"Let Valor Not Fail" by Dan Nance, Battle of Hamburger
Hill, 1969.
Hamburger Hill was the scene of an intense and controversial
battle during the Vietnam War. Known to military planners as
Hill 937 (a reference to its height in meters), the solitary peak
is located in the dense jungles of the A Shau Valley of Vietnam,
about a mile from the border with Laos.
The Vietnamese referred to the hill as Dong Ap Bia (or Ap Bia
Mountain, “the mountain of the crouching beast”). Though the
hill had no real tactical significance, taking the hill was part of
Operation Apache Snow, a U.S. military sweep of the A Shau
Valley. The purpose of the operation was to cut off North
Vietnamese infiltration from Laos and enemy threats to the
cities of Hue and Da Nang.
