A weary Lt. Frank Boccia, platoon leader in Company B, 101st Airborne Division, 3rd Battalion, 187th Regiment, May 16, 1969, the sixth day of intense fighting to take Hamburger Hill. Courtesy of Samuel Zaffiri, Colorization by Slingshot Studio, Atlanta, GA.

In their flak jackets, and heavily laden with grenades and extra ammunition, Honeycutt’s men moved up Hill 937 for yet another attempt.

Ten brutal days of miserable fighting on a jungle-shrouded mountain in the spring of 1969 left scores of American dead, hundreds wounded and fueled a raging outcry from the American body politic that irretrievable altered the course of U.S. military policy in Vietnam. Even though the valiant effort of U.S. troops was, in the end, successful in taking the hill and inflicting heavy enemy losses, the terrible prices of the drawn-out fight and its seeming senselessness—among some troops on the ground and the general public—made this one battle an enduring symbol of the overall futility of America’s war in Vietnam.

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The battle was the result of a renewed effort in early 1969 to neutralize the North Vietnamese forces in the A Shau, a 45-kilometer-long valley in southwestern Thua Thien Province along the border with Laos.  The A Shau sheltered enemy Base Area 611 and had long provided a major infiltration corridor for Communist forces from the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Laos to the coastal cities of northern I Corps Tactical Zone.

The valley’s formidable terrain was dominated at its northern end by what local Montagnard tribesmen called the “mountain of the crouching beast,” Dong Ap Bia. On military maps it was simply Hill 937, so labeled for its height in meters. Several large ridges and fingers ran out from its summit, one of the largest extending southeast to a height of 900 meters and another reaching south to a 916-meter peak. The steep slopes of Dong Ap Bia were cloaked by a heavy undergrowth of sawtooth elephant grass, thick stands of bamboo, and double-and-triple canopy jungle. It was an area long occupied by the NVA and it was fortified with bunkers, spider holes, deep tunnels and trenches.

The battle of Ap Bia Mountain evolved as part of Operation Apache Snow, a follow-on to Operation Dewey Canyon, launched in the same area in January 1969 by the 9th Marines, 3rd Marine Division. During this operation, the Marines discovered that the North Vietnamese Army had constructed major roads in the area, and intelligence revealed that some 1,000 trucks were moving supplies into area base camps. During Dewey Canyon, the Marines captured 16 122mm guns, 73 anti-aircraft guns and more that 525 tons of materiel, including nearly 1,000 AK-47s and more than a million rounds of small-arms and machine-gun ammunition.

In March, MACV intelligence revealed that NVA forces were again building up their logistical systems in the A Shau. This new enemy presence posed a significant threat to Hue, Quang Tri and the other major I Corps cities and towns. Accordingly, Lt. Gen. Richard G. Stillwell, commander of XXIV Corps, ordered a campaign to eliminate the North Vietnamese in the area. Operation Apache Snow was phase two of a three-phase operation to clean out the valley. It was preceded by Operation Massachusetts Striker and would be followed by Operation Montgomery Rendezvous, each targeted against a different area of the A Shau.

Apache Snow called for the insertion of 10 battalions of American and South Vietnamese troops into the valley to disrupt the Communist buildup and destroy enemy forces. The allied troops for this operation included the 9th Marine Regiment, two battalions from the 1st ARVN Division, 3/5th Cavalry, and the 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division, which would make the initial combat assault. The Marines, 3/5th Cav and two other ARVN battalions would play supporting roles in the operation with 3/5th Cav clearing Highway 547, so it could be completed through the eastern mountains and pushed into the heart of the valley, while the 9th Marines operations would blunt any attempt to reinforce the northern end of the valley.

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