Although the composite two-platoon unit of Marines from F/2/7 and E/2/5 had partially won Vegas back in 10 hours of savage fighting on 27 March, after earlier groundwork by D/2/5, it was a precarious hold. Marines had attained the lower slopes but the Chinese still clung to the northern crest. As it turned out, three separate company-sized assaults were going to be needed to dislodge the enemy. The initial Marine action on the 28th began at 0335 when 105mm and 155mm howitzers of the 1st, 2d, and 4th Battalions, 11th Marines, belched forth their streams of fire at the pocket of enemy troops on the northern slopes preparatory to the forthcoming Marine infantry assault. This 2,326-round pounding was aimed at Chinese assembly areas and weapon emplacements, with much of the preparation zeroed in on active mortars. Within a half hour the weary men of F/2/7, who had spent a wakeful night in the lower Vegas trenches, moved to within hand grenade range of the objective in their first attempt to gain the summit. An intense shower of small arms and mortar fire, however, forced them to pull back to the south slopes. While Captain Estey’s troops reorganized for the next assault, air strikes joined the big guns, mortars, and tanks in battering the enemy’s position on the outpost and supply routes thereto. Shortly after sunup, a lone AU from VMA-213, followed a half hour later by a VMA-323 Corsair, arrived on station. They laid a smoke screen three miles across the front between Arrowhead and the far eastern Marine-U.S. Army boundary to assist four early-morning air strikes. Soon afterwards, eight ADs from Lieutenant Colonel John E. Hughes’ VMA-121 were in the skies to support the Vegas attack in the opening round of aerial activity that would see day-long bombing and strafing runs by five 1st MAW squadrons. A new Marine assault at 0600 was repulsed and Company F pulled back to a defilade position 375 yards south of Vegas and regrouped. Again friendly planes from VMA-121 and -323, tanks, artillery, and mortars plastered the enemy in a new series of preparatory fires, beginning at 0920; and again Captain Estey’s F/2/7 men jumped off in attack. By 1015 the Marines had made their way across the height to within 15 yards of the trench line on the left finger of Vegas. There they came under continuous small arms and grenade bursts from the crest and battled the Chinese in an intense 22-minute fire fight.