A Company extended north to link up with C Company and, in the process, became responsible for a small bridge across the river. Captain Fields saw it as a potential escape route and ordered it secured. The 2nd Platoon started across the bridge from the west side. An NVA machine gun met them, killing Pfc Joe Cacgimble, who was in the lead, and wounding the three men behind him. The platoon scattered for cover.

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Private First Class Franklin Donaldson went forward to help his wounded comrades. As he moved near them, he spotted eight enemy soldiers coming up the riverbank. He immediately killed the first four, then shot it out with the others until they, too, were killed. Finally, he dashed over to where the wounded were and dragged them back to cover.

Captain Fields brought up his 90mm recoilless anti-tank rifle. With three rounds it destroyed the machine gun, its three-man crew and the house they were firing from. The fire from other sources, however, was still too much to allow another try at crossing. Gunships were called in while the company backed up 100 meters. A Company then turned its attention to linking up with C Company in the north and B Company in the south. The latter companies, however, were having difficulties of their own.

Shortly after 3 p.m., C Company, advancing with platoons on line, encountered serious resistance. The 2nd Platoon, in the center, took intensive fire from an enemy trench line. Exposed in a rice paddy, the platoon went to ground. The 3rd Platoon, on the left, maneuvered left and stumbled into the trench. Its third squad then started down the length of the trench, knocking out several NVA automatic weapons. The 4th Platoon, on the right flank, swung right. As the men advanced, the platoon sergeant, Paul Jackson, and his radio-telephone operator, Pfc Larry Willis, went after an NVA squad taking up positions in the trench. In the initial gunfight, Jackson was hit in the head and knocked unconscious. Dragged to cover by Willis, Jackson recovered, and the two men launched a second assault. This time they were successful in killing eight NVA soldiers. With their flanks lost, the NVA withdrew to the village. C Company moved up and linked with A Company.

In the south, B Company was hard pressed to extend itself across the south end of the village. Mayer, still bumping against heavy resistance on the eastern base of the L-shaped village, decided to call for 105mm artillery support. When the first volley came in, the shells landed almost in his face–much too close. Mayer was afraid to adjust the fire for fear of hitting friendlies, so he called off the artillery support. Four gunships came instead and poured rocket fire across his front. That fire, too, seemed awfully close, but the combination of rockets and artillery did serve to significantly ease the enemy firing in his sector.

One machine gun, however, bunkered at the angle of the L, continued firing. Mayer sent Lieutenant Walter Crimmins’ 3rd Platoon after it. The platoon got close before its lead man was hit. Private First Class Francis Royal went to rescue him and was shot in the head while dragging the wounded man back. A third man went after the first two and was also hit. The 3rd Platoon went for cover, and Crimmins called for help.

Mayer sent in Anderson’s 1st Platoon, and they ran into the same wall. While they crouched in a ravine figuring out what to do next, Sergeant Owens was hit. The bullet snapped through the center front of his steel helmet, forehead high, creased around the side of his head, and popped out the rear of his helmet. It was a perfect shot, and Owens should have been dead. Instead, he sat stunned, tightly holding a helmet with a hole in front and back.

Mayer called the gunships back in while his 1st and 3rd platoons backed out. Lieutenant Colonel McIlwain, still overhead, led the choppers in. Having shot up the NVA positions, and seeing the wounded Royal isolated in front of the company, McIlwain decided to go and get him. He dropped down, and as his crew was loading Royal aboard, an enemy soldier approached the rear of the Huey. The pilot, seeing him, simply dipped the rear of the craft and decapitated him. (Royal died later in the field hospital.) Meanwhile, Mayer brought up his 90mm recoilless rifle and knocked out the position that had fatally wounded Royal.

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