Two days later, at the camp at Soui Da, a radio message was received from
Talley reporting that the team had walked into a Viet Cong battallion of
300-400 and that Captain Ledbetter had been wounded. He requested air
support and evacuation. He was unable to give an exact location.

Immediate help was sent, but was unable to locate the area of the battle.
Later that day, a company and a half were ready to leave on a search when 26
survivors, mostly wounded, began to come in, giving a grim description of
what had occurred. Captain Ledbetter, although shot in the leg, stabbed and
hit in the head, was last seen crawling away after the company was entirely
overrun. Some of the survivors reported that they had hidden in the brush
pretending to be dead and observed the Viet Cong burying bodies and lying in
wait for the search parties they knew would come. Some said that they had
seen Talley and Ledbetter being carried away by the Viet Cong.