Talk:Battle of Ia Drang

Some minor edits

I'm a newbie at Wikipedia. I don't know if adding this to the talk page is necessary but I thought I would list some changes I made anyway. On 7/29/05 I edited lots of little things here and there. I'm pretty sure "battalion" and "regiment" should be capitalized when they refer to a specific unit. I retyped "1/7" as "1st Battalion, 7th Cav," and so forth. I rewrote several sentences which I thought confusing. Also, when listing casualties the original article called the US dead "soldiers" but the PAVN dead "fighters." If I understand correctly, the PAVN troops were regulars and therefore should also be considered soldiers. As it was I changed both to "killed." Good day and happy editing, -Schmitty3347

I suppose your decision to change 1/7 to "1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry" is justified given the fact that we are dealing with general readership, but allow me to say that soldiers would simply have said, "the first of the seventh" and let it go at that. That's the rationale for 1/7, I believe.

Terry J. Carter (talk) 04:45, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Why isn't this article entitled the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley? I have been a student of the conflict since it was going on and I have never heard it refferred to as anything else (with the exception of Operation Silver Bayonet of which it was the major action). RM Gillespie 23:05, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Hm... I'll poke around my book collection here and see what the consensus of my bookshelf is, but if you can find us some cites for that, it'd probably help too. Then it'd be as simple as renaming this article and dropping a redirect from the old title to the new one.--Raguleader 01:57, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Info Box, Commanders

So, I went in to edit the info box entry to put in Colonel Brown's first name, and I noticed that the entry also included Lt. Colonel Moore and Lt. Colonel McDade as the commanders of their own Battalions. The thing is, these last two bits don't show up in the template. Does anyone know how to modify it so they fit?--Raguleader 13:28, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, fixed the name formating in the info box, also fixed the name of the unit Colonel Brown commanded (the 7th Cavalry Division is part of the 3rd Brigade, not vice versa). Now the infobox looks cluttered with all the American officers on the side. Since Lt. Col. Moore and Lt. Col. McDade commanded their units in seperate actions in the battle, and Colonel Brown was in overall command, I'm not sure if we can remove any of them. Is there some standard for dealing with this, or are we just not worried?--Raguleader 13:39, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

Grr... OK, it's apparantly the 7th Cavalry Regiment, not Division. *slaps forehead* Since a Brigade is part of a Division, this is probably where the original confusion on whether the 7th was part of the 3rd to begin with. Fixed now. *goes to find coffee*--Raguleader 13:44, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I went in and fixed all. Without going into a lot of detail, the hierarchy is as shown. Brown was the overall commander, Moore the on-scene commander, and McDade's battalion the one ambushed at Albany.--131.238.92.62 12:01, 18 April 2006 (UTC)

Is there any information available on the NVA/VC order of battle and their commanders? Does anyone want to add it in for the Infobox?--Raguleader 20:21, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

Difference Between Casualty Figures in Article and Side Box

The article states "The U.S. lost 234, with 242 wounded ... The PAVN lost 1,037 killed with an estimated 1,365 wounded."

However, the side box says 234/242 and 837/1365. Any reason for the discrepancy between 1037 and 837? Also, should the 1365 in the side-box read "1365 est." since it is an estimate, but the other figures (as far as I know) are not?

-Anonymous

Also, American strength is listed in the side box as 395 men but casualties are "239 dead, 242 wounded." Furthermore, "The PAVN forces had suffered thousands of casualties and were no longer capable of a fight" according to the article's text but the total North Vietnamese casualties are less than 1,000 in the side box. The information is wrong either in the text or the side box, or maybe both. -KS 1/6/07

Good grief, what happened to the numbers now? This is from the source it links to:

Overall, Kinnard's forces suffered 305 killed and 524 wounded during the campaign while killing, according to official records, 1,519 of the enemy by body count and another 2,042 by estimate. The figures for the enemy's losses... are open to doubt. At X-RAY Colonel Moore ... reduced the total of 834 killed submitted by his men to 634 because the former figure seemed too high.

The numbers in the info box don't seem to resemble that at all. Abeall (talk) 22:22, 26 August 2008 (UTC)

The figures of casualties in this article (particularly the side box) are atrociously incorrect. For both American and NVA troops. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.19.3 (talk) 18:47, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

Overhauling this Article

Hi,

I'm new to Wikipedia, but I did my university thesis on the Vietnam War and am really interested in the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley. I couldn't believe there was so little information in this article beyond the technical aspects of the battle. Therefore, I'm overhauling this article to provide a more human side to the battle. My primary source is Moore & Galloway's We Were Soldiers Once...And Young.

If I make any factual errors, please do not hesitate to correct me. Otherwise, please give me a few days to get everything in and the formatting right before making any significant changes.

Thanks!

