The Mang Yang pass on Highway 19 from Pleiku to An Khe has a storied past. The deep cut in the mountains provided great ambush sites for the VietMinh against the French in the 1950s. The French suffered a major setback here in which about a 1000 men were killed. The Groupement Mobile 100 (2000 men) encountered the 803rd VietMinh Regiment at the PK 15 road marker. In 1969, their graves were still visible from Highway 19 - we could not see them on this trip. The French buried their dead in the Pass upright and facing the west - France. They do have a flair for the dramatic. Troops convoying through the pass for the first time always found this to be a daunting experience.
The US closely watched and protected the Pass with strong-points and air superiority which prevented any major losses. Camp Radcliff at An Khe was created by the 1st Cav. Their shoulder patch insignia was painted on the side of Hong Cong Mountain. Incidentally, we owned the top of the mountain and the base camp. As I left in 1969, we still received sniper fire form the side of the mountain that hid many tunnels for the VC to use against the troops. It was from this base camp that Lt. Col Harold Moore (retired Lt. General) and his 1st Battalion of the 7th Cav fought the bloodiest battle of the US war west of Pleiku near the Chu Pong massif in the Ia Drang Valley November 1965. The story was recounted in Moore's book with Joe Galloway - We Were Soldiers Once and Young. Mel Gibson played Moore in the 2002 version of the movie. Here is quote from Moore's book on the French battle that proved rather prophetic:
"Shortly after we arrived in Vietnam, Sergeant Major Plumley and I took a jeep and a shotgun guard and drove ten miles west of An Khe on Route 19, into no-man's-land, to the PK 15 marker post. There, the VietMinh had destroyed most of French Group Mobile 100 in a deadly ambush 11 years earlier. We walked the battleground, where a bullet-pocked 6-foot-high stone obelisk declares in French and Vietnamese: `Here on June 24, 1954, soldiers of France and Vietnam died for their countries.'...Plumley and I walked the battleground for two hours. Bone fragments, parts of weapons and vehicles, web gear and shell fragments and casings still littered the ground. From that visit I took away one lesson: Death is the price you pay for underestimating this tenacious enemy."
Camp Radcliff was later controlled by the 173rd Airborne after the 1st Cav moved south and then the 4th Infantry Division prior to US troops departing Vietnam. The Vietnamese Army now uses this same base for military operations. Unlike the US that showcases its military installations, the Vietnamese do not allow people near the camps nor allow pictures for security purposes.
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