Battle of Hill 488 Battle of Hill 488 The Battle of Hill 488 was a military engagement of the Vietnam War that took place on the night of 15–16 June 1966. A small United States Marine Corps (USMC) reconnaissance platoon inflicted large casualties on regular People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN) and Viet Cong (VC) fighters before withdrawing with only a few dead. In June 1966, the 1st Marine Division began expanding its Tactical Area of Responsibility north into Quảng Tín Province (today part of Quảng Nam Province). In order to interdict enemy fighters between Tam Kỳ and the Hiệp Đức District, Brigadier General William
Rudolf Hamburger route which involved a combination of buses and trains, but both Patra and Hamburger believed that this was unacceptably dangerous because of the war. The alternative route, approximately three times as long, involved travelling by ship to Hong Kong, from where it would be possible to take a flight to Chongqing, Chiang Kai-shek's wartime capital between 1937 and 1946. Hamburger intended then to follow a land route from Chongqing Xi'an. Although he had a large amount of luggage to take, Patra still insisted that Hamburger should travel with a radio transmitter-receiver so that they might stay in touch. The device