operation report information
for MAG-16
For date 660718
MAG-16 was a US Marine Corps unit
Primary service involved, US Marine Corps
Operation HASTINGS
Quang Tri Province, I Corps, South Vietnam
Location, Helicopter Valley
Description: About 1430, the second Marine battalion was about the leave LZ Crow when the NVA attacked. The NVA successed in getting into the LZ when just the Marine rear guard remained. About 20 were killed by napalm while trying to get ammo from the three downed helicopters and about 40 more were killed in the LZ itself. By 1900, the two battalions had returned to help their rear guard extract itself and their wounded; but they had to leave their dead at this time. The combined force moved about 1,700 meters northeast and set up an NDP. The Marines lost 14 KIA and 49 WIA but the NVA had 138 known KIAs in this action. CPT Modrzejewski and SSG John J. McGinty received the Medal of Honor for their actions in Helicopter Valley during these three days. That evening UH-34s evacuated 29 seriously wounded and one battalion commander praised the work of the helicopter pilots, who "on a pitch-black night descended into an unlighted gorge, talked in by their exhaust glow, to have a flare popped when they were only a few feet off the landing zone."
The source for this information was USMC H 1966, P 171
Additional information is available on CD-ROM.
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Date posted on this site:
05/13/2023