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First Contact at the Battle of Hamburger Hill
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First Lieutenant Frank Boccia's 1st Platoon, D Company, 3rd Battalion, 187th Infantry Regiment of the 101st Airborne Division is the first unit to make contact with the enemy during the Battle of Hamburger Hill. Boccia recalled the first attack by the NVA in his memoir of the Vietnam War in The Crouching Beast: A United States Army Lieutenant's Account of the Battle for Hamburger Hill, May 1969. Follow The War Office Podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, or The War Office Podcast YouTube Channel.
Categories:Military History
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Transcript
Auto-generated transcript. Not time-synced to the video.
B company moves only a very short
distance past the headquarters.
As Lieutenant Frank Botcher, commander
of first platoon, later recalls that
suddenly, "Blam, blam, blam, blam. I
dove for the ground, one hand holding my
rifle, the other pressing my helmet down
on my head.
The intense enemy fire continued.
The initial explosions were followed by
a light splatter of AK-47 fire, and then
after a second or two, the steady
thumping of a DP machine gun.
The fire was coming from the low hill to
our front.
Two A-1 Skyraiders bomb and strafe the
mountain above B company.
The airstrikes conclude as darkness sets
in and the attack is postponed until the
morning.