Ia Drang: The Helicopter War Begins (Illustrated Ebook)

On the afternoon of November 14, 1965, the landing zone was closed: too hot for helicopters. Two unarmed Hueys went in anyway, and kept going in until after dark.

A 32-page illustrated history of the Battle of the Ia Drang Valley, told day by day and clock time by clock time through the Huey crews of Company A, 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). It covers:

- How the Army put a whole division on helicopters, and the road from Plei Me to the Chu Pong massif

- November 14: the first lifts into LZ X-Ray, the cut-off platoon, and the closing of the landing zone

- Bruce Crandall and Ed Freeman's volunteer flights with ammunition in and wounded out

- November 15–16: colored smoke, the first B-52 strikes in support of a battle, the "mad minute" and the way out

- November 17: the ambush at LZ Albany

- What the helicopters proved, and the Medals of Honor that came decades later

Includes 16 archival U.S. government photographs (counting the cover), an original battle map, a timeline, a "by the numbers" page, and a full list of sources. Where the sources disagree on flights, wounded carried out and casualties, the book gives each figure and names its source.

Pairs with Sortie Stories Episode 3 on YouTube.

Format: PDF, 7x10 in, 32 pages, about 4.1 MB.

How it was made: the text was drafted with AI assistance, then fact-checked against the U.S. Army Center of Military History (Cash, Seven Firefights in Vietnam; Tolson, Airmobility; Hay, Tactical and Materiel Innovations; Stemming the Tide), the Army's Medal of Honor pages, the Department of Defense, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society and the National Archives. Spot an error? Tell us and we'll fix it in the next edition (free update).

Unofficial. Not affiliated with or endorsed by the U.S. Army or the Department of War (Department of Defense). Logbook Press is an independent history imprint. Photos are U.S. government public-domain works.