Finally, shortly after dawn about 0530, following closely its artillery final preparation fires, the battalion attacked with three companies abreast and the command group and one company in reserve close behind. Surging forward through an eerie and barren landscape of charred limbless trees and huge bomb craters, the Marine battalion rolled up the enemy's defenses on the southern slope of the hill. Colonel Meyers, who watched the attack with Captain Dabney from 881 South, remarked on the effective use of the supporting 106mm recoilless rifle fire. As the Marine lead elements approached a tree line in their "uphill assault . . . the 106's [on Hill 881 South] literally blew the tree line away."136 Finally, with the crest of Hill 881 North before it, the battalion called for a massive artillery firing mission. When over 2,000 rounds of artillery fire had fallen on the objective, Company K attacked along the right flank. Captain Paul L. Snead's men rushed through the smoking debris of the NVA defenses, rooting out the defenders from the ruins of bunkers and trenches. At 1428, Company K marked Hill 881 North as friendly territory by raising a U.S. flag which a squad leader had brought along. The 3d Battalion lost 6 dead and 21 wounded. The Marines took two prisoners from the 8th Battalion, 29th Regiment, 325th NVA Division and killed over 100 of the North Vietnamese troops. With the enemy driven from the hill, at least for the time being, the Marines began withdrawing to Hill 881 South, their mission accomplished. According to Colonel Meyers, the Marine Corps Schools at Quantico, Virginia, later used the assault on Hill 881 North "as a classic example of a Marine battalion in the attack."137

The attack on Hill 881 North was the last battle of Operation Pegasus. At 0800, 15 April, the 3d Marine Division once again assumed responsibility for the Khe Sanh Combat Base and Operation Pegasus gave way to Operation Scotland II. The 1st Air Cavalry Division transferred its command post to Camp Evans, but left its 2d Brigade under the control of the 3d Marine Division. The 1st Marines, to this point still operating along Route 9 just west of Ca Lu, moved to Khe Sanh to assume responsibility for defense of the combat base from the 26th Marines. Lieutenant Colonel Studt recalled that his 3d Battalion, on 15 April, "was shuttled out of the 881 area by choppers... first to Khe Sanh than to Quang Tri [Airfield]." Even as the Marines boarded their helicopters out of the Khe Sanh sector. Company K came under enemy mortar fire. As the helicopters landed at the Quang Tri Airstrip, the 3d Marine Division band, playing the Marine Corps Hymn, was there to greet the troops. According to the band master, ... it was the most inspiring performance of his career:

chopper after chopper disgorging filth covered Marines in tattered and torn utilities, some with bandages, many carrying NVA souvenirs, but the expressions on their faces as soon as they perceived the strains of the Hymn was what moved him.

With a sense of irony. Captain Dabney many years later observed that the attacks on Hill 881 North marked the beginning and the end to the siege.138

In Operation Pegasus, allied forces accomplished their mission of reopening Route 9 between Ca Lu and Khe Sanh at a cost of 92 Americans dead and 667 wounded, and 51 ARVN killed. The North Vietnamese lost over 1,100 killed and 13 captured. Ill MAF units found supply caches estimated as "exceeding the basic load for an NVA division," including 3,000 tons of rice, over 200 crew-served weapons, 12,000 rounds of large caliber ammunition, 5 wheeled vehicles, and a tank.

A cloud of controversy has surrounded the story of Khe Sanh in the years since the battle. Some of the unsettled issues remain: l. the reasons for defending the base in the first place; 2. the importance of the roles played by the various supporting arms (particularly B-52s, as opposed to tactical aircraft and artillery); 3. the failure of the 26th Marines to reinforce Lang Vei; 4. speculation why the North Vietnamese made no attempt to cut the source of the water supply for the base, pumped from a stream north of the Khe Sanh perimeter and in the area controlled by NVA troops; 5. and finally whether Khe Sanh was an attempted replay of Dien Bien Phu or a diversion for Tet.*

*Both Lieutenant General Krulak, the former CGFMFPac, and Colonel Frederic S. Knight, the 3d Marine Division G-2 or staff intelligence officer, remarked on the failure of the North Vietnamese to cut the water supply. In his book. General Krulak argued that the fact that the North Vietnamese did not do so is an indication that the enemy may have "had no intention of undertaking an all-out assault on the base." LtGen Victor H. Krulak, First to Fight, An Inside View of the U.S. Marine Corps (Naval Institute Press: Annapolis, Md., 1984), p. 218. Colonel Knight called this failure the most "puzzling aspect of the siege. . . . They literally could have cut off our water," He observed that the airlifting of the water would have "added an enormous logistical burden." Col Frederic S. Knight, Comments on draft, dtd 10Feb95 (Vietnam Comment File). In his comments, Colonel Steen observed that "when the hose was cut by artillery fragments or the pump was down, we were out of water and on our knees." He observed that as it was the Marines rationed their water until they left in April and "personal sanitation was at a minimum." Steen Comments. Navy Captain Bernard D. Cole also commented on the failure of the NVA to interrupt the water and as well remarked that they made no attempt to cut the land line telephone connection from Khe Sanh to MACV. Cole Comments.