On the night of 29 February, the 9th Regiment of the Division launched 3 attacks on the eastern perimeter of the Combat Base, but were beaten back each time by US firepower. These attacks marked the closest use of B-52 bombers to the Combat Base perimeter with base commander Colonel David E. Lownds reporting, "this was the only time that the kids on the lines told me…that they actually saw bodies being thrown into the air." The diary of one PAVN soldier killed in the battle reflected that while moving southward under the pressure of U.S. air power to replace casualties in the Division, 300 men had deserted rather than face the feared B-52. The Division’s official history acknowledges that one of its battalions was so devastated by a B-52 strike that subsequent desertions and self-inflicted wounds to avoid combat caused the PAVN leadership to doubt that the battalion would be of any further use at Khe Sanh. By March the 304th was reported to have withdrawn into North Vietnam to re-equip.