morning of 2 January, VC scouts around the hamlets of Ap Bac and Ap Tan Thoi reported hearing the sounds of truck and boat engines, so Hoang issued an alert order which prompted his troops to pick up their weapons and hurry to their foxholes. Most of the women, children, and older men in both hamlets fled and hid in the nearby swamps as soon as the order was issued. Thirty CH-21 Shawnee helicopters were needed to airlift the entire ARVN 1st Battalion, 11th Infantry Regiment, but only ten were available. As a result, Dam could only send one company at a time onto the battlefield. At around 07:00, the first wave of CH-21 helicopters offloaded the first South Vietnamese soldiers. These troops had to hold their positions until the rest of the battalions had arrived. Because of the delay in the arrival of the regular South Vietnamese army units, two Civil Guard battalions of Task Forces A and B—under the command of Dinh Tuong provincial chief Major Lam Quang Tho—were left to march against enemy positions by themselves. As planned, the first Civil Guard battalion of Task Force A started north towards Ap Bac. Hoang knew the Civil Guard battalions were approaching, so he instructed his company commander in Ap Bac to be ready, as they would fire the first shots of the battle. VC radio operators, using captured US communications equipment, followed the movements of the Civil Guards by monitoring the frequencies the government troops were using. When the leading Civil Guard battalion came within of the south end of Ap Bac, the VC opened fire from their foxholes and immediately killed the leading company's commander and wounded the task force commander. Task Force A's momentum was stopped when the soldiers of the leading Civil Guard battalion sought shelter in a dike, where they tried unsuccessfully to outflank the VC. During that time, artillery support was ineffective, as Civil Guard forward observers would not stand up to observe the fall of artillery rounds. Consequently, one artillery round after another fell behind VC positions instead of on their foxholes. To make matters worse, Tho failed to send his second Civil Guard battalion of Task Force B to rescue the first. North of Ap Tan Thoi, three ARVN 11th Infantry Regiment companies fared no better. They marched south in three separate axes towards their objective. Again, well-concealed VC soldiers of