James Cameron

March 6/06

Detail of Article

March 8/06

I realize that I have included a significant amount of detail in this article, including the names of many officers and enlisted personnel involved in the battle. I have not yet finished this page, so please bear with me a few more days.

The purpose of including this much detail is so that interested individuals who have had relatives or friends who were at the Ia Drang may know what their loved ones did and underwent in this battle. I have purposely avoided providing details that would be troubling for those who may have known the combatants (such as detailed causes of death, for example).

While all of this information and much more is available in Moore and Galloway's book (in fact, it's my primary source), my hope is to respectfully inform those who knew the combatants of the Ia Drang (or any veterans of the Ia Drang who may read this article). For those who have never known these men but wish to honour their experience (like myself), the purpose of this page is to provide information on what I believe is among the most interesting and tragic battles of the War.

For those who are interested in learning more, I highly recommend the LZ X-Ray site and We Were Soldiers Once...And Young - which, in my view, is one of the best war books ever written.

James Cameron

Canada

I found this article fascinating, it had excellent detail. Well done on researching the content. I did a little cleanup while I was here. ~ Flooch 13:17, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

Please Remove a Redirect, Thanks

Sometime ago I started a page called "Landing Zone X-Ray" to be about the place in present-day reality, not about the battle. Now I have all my research complete but the page redirects here. Would someone please detach or remove the redirect so I can just write the page out as I initally intended it to be? (I'm planning to use TerraServer or Google Earth to pinpoint the exact field or sunnink like that, but now I can't since the page is gone. Also I want a clear assurance that the embleer hraka rah who did this to me is stopped and will never do it again. Thank you all so much!) --Shenshuai 16:48, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

Force strength

Would the number given for American forces include both Colonel Moore's and Colonel McDade's men combined? I'm pretty sure that would be far more than 395, though any counts should take care to remember that Lieutenant "Hard Corps" Rescorla's platoon fought in both actions.--Raguleader 21:44, 10 December 2006 (UTC)

only 16 Americans not dead or wounded?

Come on.

Also, the second battle has only one paragraph (and should have even separate article). --HanzoHattori 06:02, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

This is probably related to the strangely low number of American soldiers listed as being present. 395 men would be a single battalion, while there were as many as three American battalions involved in the battle (only two involved in any major ways, with Colonel Moore's battalion fighting at X-Ray and Colonel McDade's battalion fighting at Albany.--Raguleader 10:23, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Agreed with the second point though BTW. The Albany fight really deserves its own article. But what to call it? In most histories it's covered under Ia Drang. Maury 13:51, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

LZ Albany ambush? --HanzoHattori 07:59, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

NVA losses

http://www.vietnampix.com/fire3.htm says "2500 dead". --HanzoHattori 07:57, 2 April 2007 (UTC)

The historical account of this battle in the book "We Were Soldiers Once... And Young" places the figure of NVA losses much higher than listed here as well. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.64.19.3 (talk) 18:45, 6 June 2011 (UTC)

references

Shouldn't the references section be "notes" and be formatted as "Moore p. 219" instead of numbingly listing the whole title, and ISBN number for each ref? You can put that once in a section called references and just keep the surname and page number in the renamed notes section can't you? SGGH ^speak! 19:16, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

It should, but it's more difficult than you think because they might get moved around. This should really be automated in the CITE system, but don't hold your breath. Maury 19:47, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

I'm confused (Albany)

The Second Battalion, 7th Cavalry lost 155 men killed and suffered 124 wounded, while Bravo Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry and Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry both suffered only 2 wounded? --HanzoHattori 08:57, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Battle of Ia Drang - French battle

If my memory is correct , there was a battle where the French were annihilated a few years before the American battle but on the same valley. Is this a fact?

--YoavD 06:19, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

You may be referring to the Battle of Mang Yang Pass which also took place in the Central Highlands. -- • Kurt Guirnela • ‡ ^Talk 10:40, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

First Battle?

This was NOT the first major US combat operation in Vietnam. Operation Gibraltar involving the 2/502nd and 2/327th infantry battalions of the 101st Airborne Division took place two months prior in September 1965. There were significant American casualties in this engagement, and it involved at least two American battalions pitted against a well entrenched Main Force VC battalion--certainly criteria for a "major battle". I'm changing that line in the article, and added a reference to Operation Gibraltar. Don't know how to add a citation, but here are some references:

"In mid-September, elements of the 2nd of the 502nd won the honor of first defeating a Viet Cong main force unit, before any other U.S. unit." (http://bastogne.org/regiment_history/vietnam.html),

"...the battalion deployed to Vietnam in 1965 and fought the Division’s first engagement from the 18th to the 20th of September as part of Operation Gibraltar." (http://pao.hood.army.mil/1stcavdiv/units/2-12cav/history.htm). -- —Preceding unsigned comment added by 214.13.209.200 (talk • contribs)

