The operation was named for a man who died because he was caught behind enemy lines — a young soldier, hanged as a spy, whose last words have been debated ever since. Whether the name was chosen deliberately for its resonance, no one has recorded. What is clear is that the eleven days of fighting in Phú Yên Province's Trung Luong Valley in June 1966 were among the most costly of the Central Highlands campaign that year, and that the men on both sides who fought there paid a price that the operation reports rendered in numbers.
In mid-June 1966, U.S. intelligence identified a significant People's Army of Vietnam force in the Trung Luong Valley, west of Tuy An District in Phú Yên Province. The unit was the 18B Regiment, recently arrived to reinforce the Viet Cong 5th Division. On 18 June, an enemy force attacked a Civilian Irregular Defense Group company at Dong Tre Special Forces Camp, raising the possibility that the PAVN intended to overrun the camp entirely. Major General Stanley R. Larsen, commanding U.S. forces in the region, ordered a response. Companies A and C of the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, were helicopter-landed in the valley on 19 June and began sweeping the area with artillery support from the 2nd Battalion, 320th Artillery. They found the PAVN in no mood to retreat.
The operation's worst single day came quickly. On 20 June, as Company A of the 2/327th approached the hamlet of Trung Luong 2, it was hit by automatic weapons and mortar fire so concentrated that every officer except the company commander was wounded. The PAVN then charged — close-quarters combat, the kind where artillery and air support are as dangerous to the defenders as to the attackers. Company A fell back to its previous position. Company C, simultaneously engaged by a PAVN force on Hill 258, also withdrew. When Company B was landed in a hot landing zone northwest of Hill 258 that afternoon to relieve the pressure, it lost two soldiers on the landing itself and was soon pinned down. By nightfall the battalion had lost 14 soldiers killed, and only sustained artillery fire kept three separate companies from being overrun. Fourteen men. In a single day.
MGen Larsen turned the operation over to Colonel Hal Moore, commander of the 3rd Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division — the same officer who had led the battalion at Ia Drang the previous November. Moore brought in the 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment from Kon Tum, flying them to Dong Tre and then into the valley overnight, positioning them 600 meters north of Hill 258 by 10 p.m. An additional artillery battery set up a new firebase two kilometers south of the existing one. When the 1/8 Cavalry assaulted Hill 258 on the morning of 21 June, they found it empty — the PAVN had slipped away in the night. The assault on Trung Luong 2 that same morning was harder: six more soldiers died in fighting that made slow progress before the attack was broken off.
At 5:40 a.m. on 22 June, the PAVN struck a position called Eagle — where Company B of the 1/8 Cavalry and Company C of the 2/327th had consolidated — with mortars and machine gun fire, then launched a company-sized infantry assault on the west perimeter. The PAVN force broke through the perimeter and became intermixed with the U.S. defenders, which meant that neither artillery nor air support could be used without hitting friendly soldiers. The fight lasted more than three hours. When the PAVN finally withdrew at around 9 a.m., 96 bodies were found along the west perimeter. A prisoner confirmed that his unit, the 2nd Company, 7th Battalion of the 18B Regiment, had been annihilated. Another 19 dead PAVN soldiers were found around the perimeter's edges. The U.S. dead from the night's fighting numbered 12.
Operation Nathan Hale officially concluded on 30 June 1966, after the 1st Brigade joined on 26 June and four battalions swept the valley making only sporadic contact with the remnants of the PAVN force. Total PAVN losses were recorded as 450 killed, with an estimated 300 additional killed — a number that, like most such figures from the Vietnam War, carries the uncertainty built into battlefield accounting. The 18B Regiment's 7th Battalion was considered combat-ineffective, its 2nd Company destroyed. U.S. and allied commanders considered the operation a success: the threat to Dong Tre Special Forces Camp had been eliminated, and the regiment meant to threaten it had been severely degraded. What the operation reports do not record is the valley itself — the farmers who lived in Trung Luong 2, the hamlet that absorbed weeks of fighting, and what they found when the soldiers on both sides were gone.
Operation Nathan Hale was fought in the Trung Luong Valley, centered on approximately 13.17°N, 109.17°E in Phú Yên Province, Vietnam. The valley lies west of the coastal plain, bounded by the rugged terrain of the Central Highlands. Hill 258 — one of the key terrain features of the operation — is a prominent ridgeline in the valley interior. Recommended viewing altitude is 5,000–8,000 ft AGL to resolve the valley geography and surrounding ridgelines. The nearest airport is Tuy Hoa (TBB / VVTH), approximately 30 km to the east on the coast. The Đà Rằng River valley and its rice-growing plain are visible to the east; the terrain rises sharply to the west toward the highlands. Afternoon cloud development is typical across this region.