attack the Viet Cong flags. Tremendous artillery fire poured in on the numerically superior enemy. Forward air control personnel called in strike after strike, 96 sorties in all. This sustained rain of fire was too much for the Viet Cong. They broke and ran with heavy losses. The battle of the Mean Ton Road was a superb example of the combined use of armor and infantry to destroy an enemy ambush. Armor serving as a fixing force to hold the enemy in battle while infantry battalions maneuvered to hit his rear and flanks. The continuous campaigning of 1966 had familiarized the 1st Division with most of its vast area of operations, kept its lines of communication open and disrupted enemy efforts to take the initiative. Now the Division was to strike directly into Viet Cong sanctuaries. The target was the Iron Triangle, the vast jungle area which was the enemy's foremost operational base for attacks on Saigon. In January 1967, operation Cedar Falls was launched. Five infantry battalions, plus two more from the 173rd Airborne Brigade were airlifted to blocking positions to encircle the objective. Armor closed in to seal off escape routes. The main attack force struck deep inside the enemy-held jungle, so thick in places the Hueys couldn't land and the men had to descend via rope ladder. They pushed through heavy jungle, thickets and vines, waded through streams, searching for the enemy and village hideouts and underground bunkers. There was resistance as the Viet Cong sought to hold up the advance, but they invariably got the worst of it. Thirty artillery batteries laid in devastating fires. Engineer bulldozers moved in to level broad stretches of jungle to deny the VC a future hiding place. One of the most significant results of Cedar Falls was the large number of Viet Cong 576 who surrendered under the Chuy Hoi, or Open Arms Program, which encouraged enemy soldiers to join the government side. With the iron triangle made untenable for a while, the Big Red One turned its attention to another Viet Cong stronghold, Warzone C. It was suspected that insurgent headquarters was located north of the city of Tainin. Led by a new commanding general, Major General John H. Hay, who assumed command early in February, the division undertook painstaking preparations for Operation Junction City. Junction City was larger than Cedar Falls and lasted much longer, from February through April. Units from all three brigades participated. They were reinforced by troops from other U.S. divisions and separate brigades, plus rangers from Arvin, the Army of the Republic of South Vietnam. All together, 30,000 allied troops went in to clear out Warzone C. Despite this large force, there were many engagements in which units of the First Division were outnumbered. Aggressive patrols lured the enemy into attacking. When contact was established, help was called in. Additional troops rushed in by air, moving with stunning speed to reinforce the embattled defenders. Supporting fires from the ground and from the air blasted the attackers. Helicopters again proved their versatility in many ways. As air artillery. As troop carriers deploying large forces at distances and speeds that constantly took the enemy by surprise. As aerial ambulances rushing the wounded from battlefield to hospital, sometimes in minutes. As supply ships delivering vital cargo right into the hands of soldiers on the battlefield. Artillery and ammo. So that the Viet Cong, no matter how far away, was never safe from the destructive fire of the big gun. The result of Operation Junction City was the heaviest loss yet sustained by the enemy. Over 1800 dead, and the Veteran Ninth Viet Cong Division completely shattered. The big red one, hardly pausing, pressed on with more campaigns through the rest of the spring and summer. In operations Manhattan and Billings, task forces probed into enemy strongholds. In the Michelin Trapezoid area and War Zone D. Meanwhile, a different kind of campaign continuous since its inception in 1966 was operating throughout the entire First Division area. This was the revolutionary development program carried out jointly by Americans and Vietnamese to win the confidence and goodwill of the Vietnamese people, especially in villages suspected of harboring Viet Cong. The procedure was for a task force to move in unexpectedly and seal off the village. Soldiers swiftly established security by checking for mines and booby traps. Psychological warfare specialists with signs and posters explained their mission. The village was thoroughly searched for evidence of Viet Cong activity and suspects taken into custody. Then supplies were brought in and the villagers were fed and clothed. Med cap medical missions were a vital part of the pacification program, bringing badly needed treatment for a variety of ailments. While the Big Red One carried out its missions of peace and war, it also conducted an immense training program. Many of its veteran soldiers and battle leaders had gone home through the Army's yearly rotation program. Yet, thanks chiefly to mobile training teams of combat experience personnel, the 20,000 men of the division were at a peak of professionalism when