You may have proven your point. The initial introductory paragraphs will be modified to remove references to Ia Drang being the first major battle of US forces. However, it will contain no references to Operation Gibraltar, as that deserves its own article. -- • Kurt Guirnela • ‡ ^Talk 02:30, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

Btw, the article specifically points out the fact that Ia Drang is "the first major battle of the Vietnam War between the United States Army and the People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN). Operation Gibraltar involved US troops and Main Force VC; hence, some users might revert edits made concerning the introductory paragraph on the strength of that argument. -- • Kurt Guirnela • ‡ ^Talk 02:39, 29 July 2007 (UTC)

It was PAVN not VC. LTG(Ret) Charles Dyke refers to "the ill-fated airlift of the 2nd Battalion, 502nd Infantry into a confined, narrow valley ringed by a battalion of well dug-in PAVN 95th Regiment" in a letter to the editor in September 1989 issue of Army Magazine in response to a book review of David Hackworth's book About Face. Then MAJ Dyke was the S3 (battalion operations officer) of 2/327th IN at the time of Operation Gibraltar.

Another perspective

I'm uncertain of the availability of PAVN accounts of this battle, but right now it reads as being very US-centric. Not that its bad...actually it's sort of a gripping narrative account, but it would add some colour and improve the historical context to provide at least part of the North Vietnamese side in this engagement. if a reliable source could be found, that would really improve this article. Antimatter---talk--- 22:08, 7 August 2007 (UTC)

Yes, Vietnam should talks.

Here is the PAVN take "We sent our men into the field and they were turned into ground beef by accurate and sustained US artillery." No sarcasm intended, but how could it NOT be US centric when the battle under Moore's command (that is, the initial engagement at the LZ but not including the idiotic orders to march and then be ambushed subsequently) achieved better than 8:1 casualties against the NVA. Insofar as the strategic purpose of the battle from the US side was to test the utility of air cavalry mobilized warfare, it was a stellar success and showed the NVA that they were NOT fighting the French any more. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.137.139.119 (talk) 04:04, 12 May 2008 (UTC)

See description of "Talk" pages at the top - this is not a discussion board for the article's topic, and your comment has no relevance to Wikipedia:POV. Universaladdress (talk) 05:13, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

I fully agree with the unsigned opinion that opens this thread. For example, article accounts for heroisms by U.S. soldiers, but it's possible that there are heroism acts also on the other side this article doesn't tell of. As it is, IMHO the article seems to be a little too U.S.-centric (POV?). To obtain the netrality wikipedia should have, the Vietnamese point of view should be considered. If information for the Vietnamese side are not alvailble, IMHO such thing should be stressed at the beginning of the article. Thank you for your attention. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.40.190.21 (talk) 20:26, 2 March 2009 (UTC)

 You must remember that Vietnamese speakers are rare, and most of Vietnam War sources are from U.S "researchers". It's easier to seek for chinese sources, or any american recent revisionist research material. It's hard...  Also, how could they have such precise estimatives (americans) about enemy casualties if they (U.S troops) left the battlefield and had no precise idea about enemy strenght at and after the Battle? This is a bit of a nonsense IMO.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by RdClZn (talk • contribs) 20:31, 24 February 2012 (UTC) 

With Gibson movies?

What's the accuracy when this battle is compared to We were soldiers? There are many differences execpt the Alabny ambush?--Stefanomencarelli 00:13, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

The bulk of this article is sourced from Col. Moore's and Galloway's book. The movie took much artistic license and should not be treated as a "factual" account of the battle, although there are similarities. -- • Kurt Guirnela • ‡ ^Talk 04:07, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

Battle outcome

Rather than starting an edit war in the infobox about the outcome, may I suggest that editors working on this article ensure that the outcome is properly referenced and that consensus is reached here. Socrates2008 (Talk) 09:32, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Accuracy of the term Viet Cong as used in this article

In September 13th 2007 editor Civil Engineer III, in an attempt to reduce POV, changed nearly every mention of the words enemy and communist to Viet Cong, even though in many instances the words enemy and communist probably did not refer to NLF or PLAF but to PAVN. Perhaps Civil Engineer III was not well informed of the differences between People's Liberation Armed Forces a.k.a. Viet Cong and People's Army of Vietnam, and, hence, was prone to confusing the two. Could someone more knowledgeable please go through the article and change these possibly incorrect references to something more appropriate? Thank you. --130.234.5.137 (talk) 14:49, 19 May 2008 (UTC)

Changed to "Vietnamese" or "enemy" when in context. --RamboKadyrov (talk) 12:39, 20 December 2008 (UTC)

Just for the sake of discussion I am wondering at the classification of this battle as a "draw."

