Vietnam 1970: The 101st Airborne, Surrounded on One Hill for 23 Days

On 1 July 1970, at three minutes past seven in the morning, the first mortar rounds landed on a bare hilltop twenty miles west of Hue. For twenty-three days after that, the 101st Airborne could not get out. Fire Support Base Ripcord was opened on a ridge above the A Shau Valley to draw the North Vietnamese into the open. By July the ridgelines on every side belonged to them, and nearly every shell, meal and replacement had to arrive by helicopter. This film follows the men of the 2nd Battalion, 506th Infantry and the units around them, day by day, from the quiet spring on the hill through the siege to the last Chinook on 23 July. It tells it through the division's own reports, the award citations and the words of the men who were there, among them Lieutenant Colonel Andre Lucas and Lieutenant Bob Kalsu of the Buffalo Bills. It is built on the official records listed below. The film uses real photographs and film of the same units, hills and months. Where no picture of the exact place or day survives, it shows the same units and period. No picture in it is computer-generated. Which unit were you with at Ripcord, Camp Evans or Camp Eagle, and what year? If we got a name, a date or a unit wrong, the comments are where it gets fixed. Chapters 0:00 Day One 2:51 The Hill Nobody Kept 8:41 A Year After Hamburger Hill 14:37 The Colonel from West Point 21:08 The NVA Had Vanished 25:31 An Army in the Mountains 29:48 Fifty Thousand Dollars of Wire 34:52 The First Day 40:09 Hill 902 45:09 Hill 1000 50:55 Fifty Rounds a Day 55:49 Running the Gauntlet 1:00:41 Hill 805 1:05:02 The Lineman: Bob Kalsu 1:09:33 The Lure 1:14:58 Chinook 68-15810 1:21:07 The Wire by the Stream 1:26:14 Tuesday, July 21 1:32:33 Alpha Company's Last Afternoon 1:39:02 The Night Before 1:43:15 Fourteen Chinooks 1:51:22 What the Report Said 1:57:48 What Became of Them Sources HQ 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile), Operational Report - Lessons Learned, period ending 31 July 1970 (DTIC AD515469). https://archive.org/details/DTIC_AD05... HQ 101st Airborne Division, After Action Report: Firebase Ripcord, 23 July 1970. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/After_... 2nd Battalion (Airmobile), 506th Infantry, Unit History 1970. https://ripcordassociation.com/101st-... Operation Texas Star, operations narrative, 101st Airborne Division, 1 April - 23 July 1970. https://ripcordassociation.com/operat... Medal of Honor citation, LTC Andre C. Lucas, DA General Orders No. 33, 1974. https://homeofheroes.com/?p=89666 Silver Star and Distinguished Service Cross citations: LTC Andre C. Lucas, SSG John W. Kreckel, CPT Frederick L. Spaulding. https://valor.militarytimes.com/?p=15... , https://valor.militarytimes.com/?p=32844 , https://valor.militarytimes.com/?p=11... Stars and Stripes, 26 July 1970, "Reds were planning to assault firebase." https://327infantry.org/reds-were-pla... William Nack, "A Name on the Wall," Sports Illustrated, 23 July 2001. https://www.si.com/nfl/2014/09/04/nam... Lt Gen John J. Tolson, Airmobility 1961-1971, Department of the Army, 1973. https://archive.org/details/CMHPub90-4 Maj Gen David Ott, Field Artillery 1954-1973, Department of the Army, 1975. https://archive.org/details/CMHPub90-12 Ripcord Association, biographies of the men of Firebase Ripcord. https://ripcordassociation.com/biogra... The Virtual Wall, casualty records for the men named in the film. https://www.virtualwall.org/ Photo and film credits Film and photographs from the U.S. Army, the U.S. National Archives (NARA) and the Department of Defense are public domain as works of the U.S. government. Photographs of Firebase Ripcord, July 1970, courtesy of Chris Jensen and the FSB Ripcord Association. Short excerpts from the documentary series "Wings Over Vietnam" (Discovery Wings). More from the same war: Grunt's Field Notes:    / @viet_vet_nam   Crew Chief's Notebook:    / @crewchiefsnotes   #VietnamWar #FirebaseRipcord #101stAirborne