Ripcord 1970

On March 12th, 1970 a long and ferocious battle commenced between the U.S. Army’s 101st Airborne Division and two heavily armed Vietnamese divisions. With the heaviest portion of the battle being a 23 day siege that was sparked when the North Vietnamese Army launched a mortar attack with an ensuing siege that was meant to overwhelm the American forces ten to one. The battle lasted until the 23rd of July 1970 with the evacuation of American forces and an air raid launched by Major General (Ret.) Ben Harrison. Ripcord was built by the historic 101st with two main objectives; the first was to establish offensive force for American troops to withdraw from Vietnam. The second was to ravage enemy supply bases located within their area of operation of A Shau Valley. The Battle of …show more content…
Since movement was limited this resulted in the heavy use of helicopters to receive supplies and conduct the offensive movements of finding and ravaging the supply lines of the Vietnamese tasked to the soon to be attached marines. During the preliminary phase of the operation the 101st division was sporadically hit by the Vietnamese forces. Therefore, every time the American forces were attacked the Vietnamese gathered intelligence on defense presented to their estimated 25,000 strong force. The small yet lethal attacks lasted from March 12th , 1970 to June 30th , 1970 where the Vietnamese began their offensive effort the following day. The first of which was was to pommel the American forces with a mortar attack on the firebase that resulted in seventy-five deaths. The second of which was a resulting siege on the weakened American forces. The heavily outnumbered 101st division to some ten to one odds were adversely surrounded and taking fire from all sides. The key high ground and even more importantly, bravery of the men of Firebase ripcord was the only reason they were not over ran. In a