Vietnam Story

But Landing Zone X-Ray was in grave danger of being overrun. The mortarmen, set up in pits near Moore's command post, were firing both their 81-mm mortars and their rifles and were taking heavy enemy fire. One mortar was hit and knocked out. At least two others grew so hot from rapid firing that there was danger of a shell cooking off -- exploding before it left the tube. Water was scarce, so the sergeants and their gunners stood and urinated on the mortars to cool them.

Moore now ordered the reconnaissance platoon, his last reserve, to counterattack into the Charlie and Delta Company sectors, and he called in the helicopters carrying the Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion, reinforcements. He then pulled Diduryk and one of his platoons back into reserve, on alert to reinforce any section of the line that crumbled.

Moore called for all his units to mark their locations for the pilots overhead and the artillery observers by throwing colored smoke grenades. Air Force Lt. Charlie Hastings, the forward air controller, says, "On the second morning, I used the code word for an American unit in trouble and received all available aircraft in South Vietnam for close air support. We had aircraft stacked at 1,000-foot intervals from 7,000 feet to 35,000 feet, each waiting to receive a target." Two more batteries of 105-mm howitzers were deposited in Landing Zone Columbus, 2.5 miles from X-Ray, putting a total of 24 artillery pieces in support of Moore. As all that blessed relief rained down, an accident came perilously close to wiping out Moore and his command post. An Air Force F-100 Super Sabre jet mistakenly dropped two canisters of napalm into the area. Moore was shouting at Hastings, the air controller, to call off the F-100 pilot's wingman, who was about to release his napalm, too.

Sgt. George Nye of the 8th Engineer Battalion had come in with a small demolition team to help Moore's battalion. "Two of my people, Pfc. Jimmy D. Nakayama and Specialist 5 James Clark, were a few yards away, and Colonel Moore was hollering something about a wing man and I looked up," Nye recalls. "There were two planes, and one had already dropped his napalm. Then everything was on fire. Nakayama was all black and Clark was all burned and bleeding." Nakayama died. Three days later, Nye learned that Nakayama's wife had given birth to a baby girl on the day her husband was killed. Soon afterward, orders came through approving Nakayama's reserve commission as a second lieutenant.

Just after 9 a.m., with the Alpha Company reinforcements arriving, Moore shifted Diduryk's men into the battered line held by what was left of Edwards's Charlie Company. Sergeant Setelin remembers crawling along that line finding foxhole after foxhole filled with dead Americans. By 10, the enemy attack had been beaten off. Edwards and his men had held.

Afternoon. Three hours later, Moore ordered all four companies on the line to move out 300 yards to the front and police the battleground. Dead North Vietnamese and their weapons littered the area. Some enemy dead were neatly stacked behind the termite hills; thick trails of blood marked where others had been dragged away. More than 40 dead Americans were recovered and evacuated. What was left of Charlie Company was pulled out of the line.

Earlier in the day, the brigade commander, Colonel Brown, had moved the 2nd Battalion of the 5th Cavalry, led by Lt. Col. Robert Tully, to Landing Zone Victor, 2 miles from X-Ray, and told them to reinforce Moore. By noon, they were closing in on Moore's position, and what they saw stunned them. Sergeant Adams was on the line when the first of Tully's men marched in. "My God, there's enemy bodies all over this valley," the newcomer shouted. "For the last 30 minutes, we've been walking around and over and through bodies."

Moore now ordered a two-pronged attack -- by two companies of Tully's men across the slope of Chu Pong and by Herren's Bravo Company to rescue the Lost Platoon. Herren's men reached the knoll at 3:10. "When I got there I walked over to where Henry Herrick was lying dead," Lieutenant Deal recalls. "It seemed so unnatural for my friend to be lying stomach down with his face in the red dust. I looked away; I did not want to remember him that way. But I have." Sergeant Savage had not lost a single man after taking command, despite a long night and day of attacks. When Herren's men told them that it was safe to get up, not one of them moved for 5 minutes. "They just stared at us in disbelief," Deal says.