the first began Operation Shenandoah II, one of its fiercest campaigns and to many veterans, the most outstanding in the division's five years in Vietnam. Shenandoah II was a series of violent battles at far-flung points on both sides of Highway 13, from Ly K, north to the area around Loc Ninh, near the Cambodian border. From September into November, the fighting raged through jungles, across rubber plantations, through wooded areas, tall grass and streams. It was often toe-to-toe slugging with the enemy. Night fighting was common, as North Vietnamese and Viet Cong troops attempted futile assaults on the American MDP's night defensive positions. The Big Red One had the advantage of highly mobile armored support and heavy firepower always on call, and fought alongside the South Vietnamese Army units. The result was inevitable, a smashing series of victories that destroyed numerous enemy bases and fortifications and left over a thousand of his troops dead. The rest retreated to their sanctuaries again, leaving Highway 13 secure. Of the eight major battles that made the Shenandoah campaign so memorable, one of the most remarkable was the battle for the airstrip at the town of Loc Ninh. Arvin and special forces soldiers came in by aerosol to drive out the Viet Cong, who held a small sector of the town. They routed the enemy from bunkers and houses in fierce attacks. The insurgents counter-attacked time and again, but were thrown back each time. The fighting raged for days, as both sides brought in more forces. The high point, however, was at the airstrip, where first division artillery had set up a fire base. The Viet Cong attacked across the airstrip in three waves, were stopped by howitzers, firing at point-blank range. There were many heroes in Operation Shenandoah II. It was a fitting tribute that it was the President of the United States who presented the awards for valor in battle. It was a well-earned respite for the Big Red One when Bob Hope and his USO troop arrived to entertain the division at Christmas. The Viet Cong Tet Offensive that opened 1968 did not take the Big Red One by surprise since some kind of all-out enemy drive was expected. When the attack struck Saigon and the US Embassy was assaulted, troops were rushed to the city. There was hard fighting. South Vietnamese soldiers did their share. There were casualties and destruction. But the inevitable result was annihilation of the insurgent force. In March, the division resumed its strong offensive tempo under a new leader, Major General Keith L. Ware, famous as a Congressional Medal of Honor winner in World War II. General Ware launched two massive campaigns in areas to the north of Saigon and northwest in the Iron Triangle. The first was Operation Witkan, and the second was Resolve to Win. The second was Operation Tongtang, which meant certain victory. The objective of these aggressive campaigns was to smash the enemy's war potential on a vast scale, kill his troops, destroy his base camps and supply dumps, interdict his supply trails and his routes for infiltration and retreat. The result was a stunning success. Most quantities of arms and materiel were found in weapons caches or were seized from the enemy who lost over 2,000 kills. General Ware also initiated Operation Giant Swap, in which a new tactical concept was applied to the Rome Plough, a standard tractor with a special cutting edge for jungle clearing. Hitler too, the Rome Plough, had been used with great effectiveness to clear large jungle areas used as enemy sanctuaries. In Giant Swap, land clearing teams used the plow to slice a network of wide trails through 11,000 acres of jungle. Instead of trying to clear the whole vast area, they divided it into many small subdivisions. The Vietcong camps hidden in the jungle were now highly vulnerable to reconnaissance in force operations and to air assault. Another notable move made by General Ware was to step up night ambush patrols so that almost every unit in the division was engaged. This tactic had a devastating effect on the enemy who had always considered themselves masters of infiltration and attack under cover of darkness. On September 13th, however, the division suffered a heavy blow. General Ware was flying over Loc Nin, observing a successful counter-attack against insurgent efforts to overrun the town for the fourth time. The General's command helicopter was shot down by ground fire. All aboard were killed. He was the fourth American general to be killed in Vietnam. The assistant division commander, Major General Orwen C. Talbot, immediately assumed command of the first and the drive continued. There was frequent contact with the enemy as strong forces pushed north, carrying out Phase 2 of Operation Certain Victory. Vietcong resistance was strong and there was hard fighting as first divisioners conducted several spoiling actions, destroying enemy camps and heavily built bunkers with intense fires supported by artillery. Among the highlights of the drive were several engagements with troops of the 1st North Vietnamese Army Division. These took place immediately across the border from Cambodia's Fish Hook area. The Big Red One had