 To avoid fighting a long battle, the commander of the 2nd Battalion decided to pull back, and made preparations for a frontal assault on the next day.On the morning of 17 October, two rifle companies of the 2nd Battalion returned to the bunker system they had found the previous day, but they were defeated by the VC 271st Regiment which had set up an ambush in anticipation of the American attack.In the first half of 1967, United States military forces in Vietnam had inflicted losses on the VC, both in terms of infrastructure and manpower, through major ground operations such as Cedar Falls, Junction City and Manhattan.