Because of the weight and speed of the attack, the enemy was never able to recover. Moving behind a wall of steel, the battalion clawed its way through the defenses between the two hills and prepared for the final push. Major Caulfield, who had worried about the Marines' weakened condition the night before, soon found the opposite was true--he was having trouble holding them back. At one point, a group of NVA soldiers who had been hammered senseless by the prep fires, broke from their positions and fled into the open. An airborne spotter directed the companies to hold up while he called in air and artillery. Scanning the front lines, Major Caulfield noticed that a handful of Marines with fixed bayonets were in hot pursuit of the enemy. The major contacted the company commander by radio and told him to collar his troops. The reply was, "Sir, I can't stop them...." Neither could the enemy.(217) The men of 3/26 stormed the hill, swarmed over the crest, and killed anyone who stood in their way. At 1428, the objective was secured and the men signaled their victory in traditional Marine Corps fashion, as Colonel Meyers later described: On Sunday, 14 April (Easter), I helicoptered to 881S and with Captain Bill Dabney, Company Commander of I/3/26, personally watched the U. S. Colors (which had been fortuitously carried in a squad leader's pack) hoisted again over 881N. This was the signal (visual) that Lieutenant Colonel John Studt's assault had been completed. I watched the jungle utility-clad Marine "shinny-up" a shrapnel torn tree whose limbs had been sheared from the intensive prep fires, and affix the Stars and Stripes.(218) With the enemy either dead or gone, the hill again lost its value. Terrain wasn't so important in the fluid Vietnam war, but people were and, in that respect, Lieutenant Colonel Studt's men had completed a very successful operation--106 North Vietnamese were dead. In addition to the enemy dead on the objective, air strikes and artillery fire had completely blanketed three large groups of NVA fleeing from the hill but because of the dense vegetation and the approaching darkness, no bodies were recovered. Two slightly shot-up North Vietnamese, one of them an officer, were captured and flown back to Khe Sanh in Colonel Meyers' helicopter. Considering the strength of the enemy defenses, Marine casualties were surprisingly light--6 killed and 19 medevaced. Lieutenant Colonel Studt stated: "... stand off plastering with supporting arms ... prior to each assault was the key factor here."(219)