The second engagement involved the 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry Regiment plus supporting units under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Robert McDade, and took place on November 17 at LZ Albany.

In 1994, Moore, Galloway and men who fought on both the American and North Vietnamese sides, traveled back to the remote jungle clearings where the battle took place.

Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) General William C. Westmoreland had secured the commitment of upward of 300,000 U.S. regulars from President Lyndon B. Johnson and a build-up of forces took place in the summer of 1965.

VC forces were in nominal control of most of the South Vietnamese countryside by 1965 and had established military infrastructure in the Central Highlands, to the northeast of the Saigon region.

Vietnamese communist forces had operated in this area during the previous decade in the First Indochina War against the French, winning a notable victory at the Battle of Mang Yang Pass in 1954.

[1]: 45 The U.S. deployment caused the B3 Field Front Command to bring forward an attack on the U.S. Army Special Forces Plei Me camp, some 45 km southwest of Pleiku, which was originally planned for December.

After a two-hour battle the ambushing forces were beaten off, but the ARVN, discouraged from moving any further, set up a defensive position, and did not reach the camp at Plei Me until dusk on the 25th.

Meanwhile, an ARVN intelligence source by intercept of radio communication indicated that some PAVN B3 Field Front recon elements and transportation units had already moved out of their assembly areas to attack the Plei Me camp.

On November 14, an ARVN intelligence source by intercept of radio communication indicated that before dawn, some assault elements of the PAVN B3 Field Front started moving out of their assembly areas to attack the Plei Me camp.

[19] At 10:48, the first troops of the 1st Battalion, 7th Cavalry (1/7) arrived at LZ X-Ray with members of B Company touching down after about 30 minutes of bombardment via artillery, aerial rockets and air strikes.

B3 Field Front Command fell for the subterfuge, decided to postpone the attack on Plei Me camp, and met the new threat with its 7th and 9th Battalions, while the remaining units of its force were put on hold at their staging positions.

An intense firefight quickly erupted in the clearing; during the first three or four minutes his platoon inflicted heavy losses on the PAVN who streamed out of the trees, while his men did not take any casualties.

Ernie Savage, 3rd Squad Leader, to assume command by virtue of being close to the radio, and proceeded to call in repeated artillery support around the 2nd Platoon's position.

[11]: 123 Lt. Bob Taft's 3rd Platoon, A Company, confronted approximately 150 PAVN soldiers advancing down the length and sides of the creek bed (from the south) toward the battalion.

With a clear line of sight over their sector of the battlefield, C Company was able to call in and adjust heavy ordnance support with precision, inflicting devastating losses on the PAVN forces.

4 Bill Beck) had positioned their guns 10 yards (9 m) apart, and proceeded to pour heavy fire into the PAVN forces attempting to cut into the perimeter between C and A Companies.

"[2]: 133 Delta Company's troopers also experienced heavy losses in repelling the PAVN assault and Captain Lefebvre was wounded soon after arriving at LZ X-Ray.

Enemy fire started to hit the 1st Battalion command post, which suffered one medic killed and several other troops wounded (including one of Moore's own radio operators, Spec.

Galloway also noted "[a]t LZ XRay 80 men died and 124 were wounded, many of them terribly", and that the death toll for the entire battle was 234 Americans killed and perhaps as many as 2,000 North Vietnamese soldiers.

Colonel Edward C. (Shy) Meyer, 3rd Brigade executive officer, a message saying that Westmoreland's headquarters wanted him to "leave X-Ray early the next morning for Saigon to brief him and his staff on the battle."

A decisive factor in this stand, in addition to rifle and machine gun fire from B Company's lines, was the skilled placement of artillery strikes by Diduryk's forward observer, Lt. Bill Lund.

[11]: 131 The PAVN repeated their assault on Diduryk's lines 20 minutes after the first attack as flares dropped from American C-123 Provider aircraft illuminated the battlefield to B Company's advantage.

Again, Lund's precision in ordering artillery strikes cut down scores of PAVN soldiers, while Diduryk's men repelled those who survived using rifle and machine gun fire.

Donald J. Slovak, the squad leader, saw "Ho Chi Minh sandal foot markings, bamboo arrows on the ground pointing north, matted grass and grains of rice.

The official PAVN history claimed that the Plei Me Campaign, which included Ia Drang, eliminated 1,700 U.S. and 1,270 ARVN troops, shot down 59 helicopters, and destroyed 89 vehicles.

[46] According to ARVN intelligence sources, each of the three PAVN regiments' initial strength was 2,200 soldiers:[8] 1st Battalion-500, 2nd Battalion-500, 3rd Battalion-500, Mortar Company-150, Anti-Aircraft Company-150, Signal Company-120, Transportation Company-150, Medical Company-40, Engineer Company-60, Recon Company-50.

PAVN Col. Nguyễn Hữu An included his lessons from the battle at X-ray in his orders for Albany, "Move inside the column, grab them by the belt, and thus avoid casualties from the artillery and air.

[18] The vast majority of casualties inflicted on US forces was through small-arms and light-mortar fire, with Moore noting the PAVN's accurate shooting, well-placed ambushes and coordinated targeting of officers had overwhelmed U.S. positions in small-unit tactics.

[51] Commenting later on the battle, Moore said, The "peasant soldiers [of North Vietnam] had withstood the terrible high-tech fire storm delivered against them by a superpower and had at least fought the Americans to a draw.

[2]: 416 Although many decorations have been awarded to veterans of the Battle of Ia Drang, in his book We Were Soldiers Once...And Young, Lt. Gen. Harold Moore writes: We had problems on the awards... Too many men had died bravely and heroically, while the men who had witnessed their deeds had also been killed... Acts of valor that, on other fields, on other days, would have been rewarded with the Medal of Honor or Distinguished Service Cross or a Silver Star were recognized only with a telegram saying,"The Secretary of the Army regrets..." The same was true of our sister battalion, the 2nd of the 7th.