Combat· Vietnam War
Hill 881 South Battle
Hill 881 South was the bloodiest of the contested heights in the Khe Sanh Hill Fights, a steep, jungle-covered mass that the North Vietnamese had turned into a fortress of mutually supporting bunkers and fighting positions.
Marines assaulting the hill ran into a storm of fire from the concealed defenses, and the attack became a grinding, close-quarters struggle up the slope, the Marines reducing the enemy bunkers one at a time at heavy cost. The fighting for the hill was marked by repeated assaults, fierce hand-to-hand combat, and the difficulty of rooting out a deeply dug-in enemy from commanding terrain. The Marines eventually took the crest, securing one of the key heights dominating the Khe Sanh plateau. Hill 881 South became one of the names that defined the ferocity of the 1967 hill fighting, its capture essential to controlling the ground around the base.
Record no. 674