Hamburger Hill researching the Battle of Hamburger Hill. Irvin, an English-born filmmaker, worked on several documentaries in Vietnam in 1969. Vincent Canby of "The New York Times" called "Hamburger Hill" a "well-made Vietnam War film that narrows its attention to the men of a single platoon in a specific operation." In differentiating the film from "Platoon", he noted the film "refuses to put its characters and events into any larger frame. It could have been made a week after the conclusion of the operation it recalls, which is both its strength and weakness, depending on how you look at it." Hal Hinson
Battle of Hamburger Hill actual strength and dispositions of PAVN units. The area was extremely remote and difficult to access. Aerial surveillance was difficult. U.S. battalion commanders had to generate their own tactical intelligence by combat patrols, capturing equipment, installations, documents, and occasionally prisoners of war to provide the raw data from which to draw their assessment of the PAVN order of battle and dispositions. It was this time-consuming and hit-or-miss task force which characterized the main efforts of Colonel Honeycutt's 3/187th Infantry during the first four days of the operation. Initially, the operation went routinely for the 101st Airborne Division (Airmobile). Its units