The 2d Brigade journal for 9 April reported the brigade’s losses for the last ten days as 18 KIA and 70 WIA, of which 58 had been medevaced. The enemy assessment in that period had been 41 NVA and 32 VC KIA, and a dozen or so individual weapons. For some reason, in our new area we were not doing much damage and the enemy was hurting us too much.

In the rest of the week that picture changed. The 2/501 conducted its first, and the 2d Brigade’s second, cordon operation. The action began with a heavy contact made April 10 by A/2/501 in a hamlet at Phuoc Dien five kilometers southeast of Utah Beach where district intelligence believed that elements of an NVA battalion were located. The 2/501 helilifted D/2/501, which had been providing security for FSB Hardcore at that beach, into position for a coordinated attack. After an air and artillery preparation, climaxed by the use of CS tear gas grenades dropped from helicopters, the two companies attacked at 1310.

The attack met strong enemy resistance. Journal entries in the next two hours reported “A and D companies receiving heavy AW and RPG fire, both have casualties, number unknown, units are maneuvering, employing heavy firepower… D Co has passed through first hedgerow, A Co pressing on slowly, working in conjunction.. Medevac of 3 D Co WIA completed, A Co has 1 KIA, D Co has 1 KIA not evacuated… D Co 3 more WIA. Estimated Bn size force.”

I was with LTC Tallman, Cdr 2/501, on the scene. It was clear that a sizeable NVA force was entrenched in the hamlet, more than A and D Companies could handle alone. At 1630, I told the 101st command post at Camp Eagle that A and D Companies had pulled back, and that we were putting in artillery and air strikes with napalm and 500 lb bombs. General Barsanti, division commander, told me “Do not withdraw A and D/2/501 from the area. Leave them there and clean up that area if it takes a week,” and he asked me what I needed.

I said that I needed helicopters right away to move B/2/501 so that we could encircle the enemy. The choppers were on the way immediately. LTC Tallman then moved D Company to an encircling position south of the hamlet, where it could link up with A Company which had formed a cordon line in the rice paddies to the hamlet’s north and east. At 1840 B Company made a combat assault into a position from which it could link up with the flanks of A and D companies. The encircling cordon was in place by 2000. We ordered USAF flareships to be on station for all night illumination and they showed up as requested (with our own artillery flare rounds on standby).

That night the 2/501 troopers in the open fields encircling the enemy in the hamlet occupied two-man foxholes no more than 10 meters apart. With excellent observation they were able to spot any effort by the enemy to escape. During the night the NVA made at least 12 attempts to break out; all of them failed. The next day, after further artillery preparation, the 2/501 swept through the village against moderate resistance. Casualties to the 2/501 in this action were 7 KIA and 36 WIA. The enemy lost 70 killed, 13 captured; 24 individual and 7 crew-served weapons were taken. The 2/501 had trapped and destroyed a company of the 6th Battalion, 812th NVA regiment.

This operation perfected the encirclement techniques used by the 1/501 on the Perfume River two weeks earlier. The 2d Brigade would use them often in the weeks and months to come.