As the battle continued throughout the day, Colonel Thomas concentrated artillery and tank fire on the Communist positions. When the weather improved later that afternoon, Thomas pummeled the enemy with back-to-back airstrikes. The North Vietnamese, unwilling to give ground, fought with the same fierce determination as they had the day before.

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That evening, Thomas turned his attention toward two islands near the river that make up the hamlet of Dong Son one. Company C, 4/31, was assigned the southern most island. Company D, 4/31, would take the large island to the north. At 0100 on November 25, Captain Stringham moved his company into position for the attack. Mellon’s objective lay across a large rice paddy a few hundred meters from his night laager site. He would jump off from there.

The attack kicked off early the next morning. Company D, with two tanks and a platoon of APCs in support, came under heavy automatic weapons fire as it approached the rice paddy.

Mellon said: While the fire was totally ineffective at the time, I felt it could get worse. I halted our advance and brought up the two tanks and four APCs on line to bring their fire on the objective. Lieutenant Colonel Thomas couldn’t give me artillery, but he had no objection to me bringing in airstrikes. When I dialed up the local forward air controller, the voice that came back was one I recognized well — Sampan Rambler 26. He and I had worked together many times since I had come to work for the 4/31 Infantry in June 1967.

Sampan Rambler 26 was able to divert a flight of McDonnell-Douglas F-4 fighter-bombers out of Da Nang carrying a load of 250-pound bombs and 20mm cannon. The Phantoms screamed out of the eastern sky at treetop level and dumped their loads on both islands, then returned to rake the area with cannon fire. Before the last F-4 had expended its ordnance, Delta Company was up, moving and firing with everything it had. Mellon remembers finding an old lady and two small boys on one of the islands, but no North Vietnamese soldiers.

Light automatic weapons fire coming from the smaller island caused Mellon to turn his attention to the south. It took only minutes for him to sweep the second island, but as before, the enemy were gone by the time he arrived.

Mellon said: Except for some scrub next to the paddy, the island was bare. We scoured every inch of the ground but found no bodies or pieces of bodies anywhere. However, we did find lots of pieces of weapons, rucksacks, pith helmets and web gear. While we were loading all of this material on one of the APCs, I called Lieutenant Colonel Thomas to give him the news and ask him for new directions. He called us back to the northwest base of Hill X where we spent the night after having Thanksgiving dinner.

The 196th Light Infantry Brigade’s baptismal battle with the 2nd NVA Division was over. One hundred and twenty-eight soldiers from the 3rd NVA Regiment’s 5th and 7th companies lay dead. Fifty-six enemy weapons were captured. The price of victory was seven Americans killed and another 84 wounded in action. Body count, captured enemy gear and other statistics were the standard measure of success or failure at the time, but the reasons for winning in battle are more than a tally of the number of dead enemy soldiers.

The brigade’s victory at Hill 63 can be attributed to superb leadership beginning with Major Dorland and going down to the most junior fire-team leader in the task force. And guts. Dorland was wounded at a critical time in the battle, and though his injuries were severe, he doggedly remained with his men. Had he allowed himself to be evacuated at that juncture, one can only speculate what impact his departure might have had on the battle. The men in the tanks, tracks and infantry platoons also exhibited a matchless, sometimes impetuous, courage against a tenacious enemy. In Dorland’s words, The men fought valiantly, and attacked without hesitation.

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