The VC were able to pick off one South Vietnamese paratrooper after another, some as they descended and others when their parachutes became stuck in the trees. Those paratroopers who reached the ground and survived tried to move forward, but the VC soldiers in defilade position fired on the paratroopers exposed in the open rice paddies. Undeterred, the ARVN 8th Airborne Battalion launched small-unit attacks, but on each occasion they were repelled, and sporadic fighting continued until sundown. By the end of the day, the airborne battalion had lost 19 soldiers killed in action and another 33 wounded. American advisers Captain Fletcher Ware and Sergeant Russell Kopti, who had parachuted in with the South Vietnamese, were also wounded. As night fell, Hoang knew that South Vietnamese forces were closing in from three directions. The eastern flank remained open, and he ordered both elements of the 261st and 514th Battalions, exhausted and low on ammunition, to assemble at the south end of Ap Tan Thoi. They evacuated through the rice fields, taking their dead and wounded comrades.