Battle of LZ Albany: 46 Years Ago Today.

Since the release of the movie, We Were Soldiers, starring Mel Gibson, we hear a lot about the Battle at LZ X-ray. People seem to forget the ensuing, even more brutal, engagement at nearby LZ Albany.

Dennis Black - 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry

As the Battle of LZ X-ray came to an end, survivors of the 1st of the 7th were airlifted to the relative safety of LZ Falcon.  The 2nd of 7th remained to police the site. The unit, including infantryman, Dennis Black, departed the battlefield the next morning, November 17, 46 years ago today.  They had not slept in two days.

Instead of traveling by helicopter, the air-mobile outfit lumbered north on foot. By early afternoon, they inched their way into LZ Albany, another nondescript opening carved into the tangled Central Highland jungle.  In the lead, Alpha Company CO, Joel Sugdinis, set the stage.  “In moving into the clearing, our recon platoon was on the point.  I sent 1st Platoon around to the right and 2nd platoon around to the left of the clearing to secure the perimeter.  But then, they hit.  It started out with just a few shots, then hours of hell!”

“The most savage one-day battle of the Vietnam War had just begun,” We Were Soldiers authors, Moore and Galloway concurred.  “The 2nd Battalion, 7th Cavalry had walked into a hornet’s nest.”

Dennis Black, as a member of Sugdinis’s 1st Platoon, worked the north side of the landing zone, where it all began. “We stumbled into a fresh NVA Regiment,” Sugdinis said.  “1st Platoon saw a lot of hand-to-hand combat.  We threw smoke and tried to get them into the island of trees with us.  A few of them made it, but most didn’t.  …Our men were so intermingled with theirs, especially in the 1st and 2nd Platoon areas, that I couldn’t call in for artillery support.”

“I thought, ‘Jesus, they’re all over us,’” Alpha Company Executive Officer, Larry Gwin recalled.  “They had already run over the first platoon, wiped it out almost, except for three guys, and they were into the back of the second platoon.”

“This was a massacre,” C Company’s Jack Smith described.  “…All around me, those who were not already dead were dying or severely wounded, most of them hit several times.”

Air support helped stabilize the once desperate situation.  Reinforcements arrived that evening, turning the tide.  But for many, the assistance came too late.  In bearing the brunt of the early battle, Alpha Company’s 1st and 2nd Platoons suffered massive losses, with only eight known survivors.  The rest of the brave lot, including Dennis Black, died fighting.

“I didn’t get up the courage to walk over to our 1st Platoon’s positions until early that afternoon,” Gwin said.  “…There were PAVN bodies intermixed with those of our men, and it was clear from what I saw that their fight had been a desperate one, short and fierce.”

The 2nd of the 7th, which entered the engagement at nearly 400 men strong, sustained a shocking 70% casualty rate, with 155 dead and 124 wounded.

At this early stage of war, casualty-notification teams had not yet been formed.  Instead, random taxicabs delivered death notices via Western Union telegrams, direct to unsuspecting doors.  “At first, we got one that said he was missing in action,” Black’s mother, Evelyn said.  “Then a couple of days later, we got another.  When the taxi driver knocked at the door, it all happened so fast.  We really didn’t know what to think.  We opened the telegram and there it was—the news that he’d been killed in action.  I broke down.  I went to my bedroom and knelt down beside the bed and cried and prayed.”

The telegram minced no words.  “THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY HAS ASKED ME TO EXPRESS HIS DEEP REGRET THAT YOUR SON, PRIVATE FIRST CLASS DENNIS W. BLACK DIED IN VIETNAM … AS A RESULT OF MULTIPLE GUNSHOT WOUNDS TO (the) HEAD, RIGHT THIGH AND LEFT FOREARM.   HE WAS ON A SEARCH AND DESTROY OPERATION WHEN HIT BY METAL FRAGMENTS.  DEATH WAS THE RESULT OF HOSTILE ACTION.”

One Response to “Battle of LZ Albany: 46 Years Ago Today”

  1. God bless all 11bravos

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