established several fire support patrol bases in the area. They were placed astride a main infiltration route used by the North Vietnamese invaders. NVA troops hurled themselves fiercely at the fire bases in repeated night attacks and met devastating fires. They were brave, but the results were always the same. Failure. Many dead. A sidelight of all Big Red One campaigns was the continuing effort to help the South Vietnamese in nation building, working with these Arvin allies in the Revolutionary Development Program. Each village was first made secure by searching it thoroughly for traces of Vietcong. Leaflets were used extensively to encourage defections to the government side. Civic action programs were put into operation to help the villagers, feeding them, attending to their medical and dental needs. Animals as well as humans were carefully ministered to with the hope that the South Vietnamese could help themselves to attain economic self-sufficiency to strengthen grassroots government. In 1969, the division continued its tremendous sweeps to keep the enemy off balance. Sometimes it struck from the skies in airmobile assaults. Sometimes on the ground in a fluid shift of tactics. Armor played a powerful supporting role in these drives to cripple the communist winter spring offensive. Powerful reconnaissance in force operations struck again and again into the iron triangle. The Michelin Trapezoid, Warzone C, and Warzone D. Battles by night, alternated with fighting by day, as Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers resisted desperately. Highly trained scout dogs sniffed out the enemy while spotter planes sought him from the air. Enemy dead littered the battlefields. Captured weapons like this communist-made AK-47 rifle were plentiful. It wasn't easy. The terrain was often rugged. And so was the fighting. There were casualties, but Medevac was always there to take out the wounded. Sometimes the enemy attacked recklessly and sometimes he holed up. Then he had to be blown out, or foot soldiers had to go in after them. These volunteers were known as tunnel rats, and no fighting men were more admired for their courage and nerve. Sometimes enemy contact was light, and there was more monotony than action. It was a welcome relief between patrols and sweeps to see the pretty face of a USO entertainer, even if she did bring along a boyfriend. For some big Red One soldiers, there was a complete change of pace. They became amphibious. In June of 69, the division began to use small fiberglass boats to patrol the river approaches to Saigon. Working in conjunction with Navy patrol craft and shore-based infantry patrols, these ski boats drastically cut down Viet Cong infiltration by water. Elsewhere, the great fighting machine of the First Division continued its relentless pursuit of the enemy under its fifth and last commanding general in Vietnam. He was Major General A.E. Malloy. Deploying its vast power with professional precision, going into battle with the high morale traditional with the Big Red One. Its fighting men struck smashing blows against Viet Cong forces concentrating north of Saigon for an autumn offensive. For the defeated enemy, it was one more bitter lesson in the futility of challenging the First Division's enormous battle power and its irresistible will to win. The war in Vietnam was winding down for the Big Red One. Early in 1970, it made its last sweep. Orders had come in to stand down to prepare for redeployment. Men and vehicles were withdrawn from the field. Much of its equipment and facilities were turned over to arvin' forces. The U.S. Army's program of Vietnamization under which the South Vietnamese Army increasingly shouldered the burden of combat operations was proving a success. Large contingents of American troops had already gone home. Now, it was the turn of the Big Red One. Early in April, the division left the last of its bases and returned to Fort Riley, Kansas almost five years after it had gone to Vietnam. April 15, 1970 was another milestone in the long, proud history of the First Division. In a colorful, heart-stirring ceremony watched by many thousands, families, relatives, friends, and dignitaries, including the Secretary of Defense, Melvin R. Laird. The First Infantry Division was renamed the First Infantry Division, mechanized. It had a new commanding general, Major General Robert R. Linville, and it had new troops. Its ranks were filled with the men from another famous fighting outfit, the 24th Infantry Division, which was deactivated. Under its new designation of mechanized, the First Division was augmented with additional armor, reflecting the vast increase in firepower and mobility of the modern U.S. Army Infantry Division. The First had a new mission, too, to support our commitment to NATO in defense of the free world. New faces, new strength, a new mission. But all of it steeped in a time-honored, hallowed tradition of service to country. And now, after almost two centuries of valorous battle deeds, the First Division looks ahead, confident that it will carry out its future tasks in the spirit of its motto. No mission too difficult. No sacrifice too great. Duty first.