Is this for political correctness, because it seems to me that around 1,500 enemy dead vs. around 500 U.S. dead is a victory. Is it because the U.S. forces left the field of battle? I could understand this although because of the unconventional nature of the war, gaining and holding territory had little if no meaning. Just wondering.

By the way, I did a search of other source material on Ia Drang Valley and couldn't find anything on amazon.com anyway. I certainly would very much like to have the other sides views, comments and any heroism on their part. As a vet of Nam yet after 40 years even I have some sense of reconciliation and can recognize that in their view the enemy then were fighting a war of liberation and many men and women on their side have very interesting and important stories to tell.

98.165.79.166 (talk) 15:06, 13 April 2010 (UTC)TDurden1937

Again, this is not a discussion board to debate the merits of "political correctness" or your point of view on the subject. Please keep such comments to other websites where they will be more appropriate. Universaladdress (talk) 05:16, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

The result?

It was a US victory. Vietnamese forces were in retreat when US troops left the valley.

---

Actually the most fair result is a N. Vietnam Strategic victory and a US Tactical victory.

Retreat? According to who? The NVA owned the valley!

---

Yes the NVA did own the valley however both sides got what they wanted, the US wanted to destroy the NVA that was in the valley but had no desire to control it thus making a tactical move. The NVA controlling the valley once US forced arrived wanted to remove the US so they could still control that valley thus making it a strategic move. The US got what they wanted of destroying the NVA division while the NVA got what they wanted by having US forced leave. Thus not making it a draw because if it was a draw then both forced would not of gained their over all goal.

US Victory?

North vietnam also revendicated that battle as a victory for them.

Also, other languages for this wikipedia page state that there is no victor: italian deutsh french polski etc etc. If the English page is the only one to state that battle as a victory for USA then we can doubt about the partiality of wikipedia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.86.32.36 (talk) 21:47, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

Unfortunately Wikipedia is full of one-sided American propaganda, mate. According to Hal Moore himself, there was no winner in this battle.Canpark (talk) 14:52, 7 December 2010 (UTC)

This battle can be seen as a victory for the US in regards to the aggressive search and destroy strategy employed by General William Westmoreland. The US was actively seeking out large VPA and Vietcong units which they could engage in a set piece battle. This was just that. Although it may appear to be a loss from Colonel Moore's point of view, in the perspective of grand strategy at the time it was seen as a victory. Whether history determines this to be a victory or not is irrelevant here. It should be noted that it was seen as a victory with respect to grand strategy in the US high command. However, this did overshadowed the defeat of LZ Albany. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91killer (talk • contribs) 17:48, 5 April 2011 (UTC) Be careful, this war hasn't just about casualties. McNamara's encounter with Vietnamese Foreign Minister Thach was clear: "'You're totally wrong. We were fighting for our independence. You were fighting to enslave us.'

'Do you mean to say it was not a tragedy for you, when you lost 3 million 4 hundred thousand Vietnamese killed, which on our population base is the equivalent of 27 million Americans? What did you accomplish? You didn't get any more than we were willing to give you at the beginning of the war. You could have had the whole damn thing: independence, unification.'

'Mr. McNamara, You must never have read a history book. If you'd had, you'd know we weren't pawns of the Chinese or the Russians. McNamara, didn't you know that? Don't you understand that we have been fighting the Chinese for 1000 years? We were fighting for our independence. And we would fight to the last man. And we were determined to do so. And no amount of bombing, no amount of U.S. pressure would ever have stopped us.'" (I'm new to wikipedia, I don't know how can i "hide" part of this quote)

Thus, vietnamese morale and will could sustain much more casualties than U.S.A. It's correct to classify this battle result as "controversal". U.S accomplished the goal of weaken VC/VPLA forces, and they denied important position [since the countryside was a source of supplies and recruits to the VC] to U.S troops and gradualy damaged U.S morale. RdClZn (talk) 20:46, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Units involved (cleanup)

Now as "strenght" in the infobox, but should be in the order of battle section in the main body of the article. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 05:23, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Weird losses

Also figures for US casualties in the infobox are vastly different than in the text. --94.246.150.68 (talk) 05:51, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I attempted to reconcile the body text and infobox casualties. The text refers to casualties in varying ways, making it difficult to resolve. Casualty figures refer to totals and then to numbers killed during "this battle." Since the sources are not online, I can't figure out which apply to this engagement specifically. — btphelps ^{(talk) (contribs)} 19:01, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Article title spelling

The name of the location is Ia Drang (with a capital i), but the article's title is la Drang (with a lowercase l). 97.102.194.244 (talk) 18:04, 13 November 2011 (UTC)

Fixed it. Don't know why someone didn't do it earlier. — jwillbur 00:30, 24 February 2012 (UTC)