Combat Operations After Action Report — Pleiku Campaign (23 Oct – 26 Nov 1965)

The 1st Cavalry Division's own 128-page Combat Operations After Action Report for the Pleiku Campaign, 23 October – 26 November 1965 — the division's first major campaign in Vietnam, fought in Pleiku Province (II Corps) in the Plei Me / Chu Pong / Ia Drang area. It documents Operation Long Reach and its three phases: "All the Way" (1st Brigade, 27 Oct – 9 Nov), "Silver Bayonet I" (3d Brigade, 9–18 Nov, which contained the LZ X-Ray and LZ Albany fights of the Battle of Ia Drang), and "Silver Bayonet II" (2d Brigade and the ARVN Airborne, 18–26 Nov).

Relevance to this archive. The report's day-by-day operations summary for 4 November 1965 records the 2nd Battalion, 8th Cavalry's action that day — the engagement in which D Company lost SGT Coffey, PFC Hamill, and CPL Hill (see the casualty event). At 1130 the battalion Reconnaissance platoon, operating out of Position "Cavalair," made contact with an estimated two NVA companies near grid ZA978050; two platoons of A Company were committed at 1210; artillery and tactical air broke the enemy, who left 12 captured and 14 dead on the field, with more carried away. C Company relieved A Company, and the elements closed back into Position "Cavalair" for the night. The report also fixes Hill 732 at grid YA885106 as the 33rd Regiment's command post, which the regiment was ordered to vacate that same day.

The report's "Position Cavalair" is almost certainly the "LZ Cavalier" to which D Co medic SP4 David "Doc" Wilson says he was evacuated that evening — the official report and the medic's first-person account independently describe the same ground.

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Pleiku Campaign After Action Report (PDF)

Source: Headquarters, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), 1965 (cf. DTIC AD0855112). Original held in the cavair research folder.