Battle of Signal Hill Vietnam

The Battle of Signal Hill was a company size long-range penetration operation conducted in April 1968 during the Vietnam War. Signal Hill was the name given to the peak of Dong Re Lao Mountain, a densely forested 4,879-foot mountain north of A Luoi, a former French airfield midway in the A Shau Valley, bordering Laos. The strategic location made it an ideal communication and fire support site, vital to the success of Operation Delaware. The battle began at dawn, April 19, 1968, between long-range reconnaissance patrol members of the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), Company E, 52nd Infantry (LRP), redesignated Company H, 75th Infantry (Ranger), and the North Vietnamese Army.

The North Vietnamese Army (NVA) gained control of the A Shau Valley in March 1966 after overrunning the last Special Forces camp in the area. They then fortified the valley with powerful crew-served 37mm antiaircraft cannons, some of them radar controlled. They also emplaced rapid firing twin-barreled 23mm cannons and many 12.7mm heavy machine guns to contribute to their air defenses. The A Shau Valley soon evolved into a major logistics depot for the NVA, with storage locations often located in underground bunkers and tunnels. Because of this strength on the ground, and the relative geographic isolation of the valley, the United States and its allies conducted little offensive activity in the area except for air attacks, and those were limited by the steep, mountainous terrain often cloaked under clouds, prone to sudden, violent changes in weather. In addition, because of the very limited air mobility of the Marines in I Corps Tactical Zone (ICTZ), no ground operations of any significance had been launched in the A Shau.

By early April 1968, the NVA had just suffered two of their most significant defeats of the war: the Tet Offensive and Khe Sanh that cost them more than 42,000 men. But the NVA still had the ability to regain the initiative in the northernmost part of South Vietnam, designated I Corps Tactical Zone (ICTZ). That ability came in part from isolated base areas like the sparsely populated A Shau Valley, running north-south along the Laotian border 30 miles south of Khe Sanh, where troops and supplies were moved into South Vietnam as the NVA prepared for another battle—at a time and place of its choosing. The A Shau, a mile-wide bottomland flanked by densely forested 5,000-foot mountains, was bisected lengthwise by Route 548, a hard-crusted dirt road. A branch of the Ho Chi Minh Trail, the valley was a key NVA sanctuary.

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