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Down the trail to the front of Charlie Company's position, Cpl Sherman Betts and his machine gun section unhesitatingly returned fire with their M-60 against two squads of NVA troops who broke into a clearing.

"There's a pot full of them down there and they're coming this way," Betts shouted above the throb of is gun. Then a grenade fell next to Betts and he and his crew were put out of action momentarily. Betts was the only man who was able to fire the gun although he had sustained a severe wound in his back.

By now the fight was on in earnest. The NVA were not probing. They were launching an all-out attack against Charlie Co., attempting to overrun and annihilate the Marine unit.

Trees surrounding the LZ splintered as enemy bullets whacked into them. Cpl Betts began sprinting up the fire-covered trail for a resupply of ammo. He never made it back to his gun because he was ordered to have his wound treated and to remain prone on the LZ.

Meanwhile, Capt Major disregarded his own safety as he stood on the exposed LZ, urging his men on while his radio operator made contact with the battalion command post.

"We're being hit hard from the front, sir," Capt Major told his battalion CO, LtCol A.F. Belbusti, over the radio, "but we can hold them. Would like to know if you can send Delta Co. to reinforce if we need them."

The reply was affirmative.

Again exposing himself to the fire, Capt Major began expanding his already thinly spread lines into the now night-darkened jungle. The fire from the front seemed to skip across the tiny LZ. Then from Charlie Company's left flank, a series of high-pitched whistles signaled another Red force into the attack.

Immediately, enemy automatic weapons began raking the LZ from the new direction. Marine guns hammered back while at the same time holding off the original assault.

Again, whistles. The NVA began attacking Charlie Company's rear and now the Marines were under attack from at least three companies, hitting from three directions.

On another whistled signal, enemy grenades began falling onto the LZ. They had the upper hand because they knew exactly where the Marines were. The Marines knew only that they were almost surrounded and cut off from their battalion.

A rifleman "liberated" a North Vietnamese flag after the costly night battle.

Capt. Major radioed for assistance from Delta Co. and received an immediate reply that they were on their way.

Concussion grenades plopped into the LZ, bouncing off logs and debris.

"Grenade!" Pfc Knobby Clarke called from the front. Then an explosion, followed by a long burst of fire from his rifle.

"Grenade!" echoed LCpl Bob Duca as one fell near his position on the rear slope. He, too, directed a burst of fire in the direction from which the grenade had been launched.

Soon the rain of grenades became commonplace to the Marines, but they were more than a genuine matter of concern. Still, the enemy concussion grenades were not as much a threat as the severe fire coming from the Red automatic weapons.

Gunny Thompson was kneeling on the LZ, directing a mortar into position, when a concussion grenade bounced off a log behind him. He dove to the ground, but the explosion caught him in mid-air, perforating both of his eardrums and sprinkling one arm with metal fragments. He rolled on the ground for a second, clutching his hands over his ringing ears, then knelt again to complete positioning of the mortar which began to fire illumination rounds over the jungle.

By this point in the battle, the NVA had infiltrated through the now pitch dark jungle and were getting inside the Marine perimeter around the LZ.

A corpsman, Hospitalman (HN) Kermit Hammergren, stopped treating a wounded engineer and raised his already drawn pistol, aimed at the edge of the LZ, and fired twice. A shadowy figure which had been creeping in among the wounded Marines spun around to fall face down, clutching his stomach. Doc Hammergren laid his pistol beside his knee and went back to treating the casualty.

Somewhere down the fire-raked trail to Charlie Company's front, Cpl Jimmy Leonard was blazing away against an enemy machine gun. His own machine gun crew were wounded and out of action. Leonard had sustained three separate wounds in the fight, but remained at his gun and was credited with destroying at least two enemy squads. Each time he killed the Red gunners manning the weapons, others would crawl up to take their places. This was repeated seven times before the enemy ran out of troops to man the gun.

On Charlie Company's left flank-the terrain lowest in relation to the LZ-SSgt Bill Cooley had instructed his men to don their gas masks. The contact with the enemy was so close and fierce that it appeared they might overrun the Marine lines. Cooley drove them off by ordering his riflemen to toss tear gas grenades and to maintain a smothering volume of fire.