The sappers had broken contact by the time the brigade commander, Col Hathaway, had his command helicopter land at Mary Ann. Wounded men were being evacuated steadily by this time, and helicopter gunships were making firing runs on targets outside the base's wire. Hathaway's reaction to what he saw on the ground was later described by Capt Spilberg as if " had just walked into Auschwitz." Hathaway was just the first of a number of higher-ranking officers to fly into Mary Ann. The division commander, Maj. Gen. James L. Baldwin, arrived shortly after 07:00 to assess the damage. By 09:00 the battalion executive officer arrived to take over from Lt Col Doyle, and at 11:00 Company D was lifted in to replace Company C as the FSB's garrison element. The North Vietnamese took the base under fire with a 12.7mm machine gun at about 16:00 that afternoon, wounding one American and reminding Mary Ann's garrison that they were still under observation.