October 6-19, 1968

Arial shot of Song Vu Gia looking west. This shot was taken from a chopper window by Ed McCurry 

who is the webmaster for the Mike 3/5 site. Charlie Ridge rises to the right and what we called the An Hoa Mountains to the left {Arizona Territory}. Route 4 can be seen running along the north side. Beyond is Thurong Duc and in the opposite direction are hills 65, 37, and 55 along route 4. Operation Maui Peak was intended to relieve the Special Forces Camp and airstrip at Thurong Duc which had been surrounded and attacked by 2 NVA regiments on 28 Sept. The original plan was for 2/5 to march from Hill 65 and secure Route 4 as far as Hill 52. This occurred on 1 Oct. Over the next 4 days artillery from 3/11 and Army 175's from the 4th Batt. 8th Field Artillery were moved to Hills 52 and 65. 3/7 was moved to secure Route 4 between these hills and support 2/5. On 6 Oct. 2/5 began to push west along Route 4 and immediately became heavily engaged with the NVA 1st Batt. 141st Regiment. At 10:30 helicopters carrying 3/5 attempted to land at LZ Sparrow 4 Km south of Thurong Duc.  Heavy antiaircraft fire forced the landing to be aborted. At 11;00 2/7 and two ARVN Battalions landed unopposed at LZVulture and LZ Hawk 7 Km northwest of Thurong Duc. Then at 17:40, 3/5 was successfully inserted into LZ Kiwi south of the Song Vu Gia overlooking the valley. On 7 Oct. both 3/5 and 2/7 began moving to occupy prominent terrain overlooking Thurong Duc while 2/5 continued to meet heavy resistence along Route 4. At that point another attempt was made to land Marines at LZ Sparrow. This time it was 1/1 which had been assigned to the operation. Once again overwhelming fire forced the landing at LZ Sparrow to be called off. As far as can be determined, this is the only part of the operation that 1/1 participated in and they returned to An Hoa Combat Base.  3/5 did not secure LZ Sparrow until 14 Oct. the same day 2/7 entered the SFC at Thurong Duc. The operation ended officially on 19 Oct.

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