Nov 17, 2015

This month marks 50 years since the Battle of Ia Drang Valley, the first major fight between the U.S. Army and elements of its air cavalry and the People’s Army of North Vietnam. Five soldiers from Maryland were killed on the same day (Nov. 17, 1965) during the height of the battle, and others were listed among the heavy casualties inflicted on both sides in fighting across South Vietnam’s central highlands. The story of part of the battle was told in the 1992 book, “We Were Soldiers Once . . . And Young,” by Lt. Gen. Harold G. Moore and war correspondent Joseph Galloway. The 2002 movie, “We Were Soldiers,” starring Mel Gibson, was based on the Moore-Galloway book. According to Galloway, 305 Americans were killed in combat in the central highlands between Oct. 23 and Nov. 26, 1965; more than 500 others were wounded. The U.S. estimates of deaths among North Vietnamese regulars ranged from 1,000 to more than 1,700.

: Sgt. Neopolis Wigfall of Fruitland, Md. A Company, 2ND Battalion, 7TH Cavalry, 1ST CAV Division. Killed in action November 17, 1965 during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley.

: Pfc Wayne Thomas Lundell, Silver Spring, MD. C Company, 2ND Battalion, 7TH Cavalry, 1ST CAV Division. Killed in action November 17, 1965 during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley.

: SSgt. Richard Deane Ott, Baltimore. C Company, 2ND Battalion, 7TH Cavalry, 1ST CAV Division. Killed in action November 17, 1965 in the Battle of Ia Drang Valley.

: SSgt. James Odell Vaughan, Baltimore, MD. B Company, 1ST Battalion, 5TH Cavalry, 1ST CAV Division. Killed in action November 17, 1965 during the Battle of Ia Drang Valley.

: Tribute to SP. 5 Charles Thomas Steiner, Cardiff, Harford County. Killed in action November 17, 1965 during the battle of la Drang Valley. website “The Virtual Wall, Vietnam Veterans Memorial” www.virtualwall.org.

: Sp. 4 Oscar Cooper of Bel Air, MD. C Company, 1ST Battalion, 5TH Cavalry, 1ST Cavalry Division. Died November 21, 1965 during the battle of Ia Drang Valley.

: The 7 Cavalry attacks on 16 November 1965. Photo by (Peter Arnett, AP photo)

: American Riflemen of B Company, 2nd Battalion., 7th Cavalry. stand up in tall grass to get a better view as they fire into north Vietnamese sniper pockets outside US perimeter in Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1965. (AP Photo)

: Combat operations at Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, November 1965. Bruce P. Crandall’s UH-1 Huey dispatches infantry while under fire. (US Army photo)

: American soldier sits in forward trench position in South Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, holding his rifle and ready to charge Viet Cong snipers in thick brush in background, November 16, 1965. Napalm bombs dropped by U. S. Air Force jets to soften up enemy positions prior to infantry attack explode about 100 yards away. Some of the fiercest fighting of the war in Vietnam has been going on in the valley since November 13. (Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

: A U.S. cavalryman seriously wounded Nov. 17, 1965 when his battalion was ambushed by North Vietnamese in South Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, is carried by medics and helicopter crewmen to an ambulance helicopter during Nov. 18, 1965 evacuation of the wounded soldiers. A battalion of the U.S. 1st Air Cavalry Division was ambushed while marching from the jungle clearing where the Ia Drang Valley fighting started on November 14, 1965. (AP Photo)

: A wounded American soldier is aided to a helicopter for evacuation from Ia Drang Valley area, near Plei Me, Vietnam, November 18, 1965. A Communist force ambushed a battalion of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division. Ambush hit late in afternoon of Nov.17, 1965 as battalion was moving to new position from area of heavy fighting during week of Nov.14. (Rick Merron/AP Photo)

: U.S. cavalrymen carry a fellow soldier to an evacuation zone after he was seriously wounded in a North Vietnamese ambush in South Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, mid November 1965. (Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

: Foreground and center bodies of American Soldiers slain in first hours of battle in Ia Drang Valley. (Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

: Flares from planes light a field covered with dead and wounded of ambushed battalion of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division in the Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, November 18, 1965. During fierce battle that has been raging since Nov.14, 1965. Units of the division have been battling to hold its lines against what is estimated to be a regiment of North Vietnamese soldiers. Bodies of the slain soldiers were carried to this clearing with their gear to await evacuation by helicopter. (Rick Merron/AP Photo)

: SSG Joes G. Claudio-Robles, A Co 1-7 CAV waits for extraction at end of a long battle, 16 Nov 1965, LZ X-Ray. (Joe Galloway/UPI)

: American Riflemen of B Company, 2nd Battalion., 7th Cavalry. stand up in tall grass to get a better view as they fire into north Vietnamese sniper pockets outside US perimeter in Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam, Tuesday, Nov. 16, 1965. (AP Photo)

: The body of a slain comrade is carried to an evacuation helicopter by soldiers of the U.S. 1st cavalry division in the Ia Drang Valley early in the week of Nov. 15, 1965. The Air Cavalry Division has suffered the heaviest American losses of the Vietnam War during the battle in the Ia Drang area – a battle that began Nov.14. (Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

: U.S. cavalrymen carry a fellow soldier to an evacuation zone after he was seriously wounded in a North Vietnamese ambush in South Vietnam’s Ia Drang Valley, mid November 1965. (Peter Arnett/AP Photo)

: Front page of the November 16, 1965 Baltimore Sun newspaper

: Front page of the November 17, 1965 Baltimore Sun newspaper

: Front page of the November 18, 1965 Baltimore Sun newspaper

: Front page of the November 19, 1965 Baltimore Sun newspaper

: Front page of the November 20, 1965 Baltimore Sun newspaper

: Front page of the November 21, 1965 Sunday Sun

Dan Rodricks, The Baltimore Sun

Historians have called Nov. 17, 1965 the deadliest day for U.S. forces in the Vietnam War, a distant conflict — now in memory as much as in miles — that would last another decade, claim more than 58,000 American lives and divide the nation.

The names of the five Marylanders who died on that sweltering Wednesday afternoon nearly 9,000 miles from home all appear on the same black granite slab — panel 3E — of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Listed in the order in which they are believed to have died, some of the names are just one or two lines apart: Sgt. Neopolis Wigfall, 32, of Fruitland, Wicomico County; Sgt. Richard D. Ott, 34, of Baltimore; Spec. 5 Charles T. Steiner, 21, of Cardiff, Harford County; Spec. 4 Wayne T. Lundell, 24, of Silver Spring, Montgomery County; and Sgt. James O. Vaughan, 32, of Baltimore. They were all soldiers from the sky, members of the 1st Cavalry Division, the Army’s new air assault group assigned to flush North Vietnamese regulars from the mountains near the Cambodian border.

A few days later Spec. 4 Oscar E. Cooper, 25, of Bel Air, was killed by a grenade blast on Nov. 21, 1965, less than a week before he was due to leave Vietnam.

On Nov. 14, 1965, helicopters delivered the first soldiers to what became known as “the valley of death.”
The Battle of Ia Drang represented the first major fight between U.S. regulars and the People’s Army of North Vietnam, and while casualties were heavy on both sides, both sides claimed victory. Some historians mark it as the beginning of America’s deep and futile involvement in a body-count war of attrition to keep South Vietnam from being overrun by the invading communists from the north.

The 50th anniversary of the battle of Ia Drang Valley, Vietnam

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